Our Prime Minister Narendra Modi has completed a year in office. I’m not here to analyse his achievements and failures. That the TV channels have been doing round-the-clock with panels of experts, some of whom are not even aware what Modi has done at micro-level. But these self-proclaimed experts are in a post-mortem mode, throwing volleys of questions on what PM hasn’t done or couldn’t do.
Then there are newspapers for our esteemed readers to give a view of Modi Government’s report card. Everyone wants the PM to perform ‘the best’ within a year, as if there is no tomorrow. They expect the PM to ‘do it now or never’. Up to some extent, their expectations are justified, because, over the last five years of the UPA-II regime, Indian public has witnessed corruption, scams, inflations, exorbitant price rise of commodities, uncertainty in the government, threat to internal security, poor governance, etc.
These factors translated into pro-BJP votes and the party got a landslide victory in the Lok Sabha election 2014. Resultantly, the expectation of the voters was high. To them—‘Modi is panacea for ills’. But, one needs to understand that the NDA government at the Centre under the leadership of Narendra Modi has to first undertake a cleansing process —cleansing of the existing system on which several ills thrived for decades.
As a common man, I have seen, faced and realised – it’s the easiest to criticise. It doesn’t need any extra effort, extra intelligence and money to criticise anyone you feel like. So,
criticise our PM and prove yourself an intellectual. It costs nothing. Millions are doing so. They want Modi
and his government to perform
instantaneously. But, Modi is not a magician, who’ll use his magic wand to make all bad things vanish overnight and fill the world with good things the next morning.
Aren’t our expectations from Modi a bit too high? Instead, let us look into the adversities Modi and his government have been facing since the day it came to power. Almost every alternative day, we get to read about frivolous issues, which have wrongly been attributed to Modi.
Switch on to your TV set and you find the TV anchor at the top of his voice questioning, “The nation wants to know why Mr Modi failed to do this? Or why the PM maintained silence on this issue?”
Now, what these issues are?
Let us consider a recent issue that suddenly made headlines. A private diamond export company in Mumbai denied job to one Zeeshan Khan, a Muslim MBA graduate saying, “We don’t give employment to Muslims.”
But, newspapers, news channels and self-appointed experts questioned Modi. Some went on to say that it was expected when Modi became the PM. Now, what Modi has to do with a private company’s appointment procedure? Was the youth denied employment by the government? No.
The issue caught media attention, because Khan had posted the matter on Facebook and all those busy bees on social media followed it with utmost sincerity and dedication. Is it for the first time that a person from a particular community has been denied employment on religious ground? There are hundreds of cases, when an organisation being run by a particular religious sect, denied job to a person from other community. I have seen myself that a Christian organisation sought applications from Christians only. There were two other private organisations, where they preferred only Sikhs and Muslims. It was not a preference. They meant it and selected only Sikh and Muslim candidates. What’s the big deal in that?
But, in the case of this Mumbai youth, a section of the media blamed Modi and tried to connect the case with Gujarat riots. Why they never questioned all those organisations run by Muslims or Christians, who deny jobs to non-Muslims or non-Christians? The attempt was to show that it was the Hindus who castigated Muslims, especially, when the BJP is at the Centre.
Then, there was an issue of imposing ban on beef and cow slaughter. Again, Modi was attacked and it was viewed as a ‘deep-rooted conspiracy of the Hindu right-wing’.
I’m neither a politician nor inclined to be so one day. As an ‘aam Hindustani’ – I may be a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian or a Sikh. I’ve a query. Can anyone go to a Muslim locality and set up a shop, selling pork? Just give it a try and get back. Probably, the person won’t get back as he may himself get slaughtered, because selling or consuming pork in Islam is ‘Haraam’. So, why expect Hindus to approve cow slaughter? For centuries, cow has been worshipped by the Hindus. So, in a land, where Hindus are in majority, a state can’t object to cow slaughter or selling beef? Any person, who has read History well (Medieval India), they must be aware that Mughal emperor Akbar imposed ban on cow slaughter. Was Akbar a right-wing activist?
I fail to understand what the PM has to do with this issue and why his name was dragged by the columnists and experts on TV channels? Simply, to grab eyeballs and increase channel’s TRP.
I remember a case that had occurred just a few years back in Mumbai, when Congress was both at the Centre and in Maharashtra. One night, a team of policemen barged into the flats of a complex belonging to Muslims. They took several male members into custody and women were insulted. There was no BJP, no RSS in the episode. Why it failed to make national headline on news channels or newspapers, like it happened in the case of Zeeshan Khan?
Whereas now, the critics of Modi painted a dark picture of his in their columns and mentioned “Modi doesn’t forgive or forget those who challenged him” or “Muslims would be singled out for persecution under Modi regime”, etc. Does democracy give a person the right to express anything evil, wrong and mala fide against his countrymen?
As a nameless, faceless Indian, who is hardly noticed in a public place as I don’t have a ‘personality tag’ behind me, it’s so difficult to reveal one’s past, especially if it’s a humble one. But, our PM had the guts to do so. He didn’t mince words to say that as a young boy, he was a tea vendor. Instantly, he became a ‘Chaiwallah PM’ and instead of appreciating his honesty, opponents took no time in taking a dig at him on his background. In fact, these elite, snob politicians, who have been dominating the Lutyens’ Delhi club for decades, wanted Modi to remain like a humble ‘chaiwallah’, even after becoming a prime minister. But, the moment he chose to wear a suit, he was instantly drubbed as ‘suited-booted PM’. Right from Jawaharlal Nehru to Manmohan Singh, every PM wore expensive suits, but why such a hullabaloo in the case of Modi?
When it was recommended that Bhagwad Gita would be taught in schools, there was much hue and cry by not just only Muslims and Christians, but also a large section of ‘pseudo-intellectual, secular’ Hindus – who strongly objected saying that “imposing of a Hindu religious scripture on non-Hindus would damage the secular fabric” of India. Do these people know that at the first place, Bhawad Gita is not a religious scripture; it’s a guide to a way of life? Second, apart from real life, in Hindi cinema, we’ve seen a witness is asked to take oath by the Bhagwad Gita. Isn’t it damaging India’s social fabric?
In this one year that Modi has been in power, he has been deemed the root cause for all these controversies and social evils.
Now, a vital question: Can PM Modi focus on his work, if there’s a constant bombardment of allegations, targeted criticism and needless debate on TV channels on PM?
Do we still need to analyse Modi’s report card?
The need is to analyse ourselves first. Do we have the right priority? Are we really prepared to bring change in our system?
The first and foremost need for all of us at present is to be a true Indian, rather than becoming a hypocrite and a pseudo-secular intellectual, and a defender of secular morality.
And, let the PM do his job.
(The opinion expressed in this column is solely that of the writer – Nameless Indian)
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