A rejoinder to the Anti Modi article in Economist Newspaper
I think the author used his colored spectacles and wrote that article. It was not only biased but very crude.The analysis was meant only to show Modi in a bad light.What is the ‘nasty past’ of Modi? Going through the article which is so prejudicial even I was unable to detect the ‘nasty past’ of Modi Let me assure the author that Modi is not a man of some people but a man of most of the people.
The author must be a sycophant from the court of the ‘prince’ and that explains why even the comparisons are so skewed. The caption that ‘despite receiving little schooling and not being of a high caste Mode rose…..This under the file picture on the same page says it all. So the author has exposed his bias.The very fact he has mentioned of schooling and caste bringing in the social yard sticks by which he has measured Modi. We have had great politicians who had hardly passed the 5th standard and yet they made good politicians. On the other hand we have an economist of a PM who has sent the country down the drain. We have Mrs Sonia Gandhi with not much schooling and still managed to reign as Empress of India and dictate to the economist PM-who through her NAC runs the country. How is Modi less schooled than Mrs Sonia Gandhi? Talking about caste what caste does Sonia and Rahul Gandhi belong to?
The author has demeaned himself by even commenting “At rallies Mr Modi, who looks like a barrel -chested cross between Father Christmas and a professional wrestler” What if one has to say that the Prime Minister looks like a fox and functions as a robot. Does it read well? Rahul Gandhi looks like he is lost in wonderland and needs to read Alice in Wonderland .I am just putting this to show how irrelevant these are to the main issue. Yes, Narendra Modi is the Prime ministerial candidate and that has sent the jitters down the spine of the Congress and its sycophants .The author does not see how the country has suffered from the Congress’ actions and inactions. How the people have become servile and pushed to a corner. How after 57 years of its ruling the country the nation is more backward than it was formerly. How starvation and pauperized the people are. How the corruption has shaken the very fabric of the government. Right from the top down to the bottom it is a corrupt government that we have.
Now comes the relevance of Modi-a strong no nonsense leader with strong leadership qualities is what the nation needs. How can any nation become strong when it is steeped in corruption? It is not as though corruption is in small areas.It is not only massive but wide spread. Every single neta is corrupt. But one cannot point a finger on this score against Modi. For example, Modi takes a salary of Rs 12553 and manages with three personal staff. While the average salary of a CM is 5 lakhs and a personal staff up to 22 people.
When it comes to Mrs Sonia Gandhi)In her last affidavit she had mentioned that she has an ancestral house in Italy –as the only immovable asset .She also mentioned that she borrowed money from her daughter. In the recent affidavit her net worth has been calculated to 2 billion, making her richer than Queen Elizabeth, the Sultan of Omar, the Prince of Monaco and the Sheikh of Kuwait(IE Dec3rd )This goes to prove the quantum of corruption and the mother head of it all. Everyone knows how Mrs Sonia Gandhi came to India and with what. What were her assets and what was her qualification. How has she acquired such wealth? Does she not owe the people of India an explanation? If Mrs. Sonia Gandhi has amassed such wealth what about others? Will she be able to accuse others? Will she be able to stem corruption? Can a dirty Hand clean the nation’s financial sheet? What if Modi has amassed even a fraction of the assets which today is attributed to Mrs Sonia Gandhi? How will the political parties and the media react?
We have a PM who abets corruption. There is complete paralysis of the government both at policy level and at the governance level. There is a dual power centre-I am sorry- there is only one power centre and that is an extra constitutional one that revolves round Mrs Sonia Gandhi-and the PM is just a puppet. It is from this background and this ‘inner circle’ that Rahul Gandhi comes out and is projected as the Prime Ministerial candidate.
He who never fails to talk of change must change first the very ascendancy of himself. Must start right at the top and not just talk of change. This is the backdrop in which Modi has to be seen and it must be understood that the people have got fed up of the Congress. The writing on the wall is clear.May be persons like the author and other sycophants are on denial mood that there is no anti-Congress wave. There is not only an anti Congress wave but also a pro Modi wave.And we have a powerful lobby trying to arrest his rise.This lobby certainly does not stand to gain and is not pro national. It wants the same old netas and the corrupt Congress to continue with of course some cosmetic changes.
