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.
To be continued... Next Article: Dialog 1: Modi and the 2002 riots Part I
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