Skip to main content

Modi’s Dalit Parivar

Courtesy The Hindu

Narendra Modi, India’s possible future Prime Minister, was in Kerala yesterday.  According to a front page report in today’s Malayala Manorama (the widest circulated paper among all the regional languages in India – leaving out a Hindi paper), Modi proclaimed in Kerala that his family meant the Dalits, the oppressed, the Adivasis and the backward communities in India.  He didn’t mention Muslims, of course.  Please understand his constraints.

Vote for Modi so that all the backward communities in India will be liberated.

Don’t ask which backward community of Gujarat he liberated so far in spite of being the Chief Minister of that state for three consecutive terms.

He brought development to the state.  At what cost?  And what kind of development?

According to the Raghuram Rajan panel conclusions, Gujarat does not even figure in the list of developed states.  The hunger rates in Modi’s Gujarat are higher than those in the Yadavs’ UP.  The Shiv Sena’s Maharashtra is preferred by Amreeka for FDI.  There are more malnourished children in Modi’s Gujarat than in most states of India...  What has Modi done?  Except play politics for the sake of becoming the Prime Minister?  Rags to riches ambition?

I loved Modi’s joining hands with the failing politicians of Kerala.  Because it has made me understand Indian politics better.  Modi teaches me that politics is the best refuge for the most useless scoundrels on the earth.   

Modi spoke the most divisive politics in Kerala.  He made it appear the most uniting.  Such people can never  be trusted.  Should not be trusted.  They can change their stance at any time.  They can join hands with the businesspeople when that suits them.  They can join hands with the lowest castes when it suits them.  [The person raising hands with Modi on the left is Vellapally Natesan, a man who has been trying to promote caste politics of a different kind in Kerala, the same kind that Modi succeeded with against Muslims in Gujarat].
Modi and Natesan can be a good team.  Both belong to the same category by their roots. 


I love India with its infinite variety.  I hope Modi won’t be its Prime Minister. 


Top post on IndiBlogger.in, the community of Indian Bloggers


Comments

  1. Replies
    1. Shaleen, I don't know the answer. But I can give a hint
      http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-newdelhi/eminent-gandhians-extend-conditional-support-to-aap/article5672084.ece

      Delete
  2. Your hopes are are as good as done and dusted - not going to happen. I could, if I cared enough about a Marxist criticism of Modi, give a point by point rebuttal of your rant above. But the thing is that both Communism and its narrative have lost their relevance in the modern time. If stunts like these serve as the last ditch effort to prevent the inevitable, then I must extend my sympathies.

    As for your avowed support to the AAP, I hope you have read this excellently written piece:
    http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/national-interest-arvind-chitra-katha/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sid, your link leads to a review of Kejriwal's book, which I had reviewed myself. Read my review, 'A Utopian Dream', at
      http://matheikal.blogspot.in/2013/10/a-utopian-dream.html

      You are free to interpret my hopes in anywhichway you like. Your labelling it as "ranting" shows your own attitude of vulgar intolerance of differing views. I pity you for such straitjacketed ideas.

      I know the kind of politics going on in Kerala played by the very people with whom Modi shared platform in the picture given in this blog. I know the kind of divisiveness they are bringing to Kerala, a state which was famous for its religious tolerance.

      Delete
  3. The two responses above are from a Modi supporter and an AAP non-supporter. Both Modi and Arvind Kejriwal have their strengths and weaknesses. Their rhetoric (and the noise from supporters) is to get ordinary Indians to gloss over the latter. I hope, for India's sake, that never happens. It won't if ordinary Indians ACTIVELY ensure our public servants are on the job, attending to the many issues that have beleaguered our nation - especially corruption, collusion with the criminal elements of society and an utter disregard for the law from our politicians and the police.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, KM, for your mature response to the blog.

      The problem with people anywhere in the world is that religion sways them too easily. Modi plays with religious sentiments which is the most stupid thing that a public figure can do. Because religious sentiments inevitably create Leviathans. Modi has nothing to offer to India: neither development nor any profound vision or even a useful strategy for the country's progress. He is a good public speaker who can foment sentiments, nothing more.

