By AW Siddiqui
Modi government is using all the tools of propaganda combined with tactics of intimidation to implement its Hindutva agenda while country’s economy is "headed for the intensive care unit."
Once the world's fastest-growing economy is now sick. Arvind Subramanian, Modi’s former Chief Economic Advisor wrote recently about the state of Indian economy. He thinks its heading for intensive care unit under current regime, which is keeping the masses distracted with gimmicks like Ram-Mandir, Triple-Talaq and CAA/NRC.
Some think that it’s not just the arrogance and complacency of the regime- its their incompetence to govern that is pushing the nation towards chaos. You can't expect a bunch of insecure people to be able to manage a country like India, same way as you can't make a mule winning Melbourne cup - no matter what you do to make it look like Arabian horse.
The problem is not that India’s industrial output has suffered its worst fall in nearly a decade. It’s that the ruling party has created an ecosystem of mindless cheerleaders who ceaselessly obfuscate the grim truth about the government’s economic record.
There is a reason all the Indian Nobel laureates are criticising this regime. There is a reason why the regime calls these laureates 'anti-national'.
Following are excerpts of a column published in HAARETZ. And dear me, HAARETZ is an Israeli publication, a country of Modi’s “fraands”, advisor and mentor.
While “Narendra Modi government is broadcasting the message that all is well in India. It isn’t. The truth is that India, as a nation, is going through a great turmoil - economically, politically and socially. As the author and activist Arundhati Roy puts it, "an illness is upon us."
While “growth has slowed "to just 4.5 per cent, the worst for a long time," and that economic indicators, from goods and services, exports, imports and government revenue "are all close to negative territory."
“Non-performing assets amount to Rs 9.2 lakh crores, around $135 billion, the equivalent to 9.5 per cent of bank assets, "the highest ratio of any major economy in the world, by far." Unemployment is at a 46 year high, household consumption is at a four-decade low… about 30 million Indians have fallen below the official poverty line. Consumer food price inflation is nudging 8 percent” wrote Subramanian.
"demonetization," decimated the world’s fastest-growing economy, and brought it down to its knees. However, Modi boasts of saving the economy from disaster.
“It’s not just the Indian economy that is facing a crisis. India’s democracy is in peril, too.
Thriving on communal politics, Modi and his Home Affairs minister, Amit Shah, have turned the world’s largest democracy into an authoritarian state.”
“In reality, the current situation resembles an undeclared "Emergency" echoing the formal nationwide Emergency declared by former PM Indira Gandhi from 1975 to 1977.”
After their Bharatiya Janata Party's landslide victory in 2019, Modi and Amit Shah have pushed through - bulldozed - legislation in an authoritarian manner, suppressed dissenting voices with brutal state force, and locked up political opponents.
In Kashmir, for instance, after scrapping Article 370 which ensured a special constitutional status for the region, the Modi government arrested three former ministers, democratically elected members of Parliament who opposed the change in Kashmir's status, invoking "national security" as a reason to keep them in detention for months on end.
Also in the name of "national security," the Modi government imposed a colonial-era law, Section 144, suspended the internet, blocked all telephone lines and imposed a total communications blackout in Kashmir. For months on end, the people of Kashmir have had to endure a great deal of suffering – but there is almost no free flow of information to the outside world, and therefore no way of holding the Modi government accountable.
Unfortunately, the Modi-Shah duo have not extended their concerns about "national security" to those accused of terrorism – as long as they’re proponents of their Hindutva ideology.
Ironically, Modi, who repeatedly states that "terrorism is the biggest threat to humanity" in international forums, chose to prop up a Hindutva extremist accused of terrorism, Pragya Singh Thakur to become a Member of Parliament representing his Bharatiya Janata Party. Thakur is still on bail, charged with plotting a 2008 bomb blast… the first candidate ever for national elections to be a terrorism suspect, is an "Honourable Member of Parliament."
“The Modi-Shah duo are also systematically destroying institutions that are meant to ensure checks and balances on unrestrained executive power. Under the Modi government, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate have turned into weapons of mass harassment. In the recent past, business leaders have complained that "there is a climate of fear," economically, socially and politically. The judiciary, the press and other institutions are also under assault.
Hindutva groups, dedicated to a strident and exclusive Hindutva nationalism, have been energized and empowered by Modi and Shah in their efforts to socially engineer communal hatred. Their modus operandi - fake news. Modi’s propaganda machinery, the BJP’s "IT CELL," a euphemistic term for a fake news factory, routinely manufacture anti-Muslim bigotry and spread them through social media channels.”
“…corroding the country’s social fabric… In almost every election campaign, Modi has used anti-Muslim rhetoric, framing Muslim communities as "anti-national… in the last six years, India has witnessed an unprecedented increase in hate crimes against minorities, particularly Muslims. Hindutva extremists have lynched Muslims on one pretext or the other.” Mohammed Akhlaq, in 2015, was lynched on suspicion of possessing beef in his fridge.
“Far from chastising the perpetrators of the crime, a minister in Modi’s cabinet, Jayant Sinha… honored the convicts by presenting them with garlands, an attempt to legitimize and condone hate.”
“… with the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens… a third of the residents… are at risk of becoming stateless because they have been excluded from the register (in Assam)… The citizenship act clearly violates the fundamental principles of the Indian Constitution. Designed to discriminate against Muslims, it is a clear attempt at disenfranchising the country’s minorities.”
“As spontaneous country-wide protests erupted against the unconstitutional CAA, Modi, Shah and their cohort of ministers have mobilized their social media trolls and party cadres. They have unleashed an information war against protestors, calling them "jihadists," "urban naxals,"[Maoist terrorists] and "separatists." Government officials call all those who criticize Modi as "anti-national"… thus liable to censorship and serious charges of sedition and assisting terrorism.”
“Modi himself has tried to cast aspersions on protestors and tried to brand them as Muslim arsonists setting fire to India… he declared, "Those who perpetrate violence can be identified by their clothes." A minister of state in his government announced that protestors causing property damage should be "shot on sight."… a BJP legislator has warned Muslims: "If the majority takes to the streets, imagine what your situation will be. Don’t test the patience of the majority."
He went on to say: "Don’t forget Godhra." That is a reference to a 2002… deadly communal rioting in Gujarat against Muslims… in which thousands of Muslims were beaten up, raped and killed, and their property destroyed. The state's Chief Minister at the time was none other than Narendra Modi.
Modi’s supporters… openly incite violence. They are roaming India’s streets shouting: "Shoot the traitors."
“Hindutva extremist turned Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, has vowed to take "revenge" on protestors. The state police have seized on the tactic of confiscating Muslim-owned businesses to recoup the costs of damage to public property, randomly sealing nearly 70 Muslim-owned businesses so far, even though there is no law that justifies this purely punitive act.
“…22 people have died across India so far in state-sponsored violence, 13 of them on one day in Uttar Pradesh alone.”
“In their book, How Dictatorships Work, the political scientists Barbara Geddes, Joseph Wright, and Erica Frantz argue that, "In established democracies across the world, the slow but steady undermining of norms and institutions poses a greater threat than sudden coups." Today’s India, with Modi’s slow strangulation of secular liberal norms, as well as his sudden imposition of unconstitutional and nakedly communal legislation, seems to prove that both dynamics can happen together.
Within six years, Modi and Shah have managed to do what India's worst enemies couldn't: to set India at war with itself.”
Read the full column here: https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium-india-under-modi-is-becoming-a-brutal-authoritarian-state-1.8298750
*Opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of UMMnews.
