I am sorry Mr Modi: By Vinay Mehta | I’m sorry, Narendra Modi that you live in a country where Leftists or secularists have for over half century gotten used to being in charge. Anyone refusing to toe their line or threatening to shake them off their privileged perches is hated with vengeance that you don’t seem to understand. Therefore, I’m sorry to inform you that no matter what good deeds you do, you will always be a villain for bigots and Leftists. Their visceral hatred for you will keep denying you credit for things where it is due, and will keep blaming you for other things in defiance of facts. For over 10 years now, Gujarat has been riot-free. Any honest review tells that the 2002 riots were a lot less of a blot on you as an individual (then only a fresh Chief Minister for four months) than projected. I’m sorry that no Leftist or secularist has the honesty to admit that your State which used to be a boiling cauldron of social unrest for over 40 years under its previously dominant political regime, which has now probably become the safest place for Muslims in the Subcontinent. Very recently, your party won a democratic election in an area where 90 per cent of the electorate was Muslim, but I’m happier to learn that the tickets to your winning candidates had been given not simply because of who they were (Muslims), but because they could win those seats and take the development agenda forward. However, I’m sorry to say that it won’t stop India’s Markandeya Katjus from projecting your rule as that of Nazism. After all, large fortune is at stake here that Leftists have enjoyed through corruption and misuse of political power for decades, and I’m sorry, if you don’t understand that such habits die hard. I’m sorry, if many folks in India are not aware of the history of positions filled by Markandeya Katju’s family in earlier days when Gandhi dynasty held even more sway than it does today. I actually do have many misgivings about your policies, including aspects of your development model. However, it must be conceded that your proven record is miles ahead of any other Indian Chief Minister today. When was the last time we saw a Chief Minister get re-elected for a third time on a campaign focussed exclusively on development, instead of pandering to sectarianism by promising selective reservations and other sops? I’m sorry that those irrevocably opposed to you will not tone down their hatred for you in the face of such realities. I’m sorry that in India, anyone who refuses to play along with the paradigm of Hindu bashing gets held to much more strict standards than others. For example, less than 10 days ago, at least 200 Hindu houses were burned down by a rioting mob in Naliakhali, West Bengal. It was a near-identical repeat of what happened to the unfortunate victims of Gulberg. The fact that it hardly made news is enough to show how their lives just don’t seem to count in comparison, in the paradigm you threaten to challenge today. I’m sorry to tell you that the Leftists or secularists who will explain it as a retaliation of one cleric’s unfortunate murder, are the same intellectuals who are unwilling to let the massacre of Godhra ever get counted as a factor in the 2002 Gujarat violence. Naliakhali is on its way to be forgotten much faster than Gujarat’s 2002 incident. There will hardly be any conferences or movies based on it, after all. I’m sorry that you have to go through the agni pareeksha of repeated judicial witch hunts, and juggle that while trying on focus on governance and development of your State. I’m also sorry to say that they like to selectively highlight victims based on convenience. Sectarian violence in Sindh just across the border in the last 10 years has claimed thousands of lives, and I’m sorry to say that it will never attract such an uproar from Leftists or secularists as Gujarat 2002 incident attracted. Likewise, the Leftist will hardly be bothered by the slow genocide from the pollution of the Yamuna river happening despite Shiela Dikshit and co-spending over Rs 4,400 crores in the name of it’s clean-up, and by the same yardstick will brush under the carpet your Government’s feat of cleaning up a good stretch of the Sabarmati and build a river front promenade (that also rendered the river stretch accessible to the public again) for less than 1/3rd that cost. If you were really a Nazi, 2002 would really have been a case of genocide, not riots victims in hundreds among both Hindus and Muslims. If you were really a Nazi, the 2008 Ahmedabad blasts would have caused similar unrest – but the commendable way you learned from experience and ensured society handled the provocation better, showed otherwise. If you were really a Nazi, you would not have made the statement that when the water of the Narmada reaches taps of homes that have for years seen water shortages, it does not see if it is a Hindu home or a Muslim home. If you were really a Nazi, then you would not have made this speech like you did on the national television the very next day after the Godhra incident. I am not at all surprised that multiple judicial witch-hunts have failed to find you guilty. However, I’m sorry to say that with your rising popularity, there is a solid chance that Katju-type elements connected to judiciary will still likely collude with an increasingly paranoid the Congress to put you in the dock ahead of the upcoming elections. See Modi, think ‘genocide’. See Modi, think maut ka saudagar – campaign to halt your electoral prospects will only increase in intensity. I’m sorry to say that it is a campaign that has not been ineffective and ironically issues like US visa are just a propaganda against you raked up by same Leftists as additional ‘proof’ of your guilt. I’m sorry that it is a lie, when repeated ad infinitude tend to get accepted as the truth.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 06:12:20 +0000
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