BABA RAMDEV THE HARBINGER OF A 

TOTAL NEW REVOLUTION IN THE

MAKING AND A BEACON LIGHT OF

HOPE TO THE MASSES OF INDIA

V.SUNDARAM I.A.S.

                                                         Baba Ramdev

Unflinching, unswerving, indomitable, inflexible and irrepressible --- to march into broader lands and better days for Bharatvarsha and her battered and shattered people.

The most corrupt, singularly unscrupulous and so far magnificently successful Firangi Memsahib Sonia Gandhi and her ever faltering and tottering UPA II Government has been shaken to it’s foundations by the announcement made by Yogrishi Baba Ramdev to go on a fast-unto-death at Ram Lila Grounds at New Delhi on 4^th June 2011 against unbridled graft and national corruption and untold black money stashed away in several foreign countries in bank accounts. Today, Baba Ramdev has rejected the appeal of Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to call off his fast. Several newspapers have reported it as follows.

1-June 2011. NEW DELHI: India's most popular, and powerful, yoga guru rejected an appeal by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday to call off a hunger strike against corruption, the second major challenge to a government losing its authority due to rampant graft.

The charismatic Swami Ramdev, who dons a saffron cloth, runs a $40 million-a-year global yoga and health empire and has millions of followers: some 30 million viewers tune into his daily yoga TV show.

These followers are expected to rally behind him as he begins on Saturday a "fast-to-the-death" in Delhi until the government agrees to pass a tough anti-corruption law and set up a task force for repatriating illegal funds held in foreign bank accounts by Indians.

"The prime minister has appealed that I should not go ahead with my fast but I will start my fast from June 4 to save our country," Ramdev told a yoga congregation in Madhya Pradesh.

"Over one crore people from across the nation will take part in our satyagraha in Delhi," Baba Ramdev said after having the first round of meeting with government emissaries in the capital.

Expressing satisfaction over the 'extensive discussion' he had with the team of four Union Cabinet Ministers and Union Cabinet Secretary, today (1-6-2011, Wednesday) Baba Ramdev said: “There were agreements on some issues. But until an agreement is reached on all issues, our fast will continue. Our demands include bringing back black money stashed away in tax havens, effective mechanism to stop wide-spread corruption, a public service delivery guarantee system and fast-track courts to deliver justice in time. Our motto is not to terrify the government. Neither are we against any individual or party.”

BABA RAMDEV FINALLY CONCLUDED THAT THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD DECLARE THE BLACK MONEY DEPOSITED ABROAD AS THE ‘NATIONAL PROPERTY’.

There is widespread public anger over the graft scams, which have also hurt foreign investment and helped delay a series of reforms aimed at opening up Asia's third-largest economy.

When Baba Ramdev reached New Delhi Airport today (1-6-2011, Wednesday) in the forenoon, four Union Cabinet Ministers Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, Parliamentary Affairs Minister P.K. Bansal and Tourism Minister Subodh Kant Sahay met Baba Ramdev along with top officials, including Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandresekhar and tried to persuade him to call of the fast scheduled on 4^th of June 2011. They failed in their mission to sabotage the Bharat Swabhiman Andolan of Yogrishi Baba Ramdev.

Recently I was amused to read a news item that our illegally elected, supremely corrupt and greatest national security risk, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram had directed the Delhi Police to refuse permission to Baba Ramdev to hold any dharna at the Ramlila grounds. This very Dravidian and anti-Hindu Minister had recently told Firangi Memsahib Sonia Gandhi and a team of police officers at a meeting at his residence in New Delhi: “All Hindu swamijis must be treated as saffron terrorists and put in prison in such a manner that they (like Sadhvi Prajya who is being kept under illegal detention in a high security prison by the ATS in Maharashtra) are never able to come out on bail for an indefinite period.”

Another cheap, petty, mean, vicious move made by the Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee against Baba Ramdev has also been brought to public light. This invertebrate Minister first dispatched the equally invertebrate Chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes Sudhir Chandra in order to intimidate Baba Ramdev. This process of intimidation began with the Income-Tax Department sleuths digging up Baba Ramdev’s old house in Narnaul in Haryana in search of imagined black money! They discovered nothing to the total horror of the Firangi Memsahib Sonia Gandhi (the greatest holder of black money in the world according to Dr Subramanian Swamy!) Later when Baba Ramdev’s scheduled fast got transformed into a national movement for liberty and liberation from the stranglehold of UPA II Government’s corruption, the shame-faced Union Finance Minister Mukherjee deputed the equally shame-faced Sudhir Chandra, Chairman of CBDT to meet Baba Ramdev and to apologise to the latter for the hasty action initiated by the Income Tax Department.

