pravalika nanda wrote:I wouldn't call her an empress, an impostor is more like it, or a wolf in sheep's clothes (sari). RG must have been a really scared diffident guy that the best he could do is ask her out.

And the xtians and muslims in india love her just cuz she's not hindu when  in fact they should have also asked themselves why their country is not being led by an indian but by a foreigner. but they didn't ask that question cuz they don't consider themselves indian in the first place, their loyalties are not with india. for a lot of these people who have gotten used to having an Italian leader in India having an Indian leader for India is probably too difficult to handle even though they themselves are genetically Indian. One lesson for the Indian Muslims and Indian Christians to learn is this: that if Indians the majority of whom are Hindu are willing to accept an Italian widow as their leader, they will accept an Indian Muslim or Indian Christian as a leader. So in these communities too there is a leadership vacuum and they should address that instead of shed a sagar full of tears about Modi becoming powerful.

Rishi wrote:Why can’t a billion Indians find one of their own, who will understand the complexity and subtlety of India, to govern themselves?  Not only that, but her very presence at the top has unleashed forces, visible and invisible that are detrimental to the country. There is nothing wrong in espousing the best of the values of the West — democracy, technological perfection, higher standards of living — but many of the institutions are crumbling in the West: two out of three marriages end in divorce, kids shoot each other, parents are not cared for in their old age, depression is rampant and Westerners are actually looking for answers elsewhere, in India notably.One does not understand this craze to Westernise India at all costs, while discarding its ancient values.
Sonia Gandhi should do well to remember that there still are 850 million Hindus in India, a billion worldwide and that whatever good inputs were brought by different invasions, it is the ancient values of spirituality behind Hinduism which have made India so special and which gives it today unique qualities making an Indian Christian different from an American Christian, or an Indian Muslim different from a Saudi Muslim. It is an insult to these tolerant Hindus to show United States President Barack Obama as his first input of the Indian capital the tomb of Humayun, a man who slaughtered Hindus in thousands, taking Hindu women and children as captives.
He even subjected his elder brother Kamran to brutal torture, gauging his eyes out and pouring lemon into them.The tragedy of India is that it was colonised for too long. And unlike China, it always looks to the West for a solution to its problems. Sonia Gandhi, whatever her qualities, is just an incarnation of that hangover, an empress of India in new clothes.


http://samvada.org/2010/articles/an-empress-of-india-in-new-clothes-john-maclithon/