By Sushil Kutty
Protection of democracy and protection of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s standing have become the No.1 priority of India’s growth story, and not necessarily in that order. From the Vice President of India to the External Affairs Minister of India, everyone of any standing has been put on the job.
Of course, sycophancy must be in the curriculum vitae. Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces enemies galore, including foreigners, un-Indians and non-Indians. The ‘un-Indians’ are Indians but harbour ill-will for India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in particular.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is said to be a victim of “dumping of information”, which is nothing but another form of invasion. One that calls for immediate neutralization because India’s growth story, of which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the chief architect, is under attack.
The “doctored narratives” made concentric circles around Narendra Modi and gave sleepless nights to everybody in the Modi government. Linking India’s growth story to Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the essence of the ‘Save Modi’ campaign.
Vice President Jagdeep Dhankar and EAM Jaishankar are at the forefront. Both are spending time and expending energy in huge amounts to run down those who are allegedly running down democracy and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
DK Barooah coined ‘Indira is India, India is Indira’. None of Modi’s sycophants have the same imagination and skill. But conflating India with Modi and vice versa does not require rocket science. That being said, Modi was never before neck-deep in a swamp.
The Government of India is putting everything it has into neutralizing the anti-Modi information dumps. Modi’s enemies no longer hold the surprise advantage. The entire government machinery has been put to fight Modi’s enemies.
Talk has got around that the enemies of India, and of India’s democracy, are the same who have been slandering Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is different from ‘Indira is India…’, but essentially the same, the unspoken ‘Modi is India…’
Be it the BBC documentary ‘Modi The Question’, or ‘Hindenburg Research’s revelations’ about Adani that made people dump Adani shares in bloody haste, India’s democratic credentials and Modi’s reputation were both hurt, and are willy-nilly intertwined. Both have to be protected.
There cannot be a sacrificial lamb and a circling of wagons becomes mandatory. Modi has been truly slandered, and for reasons that are difficult to prove they were doctored. The question is should somebody, ever so high, be allowed remission for a crime just because he gets spoken of in the same breath as “democracy should be protected”?
Perhaps democracy will survive, and will live to fight another time, if action is taken against the one using the cloak of democracy to overstay his welcome. Does anybody have the impression that this democracy will not survive Narendra Modi? Is he indispensable for India’s growth story?
Deep down in their hearts and in their arteries through which free flows their blood, youth will soon begin to ask why an entire ecosystem has been geared to help one person escape the vagaries of his own mistakes? The person in question, why cannot he face the inquisition, even if it is an inquisition, so be it?
For how long will the villain of the piece hide in the folds of democracy’s skirt? To say that Hindenburg played dirty, and then a repeat of the same set of accusations by somebody else, where does belief turn to acceptance? In there, in the dumps of information, there must be elements of truth to unearth, right?
Has anybody in government denied any of the accusations made by Hindenburg or George Soros? The first one has been declared unethical and therefore unbelievable because ‘he’ short-sells; the second accusator dismissed because he is not only “old, rich and opinionated” but also “dangerous”.
Is that a fig leaf? Who is the guy dangerous for, and why? By the way does somebody being “dangerous” allow somebody else, who may not be altogether aboveboard, go scot-free? Whatever happened to logic and the pursuit of truth?
The story, as it stands, is that all of India’s might and all of India’s resources have been put on the block for the protection of one man accused of having overstepped his brief. Rightly speaking, there’s a taint on his fair name and he should do everything that he possibly can to clear his name and not leave it to the imagination of the electorate. That probably will be the panacea for a democracy hurt. (IPA Service)