A dialog about Narendra Modi Ever since Shri. Narendra Modi has been in the limelight as the possible BJP choice for the Prime Minister of India (mainly after his celebrated SRCC speech), there has been a slew of discussions in the social media. Facebook pages dedicated to Narendra Modi, as well as those denouncing him for all kinds of heinous crimes against humanity have sprung up with furious proponents of both the views waging Facebook and Twitter wars. The Indian mainstream media (MSM) has mostly vilified Narendra Modi for over a decade and continues to do so with gusto even today. I have been an avid reader of such exchanges and have participated in a few as a committed Modi-supporter. What follows is a fictional account of a dialog/debate between me and a fictional anti-Modi person, I’ll call him Mr. Manish Shukla. I have combined most of the talking points used by various anti-Modi persons in my various interactions on the social media to equip my fictional Mr. Manish Shukla with all the possible arrows in his anti-Modi quiver. I have also used what little material I could find in defense of Narendra Modi on the net to equip myself with counter-arguments. (Special thanks to Ms. Madhu Kishwar, whose tour de force articles published as a series called Modinama helped in most of my counter-arguments) Before I dive into my purported debate with my fictitious Mr. Manish Shukla, I must take a few moments to delineate the kind of audience I wish to reach through my series of dialogs. I have studied the virulent anti-Modi brigade and their tactics, arguments and shibboleths closely and have reached the following observations: There are broadly two categories of Modi-haters viz. ‘Professional’ Modi-haters and, for want of a better term, ‘amateur’ Modi-haters. Professional Modi-haters can be divided into two sub-categories again. Politicians and non-politicians. How do I define a ‘professional’ Modi-hater ? Any person, organization or entity that stands to benefit monetarily by spewing venom against Modi is a ‘professional’ Modi-hater . It is obvious that the Congress or UPA politicians have a vested interest in denigrating Modi. There are hundreds of UPA MPs, hundreds of MLAs per state, hundreds of thousands of corporators and local body politicians (such as nagar sewaks, sarpanches and so on). If you have travelled to any town or city at any time of the year, you would see a surfeit of posters of varying sizes thoroughly spoiling the already dreadful urban landscape. These posters variously congratulate the local MLA’s or MPs or sundry other politicians for their birthdays or any other mundane ‘achievements’. These posters are erected by millions of hangers-on that pass off as ‘karyakartas’ or volunteers. Each and every person that belongs to this entourage of any UPA politician in this gigantic network of patronage has a ‘professional’ interest in denigrating Modi. The patronage ranges from pocket-money doled out during the election cycle by the UPA (that pays for the upkeep of these so-called volunteers) to the share of the loot of the public exchequer (in other words the scam and corruption scandal money) that gets passed on to even the lowliest of these hangers-on. When a Congress politician is involved in scams of hundreds or thousands of crores, he doesn’t get to keep all the money. He has to distribute a sizeable chunk of the money to these millions of hangers-on who stake their claim on a share of this loot by erecting his posters on his birthday. (To be fair, the NDA constituents also have a similar entourage of hangers-on and undoubtedly the share of public exchequer that the BJP-politicians manage to loot is also passed on to their thousands of ‘followers’. But the scale and magnitude of BJP corruption is minuscule compared to the Congress corruption over the last decade. If you do not agree to this fact then you need not read this piece any further; because no amount of logic or facts would dissuade you from the ivory tower that you have ensconced yourself into.) Hence, any UPA-associated politician or his lieutenants all the way down to the lowliest foot-soldier in this super-gigantic patronage machine has a vested interest in the defeat of Modi in particular and BJP in general. I am willing to venture an opinion that a sizeable minority of these patronage-receivers may internally be well-disposed towards Modi but their bread and butter is directly dependent on at least an outwardly bellicose stance towards Modi. I DO NOT wish to engage in a debate with any of these ‘professional’ politicians or wannabe politicians (in Hindi, they are called the ‘chamchas’ of the various ‘netas’). That is because opposing Modi militantly is a ‘rozi-roti’ issue for them. No amount of facts, logic or sane arguments is going to change the PAID opinion of these millions of UPA-supporters. Now let’s look at the professional Modi-haters that are not politicians. Who are they? They are the media people – the TV anchors, the ‘journalists’, the columnists, the editors, the bloggers and so on. There is a veritable army of these media people who are engaged in Modi-bashing on a