SYED KAZIM analyses the lies, contradictions and Machiavellian strategies of the prime ministerial candidate of BJP, Mr. Narendra Modi and the role of media in furthering this Saffron cause or opposing it.
It was back in the summer of 2002 when I first heard of Narendra Modi (NaMo), who was labelled “Butcher of Gujarat”. He was also called the “Indian Hitler” after the Gujarat riots. After the passage of 11 years he is named the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP and thus he dreams of becoming the next Prime Minister of India. A prime ministerial candidate who is not granted visa to go to America because of his role in the horrific 2002 riots! A Prime Ministerial candidate who has not been having a Lokayukta in his State since 2003! A Prime Ministerial candidate who wants the Gujarat model in the country (which is being highly promoted by the BJP and the RSS)!
NaMo is also promoted by saying that it is time for “MODIfication” with the understanding that he will modify India the way he has modified Gujarat. A BJP spokesperson justified the number of Modi’s twitter followers by saying, “Modi’s development agenda which is being endorsed across the world and that has got the large following.” Teesta Setalvad (civil rights activist and journalist), in one of her talks in Goa, exposed the false propaganda of development in Gujarat by NaMo. Reports claim that Gujarat has the lowest Human Development Index (HDI) in the country and is ridden with enormous debts. Unlike NaMo’s claims, it is Maharashtra which attracted the highest FDI and not Gujarat. The per capita income of people in Gujarat is not the highest and it does not attract any investment in agriculture. Gujarat has remained 5 or 6 with respect to employment and Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu are in much better positions.
The farmers in Gujarat alleged that their fertile land was forcefully grabbed by BJP to give it to Tata Motors. NaMo has offered Tata Motors an eye-popping deal, an incentive of Rs. 9,570 crore soft loan over 20 years at 0.1 per cent interest rate. A deal which might have cost the state in excess of Rs. 30,000 crores for a mere Rs. 2000 crores. By any standard Rs. 30,000 crores of public money was drained out for a private project whose total worth is less than one-tenth of the money spent. On one end NaMo talks about the Gujarat pride and on the other he is playing havoc with the tax payer money.
NaMo has been projecting Gujarat model of development across the country, but the UNICEF has claimed that social development indicators have not been able to keep pace with economic development in the state with a population of 60 million. In an introduction to Gujarat on its official website, the UNICEF India has said, “Almost every second [a] child in Gujarat under the age of five years is undernourished and three out of four are anaemic. Infant and maternal mortality rates have reduced very slowly in the last decade.” That’s not all, NaMo granted funds to only Hindu pilgrimage sites and has not given any money for the development of pilgrimage centres of other religions. Although Gujarat is recognised as one of the most prosperous states in India, a lot needs to be done to improve socio-development indicators, claims the UNICEF website. Is this the development and secularism model we are looking forward in India?
In Gujarat, oil wells are distributed, coal mines are distributed, lands are distributed and corporate houses are favoured in every possible manner at the cost of the downtrodden. Oil wells were distributed to two companies, lands were distributed to the MPs and MLAs of Gujarat to build houses, after the land issue went to the court, even the judges were allegedly allotted lands. He has given land to Adani Group at Rs. 1 per square meter and demands more than Rs. 8000 from the Indian Air Force. Rs. 16,000 crores worth of scams have been reported by the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) in 2013 about Gujarat. The corruption in Gujarat is not in thousands or lakhs but in crores. Hope we understand that why Lokayukta does not exist in Gujarat? Is this the corruption model we want in India?
After being the Chief Minister of Gujarat for six years, NaMo was interviewed by Karan Thapar of CNN-IBN on the programme ‘Devil’s Advocate’. And the result was that he walked out of the interview and the interview did not last long. What can a person speak when he is countered with truth? When truth is heard against falsehood, falsehood perishes, whereas falsehood by its nature is bound to perish.
Soon after he was named the Prime Ministerial Candidate of BJP, many people and organisations have launched long term protests and campaigns against him. People have started websites namely, “pheku.in” and “fekuman.com”, which aim at exposing him and bring the truth before the public. Never ever in the Indian history any Prime Ministerial candidate has faced such huge criticism the way NaMo is facing.
Not only this, he is also trying his level best to control the media so that they don’t speak against him. Sagarika Ghose, Deputy Editor of CNN-IBN who anchors the prime time Face the Nation programme, received instructions from the management of Network 18, which owns the news channel, not to post disparaging tweets about NaMo, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, highly placed sources at the media and entertainment company told Scroll.in. Sagarika Ghose, and her colleague in Network 18, Nikhil Wagle, are the most recent examples of journalists who appear to be under pressure from the management because of their independent views about NaMo.
