By Syed Ali Mujtaba,
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal human character has come to fore on the silence of the killing of the Kannada writer, scholar and rationalist Dr MM Kalburgi (77), the Dadri beef incident, and blacking of the face of Sudheendra Kulkarni, a BJP luminary and LK Advani’s aid, in Mumbai. The tech savy PM who shouts loud from his back mouth through his twitter handle, chose to shut it up for a long time on these many issues of Indian concern.
He tried to break silence after a very long time expressing regret but that was too little and too late. Perhaps it was the fear of the backlash that may dent his popularity prompted him to do so and made him open his gob.
It seems to Modi, his Hindu identity is more important than his human identity. His tacit support to Hindutva zealots is explicitly clear in many cases. His seem to condone their blood thirsty activity and prefer to soft paddle them, when they are on prowl. He has done this during the Gujarat riots and is doing this again.
The question is raised do we need insensitive, inhuman Prime Minister who acts blind to the assaults being made on the very idea of being an Indian?
It seems a silent campaign is built in the country that is questioning Modi being a holy cow that needs not to be worshiped blindly. This campaign is led by the independent writers who are returning their awards in hordes feeling ashamed to see India going down the gutter with Hindu communal forces ruling the roost.
There are two narratives at work right now in India. One led by Narendra Modi who is talking about development, foreign investment and building global image of the country taking it to the Security Council with veto power. The other is the forces among the Hindu religious identity who are shaming India and have become the enemies of peace and development of the country.
The current government is vocal of the first idea but at the same time it is giving the impression that it is tacitly supporting the activities of the Hindu zealots. The two narratives appear to go hand in hand. The daily newspaper is the best place to have an account of them that they are running in tandem. It appears a huge effort is being made to make the twain to meet. The question remains how both these forces can coexist? How can development take place in a country when there is internal turmoil?
India has become a global shame with the recent chain of communal events in the country. First, killing of a rationalist, then lynching of a Muslim over beef eating controversy, and then blackening of the face of Sudheendra Kulkarni, playing host to a ex Pakistani Foreign Minister. Where all this will end up? Where our Prime Minister Mr Modi is taking our country? His hype of development that is built by the media remains in paper only and the ground reality is quite different.
How can India grow at 7.3 percent, when its agriculture sector is in peril? More than 50 percent of the Indians are directly associated with agriculture which contributes 15 percent to the economy. There is utter neglect by the current government of the farm sector. Cotton crop in Punjab is gone to dust due to whitefly and spurious pesticides. Farmers are committing suicide in Punjab. In Maharashtra it is Nana Patekar and Akshay Kumar, who are coming to the aid of the farmers and not the government.
Modi’s ‘make in India’ is a non starter, his skill development project is ridden with corruption, and his Swatch Bharat campaign is just a talk shop and has not found its feet. With two consecutive monsoon failures, the agriculture sector slowing down India’s growth rate, the diehard Modi followers are in a soul searching mission, asking, are they worshiping a “hawabazz.”
The captains of Indian industry who all along have been backing Modi for his out of box economic solutions are rethinking their stand. With external economic factors restricting the FDIs flow into the country, there is all probability that the 7.3 per cent growth rate is not going to hold ground and may slip still further down, in such case the “baniya” logic ruling roost, why to worship a false god who can give no money!
The writing on the wall is clear. The countrymen have to make some hard choices. Whether it may like to sacrifice their core values of the very idea that makes them an Indian? Whether they may like to sell the core Indian values for few crumbs of material gain and move ahead in the path of development.
Or whether they want pluralism and inclusive growth, even if it means having to live with the Hindu growth rate, till the country regains its inner strength. These are the battle of ideas that is embattling every Indian. It’s a mental game in which every sensitive Indian is engaged in right now. As choices for getting narrower, their resentment is growing louder that Modi is not a holy cow.
(Writer is a senior journalist based in Chennai can be contacted [email protected])