The country has lost its vitality and is considered as a soft nation. The media is biased against Modi and hence harps on his ‘nasty past’ What is the nasty past may I ask? If the Congress which had imposed Emergency on this nation can continue, if the Congress party which had organized and engineered an Sikh pogrom in the after math of Mrs Gandhi’s assassination is being absolved why should the Gujarat riots of 2002 be held against Modi? It makes no difference if Amarya Sen thinks so…he is a sycophant of the Gandhis and his reasoning has no logic because he says that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul were not in the government while the Sikh pogrom took place in 1984 while Modi was the CM during the Gujarat riots. For one thing how does it absolve Mrs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul when the Congress party is the same and those who incited the people and led them to the Sikh shanties were all rewarded with ministerial berths, and when Rajiv Gandhi justified the pogrom. The same line -the same dynasty is ruling and wants to continue.This butchering of thousands of Sikhs is absolved but Modi is not-there is a difference between riots and pogrom.In the Gujarat riots Hindus were also killed.They may be fewer but this is not the first communal riot in Gujarat or in India and there has been riots in other parts of the country.Riots have been almost a feature of this nation because of the policies followed by the Congress and other political parties.So to hold the Gujarat riots as Modi’s ‘nasty past’ is absolutely off sync. And Rahul Gandhi goes on reminding the people what his father did and what his grandmother did and what his great grand father did etc..The legacy baggage also contain the tens of thousands of Sikh lives that were brutally butchered-the destruction of the houses,rape of Sikh girls arson and plunder.Legacy baggage cannot be sorted out at the discretion of Amartya Sen,and the Gandhis and the Congress party.
Modi has not divided the nation-Modi is not communal. It is the biased perception of the Congress and all other political parties-For example are the RJD, BSP, SP not communal? Yet has the Congress not allied with these? All the political parties thrive on communalizing the people on the basis of caste, region and religion. And to top it all the Congress’ appeasement policy is communal in its very inception, its operation and its goal. Why put the odium on Modi and call him communal and divisive?
It is a fact that Rahul Gandhi is not fit to lead the nation. He has a long way to go and must prove himself. Everything was given unto him. He did not earn anything through hard work. So one can only laugh when he talks of change. How did he become the Vice President of the Congress party? A democracy is not based on birth-a dynasty is a negation of democracy and reveals that we do not have true democracy. Simply because other netas follow the same pattern does not make democracy vibrant. It seems that the politicians all want to follow the dynasty route-this because it is the easy route to mint money, no accountability and no work load, no prescribed norms, easy life. A look at the assets of all our netas will reveal this-the enormous assets for the past five years-their life style substantiates this. And to cap all this there is no basic qualification called for!
To get back to the MODI –a man of some of the people…”the author has labored to show how his achievements are not flawless. For this he quotes Amartya Sen who says that the infant mortality rate of Gujarat is more then three times than of Kerala and the life expectancy ten years lower. I wonder why Amartya Sen picked up Kerala and did not compare these two indices with those of his own State West Bengal –or Orissa, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. One can juggle with statistics as Justice Sachar did in his famous survey.-this to suit one’s own hypothesis.
Coming to the recent scandal the author of the Economist has again played to the gallery:-regarding the accusation that Modi used intelligent officers to spy on a woman with whom ‘Modi was apparently besotted” is ample prove of the author’s prejudice and anti Modism. The article is not worth being published in the Indian Express. Finally I want to assert that there are writers who want the Congress dynasty to continue because it brings them gains. It is the vested interested of the media which assails Modi-especially the English media. The electronic media is no better. I wish and fervently hope that the media both print and electronic will play its unbiased positive role as the fourth estate and uphold itself as a pillar of true democracy and democratic values. [Courtesy: HK]
