Seeing doom and gloom abound in a specific section of the populace on a day when any rational Indian, regardless of his/her political inclination should have been proud of the feat achieved by India’s formidable vaccination machinery across states (led by different parties) and under the overall leadership of the Modi led central government, was perplexing. This prompted me to conclude that, for many who do not hold a favorable view of the current dispensation at the center and the ideology it represents, the dislike of Modi and what he stands for exceeds the love for the motherland. For a diverse democratic polity like India, this is extremely unhealthy and extremely dangerous.
Things have come to such a pass that those opposed to Modi are actively demanding foreign meddling in India’s affairs to help them overthrow a regime that got an emphatic thumbs-up not once but twice at the electoral hustings. Be it a former cabinet Minister requesting our western neighbor to join forces with the opposition to affect a regime change in India or be it the former President of India’s largest opposition party suggesting the United States of America to meddle actively in India’s internal affairs the ominous trends are far too many to be dismissed as mere coincidences. Such tendencies are also percolating at the grassroots level where those opposed to the current ruling party and its ideology are not bothered by attempts to delegitimize any and every good thing to happen in India in the past few years- be it the surgical strikes, Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat campaign, indigenous vaccines and the list goes on.
In times of unprecedented crisis like the one presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, when it is of utmost necessity that the entire nation fights as one to overcome this gargantuan challenge, many of the above-listed groups have tried their level best to undermine India’s resistance to the pandemic. From fueling doubts about Indian-made vaccines to spreading false rumors about vaccine ingredients to the tragedy porn unleashed by broadcasting live visuals from cremation grounds, many of these ‘imminent intellectuals and trailblazers’, have been eager to see India and Indians signed by the full blaze of the pandemic, as (to their convoluted minds) it presents an opportunity to fuel disaffection against someone, they could not defeat electorally,
Before 2014, it was hard to find any other parallel to this treacherous behavior. Be it the 1962 War or 1971 War, the then opposition and its cadres, supporters, etc, stood shoulder to shoulder with the regime of the day as the nation came above (the ruling) dispensation. When Pakistan’s then-prime minister made harsh remarks against Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2013, Narendra Modi, who was then engaged in a no-holds-barred campaign against Singh, came out firmly in defense of the Indian PM. Even as opposition, the BJP, and its allies have always prioritized the prestige of constitutional posts, India’s dignity, and sovereignty, over the rigors of politics. In contrast, the only other time when the opposition and its lackeys stooped to unthinkable lows to undermine the nation’s larger interests to score political brownie points was in the era of the Vajpayee government, when the fake coffin scam was paraded in the middle of a war, India’s rightful assertion as a nuclear power incessantly criticized and the architect of the Pokhran nuclear tests, India’s foremost scientist Bharat Ratna A. P. J. Abdul Kalam dismissed as ‘bomb-daddy’. It can not be a mere coincidence that every time the citizens of India reject the same set of people, they resort to such unscrupulous means to oust the popularly elected government.
India as a nation has a history of being vanquished not by the superior skills of her opponents but by the workings of those within its boundaries, who, blinded by personal interests, did not think twice before selling out the interests of the nation at large. We have paid a high price in the past for such short-sighted actions, a thousand years of slavery. It is high time that the nation at large and those entrusted with running it at present wake up to the imminent dangers posed by such treacherous elements and take earnest action to put an end to the freedom to indulge in such activities before they put an end to India’s freedom.
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