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        Between De' Medici and Borgia, hangs the shattered body and soul of India today. When I review the two year sordidly sinister record of the UPA government in New Delhi, I cannot help recalling the treacherous times of Catherine de' Medici (1519-1589), Queen of France, daughter of Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino.

        She was married in 1533 to the duc d' Orléans, later King Henry II. Neglected during the reign of her husband and that of her eldest son, Francis II, in 1560 she became regent for her son Charles IX , who succeeded Francis. She remained Charles's adviser until his death in 1574.

The outbreak of the Wars of Religion in 1562, however, led her to an alliance with the Catholic party under François de Guise. After the defeat of the royal troops by the Huguenot leader Gaspard de Coligny, Catherine agreed in 1570 to the peace of St Germain. Subsequently Coligny gained considerable influence over Charles IX. Fearing the sudden loss of her own power and opposed to Coligny's schemes for expansion in the Low Countries which might lead to war with Spain, Catherine and Henri de Guise arranged for Coligny's assassination.         When the first attempt failed, she plannead the massacre of St Bartholomew's Day on 24 August 1572 in which Coligny and hundreds of other Protestants were murdered.         Today we have the analogy of the demon of pseudo-secularism which is the declared credo of the political criminals of the Congress, the Communists and other like- minded parties. What Catherine De' Medici did to the Protestants in France, the Congress party and the Communists are trying to do to the peace-loving Hindus of India today.         Likewise, the none-too-civil, bordering on politically criminal, dismal record of the UPA government in dealing with vital national matters bring to my mind the life and times of another political criminal in European history called Lucrezia Borgia (1480-1519).

Catherine de' Medici (1519-1589)

        Take for intance Goa, Bihar and Jharkhand, the genocide of innocent Hindus in Jammu and Kashmir, soft pedalling on Islam-sponsored terrorism in several parts of India, even in New Delhi. How can these leaders explain the indifference towards the wanton terrorist attacks by Muslims on Hindu temples and places of worship including the Sankat Mochan Temple in Varanasi?

        Firmly entrenched vested interests are being encouraged to make political capital on the issue relating to the release of the film Da Vinci Code, while nothing is being done to check Naxalite-sponsored terrorism in Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa, Chattisgarh and in the North-Eastern region. Efforts are on to communalise the armed forces, and to inaugurate an era of Quota Raj in order to perpetuate the evils of the caste system, by dividing Hindu society with politically criminal intent, romantic infatuation only for the Nehru family and supreme contempt for the myriad Hindu millions.

        Such are the pseudo-secular, anti-people and anti-social programmes and policies and initiatives of the Congress party in power in New Delhi The surrogate and surreptitious UPA Government under the dynastic stranglehold of an Italian woman is trying to treat the msss as impotent pawns in the dastardly chess of Indian politics, blessed by the Pope in Rome and aided and abetted by the pseudo-secular intelligentsia in India today.

        No single portrait captures Lucretia Borgia's contradictory nature more than an allegorical painting by Titian that hangs in the Borghese Gallery in Rome. Lucrezia was the daughter of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia and his mistress, Vannozza de Cattanei. By the age of eleven, she had been betrothed twice, but both times Rodrigo had rescinded the betrothals. After Rodrigo catapulted himself to the position of Pope Alexander VI, he married her off to Giovanni Sforza, thus establishing an alliance with that powerful Milanese family. The marriage was by PROXY, and for four months after her marriage, until the arrival of her new husband in Rome, Lucrezia lived in a handsome palace next to the Vatican with the Pope's new mistress, Guilia Farnese. Guilia's husband was conveniently away in the Pope's service. It was an environment of mutually understood and enjoyed SERVICE. The house was next to the Vatican palace, and Alexander could come and go, visiting his daughter and mistress unobserved.

A formal wedding ceremony was held shortly after Sforza's arrival, with 500 women attending the bride, led by the Pope's mistress.         Lucrezia served as her father's hostess at diplomatic receptions. She plotted with her father to get rid of her first husband Giovanni Sforza. He was forced to accept a divorce as he had no choice, and signed a confession of impotence and the documents of annulment before witnesses. She ruled and reigned like the Congress High Command or the Communist Politburo of today. So much for her husband number one. He was actually quite fortunate to escape with his life.         After getting rid of Giovanni Sforza, her father Alexander and brother Cesare were delighted with the prospect of arranging another profitable marriage for Lucrezia. This politically contrived second marriage was with the 17-year-old Prince of Aragon, Alfonso, in Naples, enabling Alexander to forge another unholy alliance with a second important kingdom. Alfonso was the Duke of Bisceglie, an important principality in Naples. Not long after, Alfonso, crossing St. Peter's Square, was set upon by a group of armed men, arranged by Alexander and his son Cesare. Alfonso was seriously wounded and brought into the Vatican apartments to be attended by his wife, Lucrezia. Later when he was recovering, Cesare ordered his principal henchman to strangle Alfonso. As Burchard reported, 'Since Don Alfonso refused to die of his wounds, he was strangled in his bed.' So much for husband number two. He was not as fortunate as the first.Lucrezia's third husband, planned and planted by her father and her brother, was the Prince and heir to the Duchy of Ferrarra in Italy. He was twenty-four, and a childless widower. Lucrezia was twenty-one at that time.

Lucretia Borgia (1480 - 1519)

                This third marriage took place in 1501. While she pleased her husband and had four children by him, she also carried on a romance with the poet Pietro Bembo. Whether it was a physical affair or a platonic romance is not clear, but it temporarily aroused the suspicions of her husband. After giving birth to her fifth child while in Ferrara, Lucrezia contracted puerperal fever, and died on June 24, 1519. She was just thirty-nine years old then.

        What is relevant to our national context today is that Lucrezia was accused of participating in the murders carried out by her father and brother, accused of incest with either her father or brother (or both), died a pious and respected consort of the Duke of Ferrara. Our politics of coalitions for collusion and collusion for coalitions is no different from the planned machinations of Pope Alexander VI and Lucrezia Borgia in early 16th century Italy.

        Such is the legacy of the Borgia family that established itself in one of Italy's most glorious periods, and that, in many ways, dominated the Renaissance with power and intrigue for fifty years. In a number of ways, it was a heritage whose influence on the Church and State was felt for 200 years. Unlike the mad Caligula, who killed in insane pleasure, or Nero and his predecessors, who killed for political gain, the Borgias killed not only for pleasure and political gain, but also for personal wealth. They were, indeed, the first crime family, a family unique to the annals of crime. Lucrezia Borgia: the very name has become a slur. It conjures up images of unspeakable corruption in female form. Her reputation for foulness has achieved mythic proportions. They were not bound together by blood ritual, but by genes. Don't we have a magnificent parallel in India today?

        The surrogate UPA Government has two sides to its spurious political coin of imbecility, impotence, indifference, insolence, inertia, irregularity, immorality and intimidation. On the one side I can only see the shadow of Catherine de Medici and on the other Lucrezia Borgia. The question today is: Why should Bharath Mata get caught between these two dastardly pincers with a helpless Prime Minister standing on the sidelines awaiting instructions from Heaven all the time?

        Edward Gibbon, a great historian, said that history is little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind. God is in the facts of history as truly as He is in the march of the seasons, the revolutions of the planets, or the architecture of the worlds. All history is but a romance unless it is studied as an example. No one can dispute that history is a voice forever sounding across the centuries the laws of right and wrong. Opinions may alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity. The UPA Government cannot imagine that it is exempt from the operation of this moral law.