Manufacturing fear bad for Indian’s prestige
It is unlikely that the clamour for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to denounce intolerance and hate crimes will end, but it should after Mr Modi's categorical remark at a Press conference in london on Thursday. Responding to a query, the Prime Minister said his Government rejected intolerance and that it was “committed” to the protection of “all citizens, their lives and thoughts”. In adding that every incident of intolerance was “serious”, Mr Modi also sought to scotch the allegation that his Government and party had adopted a callous attitude towards acts, at times violent, of intolerance, on the pretext that they were mere stray incidents in a huge country like India. His critics back home will of course say that the Prime Minister had failed to use similar strong words on Indian soil. That is not true because Mr Modi had strongly condemned incidents such as those in Dadri where a man was killed on suspicion that he had beef in his house. Senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party had demanded strict action by the Uttar Pradesh Government against the perpetrators of the crime. And, while it is true that certain loose cannons in the party have made objectionable remarks, it is equally a fact that not only did the party promptly reject those statements but also pulled up the errant leaders, with the party president even summoning a few of them for a dressing-down. But the issue is not so much that of effective condemnation but of an insidious design by sections of the intelligentsia to project India as a land of growing intolerance under the Modi dispensation. These sections have linked a few individual incidents across the country to present a frightening image of the country. They are less concerned about the harm they have been causing to the nation's prestige by their irresponsible conduct and more cued to the damage they can inflict on the Prime Minister, his party and his Government. It is not a coincidence that quite a few of these elements have been traditionally opposed to Mr Modi, with some even having signed a petition before the 2014 lok Sabha election opposing Mr Modi as the country's Prime Minister.
It is also a fact that many of the flag-bearers of tolerance have had political leanings or ideologies that are at variance with those of the ruling BJP. The Congress and the left have patronised them over the decades — and now was the payback time. The argument that the message and not the messengers' ideology is relevant, is shallow. This is because the message itself is a derivative of the ideology. Else, why was it that worse acts of intolerance in the past years when the Congress ruled the country had not moved these people into actionIJ The return of awards (including the prestigious Padma), the march to Rashtrapati Bhavan, the petitioning of the President, never happened earlier with such orchestration. Are we to believe that India had not seen hate crimes over the decades prior to Mr Modi assuming powerIJ Meanwhile, there must be something sickening in the mindset of those people who eagerly await events like a world leader raising the issue of ‘growing intolerance' in India with Mr Modi, and seeking to embarrass him. It is sickening because they anticipate the humiliation of their own country, not so much of the Prime Minister.