daily basis. I submit that they too are ‘professional’ Modi-haters whose salaries, perks and livelihood are dependent on maintaining a constant, implacable opposition to Modi and anything and everything he represents. These people are ostensibly impartial but in reality they are the worst shills for their respective media owner’s personal agendas. The same poisonous patronage gravy train that compels the politicians’ chamchas to take up the cudgels on behalf of their masters compels these worthies to do the same but with a staggeringly disproportionate effect. Most of the prevailing vicious anti-Modi atmosphere found in the urban, educated, English-speaking conclaves can be attributed directly to the last 10+ years of relentless partisan propaganda war waged by these faux opinion-makers. I DO NOT wish to engage these worthies either in a reasoned debate about Modi. Again, this is because no amount of logic, facts and reasoned arguments will ever sway this set of people whose pocketbooks and lifestyles depend on prosecuting a virulent anti-Modi agenda. I wish to present my case to the rest of the Modi-haters whose livelihood doesn’t depend on irrationally or implacably remaining opposed to Modi. There are millions and millions of these people who have been constantly subjected to a barrage of the most despicably vicious, venomous and outright false propaganda by the ‘professional’ Modi-haters and unfortunately these millions of non-professional Modi-haters have swallowed it hook, line and sinker. As of today, the Manish Shuklas of this world are as implacably opposed to Narendra Modi as the people whose knavery in the media has caused this irrational hatred that Mr. Shukla holds against Narendra Modi. But there is a huge difference. For the ‘amateur’ Modi-haters (like Mr. Manish Shukla) it is not a matter of ‘rozi-roti’. Most of them are opposed to Modi because they genuinely believe most of the media-bilge that they have been fed. But if Mr. Manish Shukla, as a result of this reasoned, fact-based debate turns around and stops hating Modi, or, God Forbid, even becomes a Modi-supporter, he is not going to lose his job or find his income affected by this change of heart. Therein lies the basis of my attempt to hold a reasoned, logical and fact-based dialog with the Manish Shuklas of this world. Why am I doing this? Well, there are several reasons. First and foremost, after a careful research spanning several years, hundreds of articles, programs, opinions and similar debates, I have reached a conclusion that Mr. Narendra Modi represents the best possible alternative to the horrendous mis-governance and systematic and colossal loot of the nation’s wealth being done by the UPA. I will lay out my case against the Congress in a later piece. The second and more important reason is that I believe that the Manish Shuklas of the world are smart, educated and intelligent and above all, they are fair and balanced in their approach to making their political opinions. They may have been under the influence of 10+ years of relentless anti-Modi propaganda of the most sophisticated nature but the Manish Shuklas are also capable of indulging in a reasoned debate and a fair evaluation of the available evidence to judge Modi on the basis of a logical, factual and impartial standard without being clouded by opinions. Opinions are like ***holes – everybody has one. Even the Sagarikas and Barkhas and Rajdeeps of the world have opinions. What they do not have and abhor and fear are facts. I will base my case on facts rather than opinions. I know that it is more than a Herculean task. The airwaves and the newsprint have been clogged with mostly vituperation, unfounded allegations and outright lies against Modi for over 10 years – a truly poisonous propaganda machine that the Nazi propaganda maestro Joseph Goebbels would have been proud of. I would also be up against the cognitive dissonance of a large number of Manish Shuklas of the world. Cognitive dissonance is a psychological inability to discard or disown a dearly held notion or opinion even after it is proven wrong. But if through this exercise I am able to at least inform if not persuade even a few among the millions of ‘amateur’ Modi-haters then I would consider it a time well-spent. India is passing through one of the darkest periods in its history post-independence and most of the blame for this abjectly sordid state of the nation can be laid squarely at the feet of the current Congress dispensation. It is the duty of every well-wisher of India to participate in the upcoming ‘Mahabharat’ of elections in any way he/she can. This is my insignificant contribution to this endeavor. I am convinced that BJP in general and Narendra Modi in particular is on the side of Dharma in this epic battle. Only time will tell whether this election turns out to be the ‘kurukshetra’ of the corrupt Congress regime or it will be another round in the infamous game of dice that the Pandavas lost to the skullduggery of the ‘adharmic’ side.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 07:43:50 +0000
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