The Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has of course brought shame to the people of Illinois and USA. What is stunning is that he has blatantly indulged in corruption and fraud, arrogance running to the extent that he did not even pause to think that he is under the scanner of FBI. Day before the arrest, he told the media that he had sunlight over his head! Rod was doing all kinds of manipulations, but what is more embarrassing is the story that is he was planning to sell the Obama seat (senate seat vacated by Obama as he became President- elect of USA).
Indians make a good pesence in Chicago and obviously are an influential community. In the events that are unfolding now, a number of Indians have been quoted by Chicago Tribune- a leading newspaper of the area- who were colluding with US Representative Jesse Jackson to help him ‘buy’ the seat by doing fund raising for him. The Indian names quoted in the story are: Raghu Nayak, Harish Bhatt, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Jatinder Singh Bedi (editor of Indian Reporter).
A shame for we Indians. Note that these guys often find place in Indian circle because they are rich, they are inluential.
We Indians leave India to find greener pastures, but what we never leave is the crookedness, manipulative habits and of cours our immutable traits of caste-identification. We live in USA, but never refrain from identifying ourselves as Punjabis, Gujratis, Tamil, Bengali, Telugu, etc. We are no more in India, consider ourselves as progressives, but will join socities based upon caste and region. We are region- philic first, Indians last!
Link to this story in Chicago Tribune.
PS: In an unprecedented move, Attorney General of Illinois , Lisa Madigan has moved the Supreme Court of Illinois to strip off Governor from his responsibility. That is remarkable. In India, politicians of all hue and color will join hands together to serve their interests first!