Saturday, December 15, 2007

Modi should have humility - and let the people steal power:

http://www.indianexpress.com/story/250352._.html:
"The reference is to Modi’s brutal assault on power theft. His government filed 2.8 lakh cases for power theft, something he boasts about in his speeches. But do people really appreciate it?"

Shekhar Gupta plumbs a new depth in political reporting. Gupta may have used the words "wrong reasons", but the sub-text of this is - I hope Modi will lose. And since I cannot assign a good reason I will make one up - say personality cult - or - yes that's it - making people pay for electricity. That's right - vote out Modi because your electricity bill is too high! - Go get the bugger

QED: English Media's favorite chant in India - Repeat after me

"Bad Modi Bad, Bad Modi Bad, Bad Modi Bad, Bad Modi Bad, Bad Modi Bad, Bad Modi Bad, Bad Modi Bad, Bad Modi Bad, Bad Modi Bad, Bad Modi Bad...."

1 comment:

habc said...

Bad Modi Bad is too sophisticated for these people. Here is a better one
Modi Chi Chi, Modi Poo Poo.

Here is an awesome comment posted by someone on the ToiletPaper website - worh a read


The reason why English media has a problem with Modi is because they cater to the educated upper middle class of the society and the educated class is largely liberal in India. There is a rise of conservativeness in the nation and the educated liberal class is not used to this at all. Appeasement to the minority had become the centerpiece of Indian politics since 1947. People have a problem with Modo because he is indifferent to muslims and that he is a proud hindu. There is nothing wrong in one being proud of one's religion. As a matter of fact, this form of conservatism is a a common part of the politics in western democracy. For e.g. there is the conservative party in the UK and the Republicans in the US. And these parties are not called dictatorial parties. These parties just believe in defending their religious values, christian values in their case. Similarly, Modi likes to defend his hindu values.

Secondly, one has to realize that modern Indian society is a very communal society. Furthermore, Gujarat has been communal long before Modi took power. The religious communalism ideology may not be visible everyday, but when some instigating incident happens, it flares up immediately. So once the burning of 58 pilgrims in a train car in Ghodhra happened, it didn't matter who was in power, the riots were bound to happen. Modi, being a conservative ended up getting the blame. But even if Manmohan Singh were at the helm of Gujarat in 2002, the riots would still have happened.

Thirdly, for the people who believe that Modi is a mass murderer, I would like you that no court in India has proven any charges against Modi. I would like to remind you that our court system is in control of the Judges who are very much a part of the educated liberal class. So they would have loved to punish people like Modi, and therefore would have looked for any proof they can bring against him. But they did not have any proof of Modi's wrong doing. So they had no choice but to declare just that, that Modi's government is not directly responsible for the 2002 riots. Even after finding him not guilty, they were compelled to make statements against him that his govt is guilty of looking on while the riots were happening shows that how much the Indian courts wanted to punish him. But there is no proof of wrongdoing by Modi and his government so no he is not a ruthless dictator or a mass murderer.

Finally, the blame of inaction is also not completely justified. This is because he called in the military the very next day after the riots. 1000 troops of the Indian Military were flown in on March 1st, within 24 hours of the incident. If they wanted inaction, they could have waited days or even weeks before the military was sent in. So you see, Mr. Modi happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thus the argument that Mr. Modi has committed genocide is not justified. We have clear examples of genocide where a ruler or the state uses the state machinery to systematically kill a group of people with a common identity. Examples are Saddam Hussein's attacks against the Shittes in Dujail in 1982 and Sudan's attacks against its people in Darfur. Note, no such thing has happened in 2002 in Gujarat. Even the HRGs that were critical of Modi's government did NOT say that the police killed or massacared innocent people. They did NOT say that the police helped the rioters in killing innocent people. Thus Modi at best was caught in a wrong place at the wrong time and at worst is guilty of complacency. Furthermore, the sooner the liberal class of the Indian society get used to this new found conservativism, the better it is for the country because then, elections can be fought on real issues like each party's stand on the issues instead of it being fought on blames and charges that have no proof. And if this happens, it would truly be a new advancement in the creation of a better democracy in India.