India Today Group and Aditya Birla Group conducted a programme in 2013 titled, “India Today Conclave 2013”, where all big shorts in the field of business took part and also praised him. This was all just a part of his public relations activity. After watching the show, one would say that all this was done to popularise NaMo at the national level. This programme also reflected the backing which he has from the corporate houses and the support which India Today is offering him. India Today also went on to rank NaMo as the most effective Chief Minister in the country.
NaMo’s image was damaged across the nation, especially after the 2002 riots. And in order to become a public figure, he had to do something. Thus he went on to hire ‘APCO Worldwide’, an independent communication constancy which is the second largest independently-owned PR firm in the United States. He hired them for his public relations exercise, to boost his image and to spread wrong facts about the state. Some sources allege he has given 300 million dollars to the PR agency.
Facebook is also utilised effectively to protest against him. People have started a page called, “I am Against Narendra Modi”. In one picture, people have compared the interview of NaMo and Karan Thapar with the interview which was taken by Anil Kapoor (Journalist) with Amrish Puri (Chief Minister of a State) in the movie Nayak. One is just a movie and another a reality but they are just the same. There is another picture which shows NaMo as a blood sucker, an animated picture where a dog is urinating in Modi’s mouth and I think nothing can get worse than this. On the other hand, people are crossing all boundaries to promote NaMo and that too in the most immodest and indecent manner. Recently, Bollywood actress Meghna Patel shows her support to Gujarat Chief Minister and BJP’s prime ministerial candidate NaMo by posing nude among lotus flowers, BJP’s party symbol.
NaMo has not left any stone unturned to fool the citizens of the country and now it’s twitter. According to an internet tool, Status People, launched by a group of engineers in London, NaMo’s account has 46 per cent fake and 41 per cent inactive users. The website through an algorithm measures false and inactive followers of a Twitter user. NaMo started using Twitter in 2009 and in 2010, had one lakh followers. About a year ago, in November 2011, he had four lakh followers. But his following on Twitter increased exponentially in the last few months. NaMo, who is often accused by Congress leaders of misleading people with numbers, has around 50 per cent of his Twitter followers as fake. Is this the PR model we are looking for?
NaMo has also not spared the education system of the state. The textbooks of Gujarat promote caste superiority and contempt for low castes. The exposures recently of some Gujarat textbooks were shocking, to say the least. A crow was likened with a Safai Kamgar i.e. with Dalits. Thus Dalits are presented as ugly. How can we ever cultivate humanism in our students? At every step the education system of Gujarat is stressing on discrimination on the basis of caste and creed. Is this the Gujarat model we are looking forward to?
Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) leader Yogendra Yadav has raised a series of questions for NaMo to answer on twitter. What is the exact relationship between Modi and Adani group? How has Adani become super rich in just 10 years? Why are the BJP and Modi silent on gas pricing scam by Congress? Why do the media not ask them questions about it? Where does money for NaMo campaign come from? Shouldn’t the BJP be transparent? What is the record of Modi government on farmers’ suicide, infant mortality, quality of schooling? Why does Babulal Bokharia continue in Modi’s cabinet despite being convicted? Can we trust Modi to end criminalisation? These questions still remain unanswered. I feel he is the biggest hypocrite the nation has ever witnessed.
After all this, he does not stop. To hide all his shortcomings, he goes ahead to build the Statue of Unity in the memory of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, which is going to be the tallest statue in the world. All this is done to deviate the attention of the media and the public and to trigger his national campaign to become the next PM. He goes to construct the statue of unity where he failed to establish unity among the people in the state, where he was the Chief Minister for more than 13 years. As he could not establish unity in the state, so he is compensating it by building the statue. The monumental project is estimated to cost more than Rs. 2,000 crore, and is expected to take 56 months. Gujarat is facing so many economic problems and he plans to spend crores for just one statue. What sort of logic is this? What sort of administration is this? What sort of leadership is this?
After seeing all this, one question strikes my mind, is it ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ or ‘Vibrating Gujarat’? They use a similar slogan ‘To build a Vibrant India’ to raise funds. Will these funds be raised to develop India or ‘Vibrate India’ for the next five years? BJP president Rajnath Singh compared NaMo with Lord Rama! Only he can say what the similarity is. If he feels that he is on the right path, why is he not ready for a television interview? Why does he not form Lokayukta in his state? Do you really want to vote him to power? You decide.