The final part of Sonia Congress UPA II Government drama was enacted at new Delhi Airport in the forenoon today, (1-6-2011, Wednesday) when four Union Cabinet Ministers Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, Parliamentary Affairs Minister P.K. Bansal and Tourism Minister Subodh Kant Sahay met Baba Ramdev and tried to persuade him to call of the fast scheduled on 4^th of June 2011. They failed in their farcical attempt to please their foreign supremo Firangi Memsahib Sonia Gandhi. The best tribute that I can pay to these creeping and crawling Ministerial invertebrates will be in the words of a great poet T.S Eliot (1888-1965)

“We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

Or rats' feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar.

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion.”

Meanwhile, hectic preparations - including the erection of a huge tent to accommodate 20,000 people - were in progress at the Ramlila grounds for Saturday's fast.

1 June 2011 (IANS) Pranab, Sibal meet Baba Ramdev at Delhi airport

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Yogrishi Baba Ramdev has categorically declared today, (1-6-2011, Wednesday) that he will go ahead with his hunger strike against corruption from June 4 despite the government's appeal asking him to reconsider his plan. He has stated: “My hunger strike will go ahead. There is no question of calling off the protest plan till my demands are met and till talks reach a satisfactory conclusion”.

Millions and Millions of people from Ladakh to Kanyakumari, from Rann of Kuchch to Arunachal Pradesh are rallying behind Yogrishi Baba Ramdev in his historic fast against corruption and black wealth in India. Over 32 lakh netizens are believed to have registered online for Baba Ramdev's anti-corruption campaign.

BJP PRESIDENT NITIN GADKARI WROTE TO THE PRIME MINISTER BACKING BABA RAMDEV AND SEEKING HIS PERSONAL INTERVENTION TO ACCEPT RAMDEV’S DEMANDS FOR URGENT STEPS TO RECOVER BLACK MONEY, PUNISH THE TAINTED AND PUT IN PLACE A STRICT ANTI-GRAFT LAW. GADKARI has stated as follows: “Now that the rock star of yoga has decided to take the fight against corruption to the next level by resorting to the extreme step of fast-unto-death from June 4 and that 10 crore people of this country will be joining him, the BJP’s can’t remain a silent spectator”.

Gadkari has rightly pointed out to the Prime Minister that mere creation of a Departmental Wing under the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to track and prosecute economic affairs was not going to solve the monumental problem. According to Gadkari, issuing appeals to the yoga guru to give up his plan is not going to defuse the crisis threatening the Government.

Gadkari has reminded the Prime Minister that in the run-up to the 2009 general election the issue of black money had occupied a significant portion of the political discourse and both the mainstream allies had promised to take action on the same, if voted to power. In this context, he has told the Prime Minister in his letter: “I would like to draw your attention to your promise of bringing back black money in 100 days after assuming power”.

I am in full agreement with Yogrishi Baba Ramdev’s assertion that black money lying in several international banks abroad are more than Rs 400 lakh crore. He is absolutely right when he says that a national public war has to be launched against the monsters of gargantuan corruption and black money stashed away in banks abroad. Government should initiate immediate measures to track this stolen national property and retrieve it so that this wealth could be used for funding development projects to initiate a new process of revolutionary socio economic development which will open out to our deprived teeming millions newer and better opportunities for a better, fuller and richer life.

In this context, I cannot help quoting the words (suitably readapted to suit today’s India) of Philip Freneau (1752-1832) a political writer, poet, and newspaper editor who composed in 1775 a compelling verse about the American predicament on the eve of the American War of Independence in his poem A Political Litany:

“Happy some land, which all for freedom gave,
Happier the men whom their own virtues save;
Thrice happy we who long attacks have stood,
And swam to Liberty thro' seas of blood;
The time shall come when foreigners rule no more,
Nor cruel corruption vex us all from Italy’s shore.”

There can be no doubt whatsoever that Yogrishi Baba Ramdev’s new Revolution has given birth to the most powerful force of post-Independent India --- the search for the total socio-economic freedom and fulfilment of every oppressed and suppressed human being in India. Thus it will be clear that all the covert and overt, open and subterranean, attempts made by Firangi Memsahib Sonia Gandhi and her henchmen in the UPA II Government to put out the spiritual light and shining glory and grandeur of Yogrishi Baba Ramdev’s Bharat Swabhiman Andolan have failed miserably.

Finally, I would like to pay my humble and reverential tribute to the Hindu Dharmaacharya Baba Ramdev by hailing him as THE HARBINGER OF A TOTAL NEW REVOLUTION IN THE MAKING AND AS A BEACON LIGHT OF HOPE TO THE SUFFERING MASSES OF INDIA.