NEW DELHI: The Congress hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday accusing him of ruling the country by dividing it and used the Time magazine cover headline that says “India’s Divider in Chief”, followed by a secondary one that reads “Modi the Reformer”.
Congress’s chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the way the party had removed the British from the country, it would do the same with Modi. “Modiji’s definition – divide and rule. The Congress first freed the country of the British and will now remove Modi too,” Surjewala said in a tweet in Hindi, along with the cover of the Time magazine that also carried a picture of Modi. The TIME magazine has featured Modi on the cover of its international edition with a controversial headline and a secondary one that reads “Modi the Reformer” as the country enters the final phase of the mammoth general election.
The article titled “India’s Divider in Chief” is written by Aatish Taseer, son of Indian journalist Tavleen Singh and late Pakistani politician and businessman Salmaan Taseer. The article titled “Modi the Reformer” is written by Ian Bremmer, president and founder of the Eurasia Group, a global political risk research and consulting firm.
The cover depicts a portrait of 68-year-old Modi. The articles inside the magazine have the titles “Can the World’s Largest Democracy Endure Another Five Years of a Modi Government?”,
written by Taseer and “Modi Is India’s Best Hope for Economic Reform”, by Bremmer. Taseer’s article notes that “If in 2014 he (Modi) was able to exploit differences in order to create a climate of hope, in 2019 he is asking people to stave off their desperation by living for their differences alone. “Then he was a messiah, ushering in a future too bright to behold, one part Hindu renaissance, one part South Korea’s economic programme. Now he is merely a politician who has failed to deliver, seeking re-election. Whatever else might be said about the election, hope is off the menu,” he says.
In 2014, Modi converted cultural anger into economic promise. He spoke of jobs and development. Taking a swipe at the socialist state, he famously said, ‘Government has no business being in business’. That election, though it is hard to believe now, was an election of hope, the article says. “Not only has Modi’s economic miracle failed to materialize, he has also helped create an atmosphere of poisonous religious nationalism in India,” Taseer writes. Far from his promise of development for all, he has achieved a state in which Indians are increasingly obsessed with their differences, according to the article. (PTI)