SOROOR AHMED analyses the India Inc’s choice of Modi as next Prime Minister and concludes that it is part of a typical fascist propaganda to highlight the chief ministers of the BJP and NDA constituent-ruled states.
That Ambanis, Mittals and Tatas root for the fascists is no big news. On January 14 they only expressed it publicly. They are blind to reason and are masters of money-begets-money formula. They are from the tribe of Ramalinga Raju. The politicians, who allow them to do so, are the best for them. They go by the theory of industrial growth rate, not by the recent independent data which shockingly say that Gujarat is ranked only fifth in India so far hunger rate is concerned – only Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand are worse than it. These industrialists never realise that it is Gujarat – only after Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra – which witnessed maximum suicide deaths by farmers.
The irony is that the most anti-development chief minister of India has been pitched for the post of the Prime Minister of the country. The Modi-lovers try to fool the innocent people of the country by nonsensical data and statistics. If foreign investment is any yardstick of development then it needs to be mentioned that Narendra Modi has absolutely nothing to do with it. It started four centuries ago when the first representative of the East India Company landed up in Surat in Gujarat in 1612. Having the largest coastal belt in the country and that too on the west – the side which is much nearer to the economically active Middle East, Europe and east coast of USA – Gujarat is bound to be benefited by the advent of marine age to be followed by neighbouring Maharashtra.
It is a typical fascist propaganda to highlight the chief ministers of the BJP and NDA constituent-ruled states as the developmental-minded and not the others. Not only Modi but also Vasundhara Raje, Navin Patnaik, Nitish Kumar, Raman Singh, etc. are all developmental-minded in the eyes of our media and industrialists. Chandrababu Naidu became their darling in late 1990s only after he joined the NDA, though he had been in power since mid-1990s.
By their own yardstick Haryana’s growth rate is almost equal to that of Gujarat, yet no credit is given to its chief minister. Do the countrymen and women know who are the people responsible for the rapid development – yes by their own model of development – of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu in the last one decade though the BJP was nowhere in power. In Karnataka it came to power only last year.
Navin Patnaik is the hero of this class though they never realise that Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput (the KBK) districts witness massive malnutrition and starvation deaths. Gujarat was repeated in the state only recently – the only difference is that in the former case Muslims were at the receiving end and in the latter Christians.
Nitish Kumar is their champion in Bihar when all the data – no not the false media propaganda – says that the growth rate of Bihar was fastest in its post-independence history, 4.89 per cent, in the period between 1992-93 and 2003-2004. Just go through the Planning Commission data and you would get this figure. Bihar never witnessed starvation death or suicide by farmers a la in other states during the much maligned Lalu-Rabri Raj yet these industrialists were more concerned about the condition of roads in this state. This notwithstanding the fact that most of the roads in Bihar were in more deplorable condition than the National Highways, whose upkeep is the responsibility of the Centre.
In contrast the agriculture production in Nitish Kumar’s Bihar fell by a huge 24 per cent in the last financial year and thousands of people were swept away by the man-made flood in North Bihar last August. Early this week one person of the flood hit area died of penury. He is not the first to face this end. Bihar, it needs to be mentioned here, became food grains surplus state from food grains deficit during the same so-called dark era of 1990s.
Today not a single industry came to this state yet Nitish is the hero of the class. The truth is that the Sonalika Tractors and Gujarat Ambuja left this state for good in the last few months and none other but Shatrughan Sinha shifted his planned Film City outside the state as bureaucracy was putting hurdles.
Though Gujarat and Maharashtra were the main beneficiaries of the advent of the marine age yet there is no denying the fact that other states, which lacked this facility did much better than them. Because of the coastal area maximum number of Gujaratis migrated to foreign countries even before the invention of aeroplane. Gujaratis were among the first to develop entrepreneur culture in the 19th century and all the big multi-national companies be it Larsen or Toubro, Siemens, Wimco, Unilever, etc. first landed up in the then Bombay presidency – both Maharashtra and Gujarat were parts thereof.
So if the Gujarati traders are sending back money to their home state, which is giving fillip to its economy, or are investing there, it is not something new. Even Abdullah the trader, who took Gandhiji to South Africa was a Gujarati and so was the Father of the Nation. Incidentally the Father of the Nation of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, has almost the similar root.
If investment is the only yardstick of measuring the vision of any person then the less said the better – then the British should have continued to rule India till now as all the modern industries and investment in India came during their period. In fact proportion-wise and period-wise the investment was much more than what Modi has brought. If only industries are so important, go and bring the British back once again. They were at least in some sense better administrators than Modi and all these BJP people.
The captains of Indian industry must understand that the growth of industry is certainly not important for the country; what is important is whether these industries are growing for the people or for the outsiders or are playing Ramalinga Raju. Why don’t they talk about Gujarat’s failure in the agriculture sector?
However, the one positive fall-out of the Modi-for-PM campaign is that it came too soon after the open defiance by the former vice president, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. It has already given a big dent to the Advani-for-PM media campaign by the BJP. The second rank of BJP leadership seems more perturbed than Advani as they see their future dark.
However, the recent utterances by these industrialists have made open their real intention. They may reluctantly agree for Advani-for-PM in 2009 – on the ground that Modi should be put up as the candidate for the post of deputy Prime Minister – but in 2014 they will certainly like to see Modi as PM. It is another thing that neither Advani nor Modi may ever get that coveted post. The industrious poor people of the country have more wisdom than these white-collared money-minters.