      Delete
  4. If we discuss over Politics, then it's not going to end, and May take fierce route. We have different view points and our society is associated with Politics, in one or many forms.
    We have one support, that is vote.. Use it wisely..!

    I am looking forward for change this time, want someone who can at least speak something and made some decision on his own. Hence, I am going to support.. You know, about whom I am talking about.. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Definitely, Saurabh, we all must use our vote wisely to choose the leader we think is good for us. I too am strongly inclined towards a particular party now, a kind of inclination which I never felt toward any political party so far.

      Delete
  5. The colors of Indian Politics are too varied. The thing is-there is no alternative now. We r short of leaders- the only possibility is to settle down for a good administrator albeit wid dictatorial tendencies as leader. And as stated above, we need to use our vote wisely. We mst not elect a khichdi govt coz it destabilises & pulls our country back many decades. Unfortunately, there are alliances like U write above but then it's jst that- plain politics, plain games to acquire the gaddi. Once that is got, decisive changes are to be driven & policies r not supposed to be sat over for a decade.
    Route taken to capture the helm maybe bad, yet after coming to the helm, it is pure decision-making for development. Every politicial party hopes for a vote, yet we vote for a hope. That India will progress to her max potential.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. India's progress - that's what I too want, Amrita. It is not the progress of any particular section, but that of India as a nation. A strong nation without fissiparous tendencies... a nation which need not think of religion at all as a public affair or determining factor...

      Delete
  6. Very true...It simply reminds me of Orwell's Animal Farm. How true it was! What achievement and who will raise..... when all the hands are pretty filthy!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We have, in fact, created a kind of Animal Farm, Anupam. The basic ideologies have been forgotten and alliances of convenience are being forged.

      Delete
  7. Ambition is for politicians and traders. It is not for persons of Constructive Creative Vocations.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I don't think Modi is without faults but I believe we have to choose the best from the worst! It doesn't mean that it's the best option unconditionally.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. TINA factor, Pankti... Well, a group of my young students of class XI said the same thing yesterday while discussing politics after dinner. I told them that I would accept Modi only if he acknowledges his error and promises to look after the welfare of all communities in this country which has too much variety for a man like Modi to understand and appreciate. Majoritarianism is something that I won't ever accept.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Florentino’s Many Loves

Florentino Ariza has had 622 serious relationships (combo pack with sex) apart from numerous fleeting liaisons before he is able to embrace the only woman whom he loved with all his heart and soul. And that embrace happens “after a long and troubled love affair” that lasted 51 years, 9 months, and 4 days. Florentino is in his late 70s when he is able to behold, and hold as well, the very body of his beloved Fermina, who is just a few years younger than him. She now stands before him with her wrinkled shoulders, sagged breasts, and flabby skin that is as pale and cold as a frog’s. It is the culmination of a long, very long, wait as far as Florentino is concerned, the end of his passionate quest for his holy grail. “I’ve remained a virgin for you,” he says. All those 622 and more women whose details filled the 25 diaries that he kept writing with meticulous devotion have now vanished into thin air. They mean nothing now that he has reached where he longed to reach all his life. The

Country without a national language

India has no national language because the country has too many languages. Apart from the officially recognised 22 languages are the hundreds of regional languages and dialects. It would be preposterous to imagine one particular language as the national language in such a situation. That is why the visionary leaders of Independent India decided upon a three-language policy for most purposes: Hindi, English, and the local language. The other day two pranksters from the Hindi belt landed in Bengaluru airport wearing T-shirts declaring Hindi as the national language. They posted a picture on X and it evoked angry responses from a lot of Indians who don’t speak Hindi.  The worthiness of Hindi to be India’s national language was debated umpteen times and there is nothing new to add to all that verbiage. Yet it seems a reminder is in good place now for the likes of the above puerile young men. Language is a power-tool . One of the first things done by colonisers and conquerors is to

Diwali, Gifts, and Promises

Diwali gifts for me! This is the first time in my 52 years of existence that I received so many gifts in the name of Diwali.  In Kerala, where I was born and brought up, Diwali was not celebrated at all in those days, the days of my childhood.  Even now the festival is not celebrated in the villages of Kerala as I found out from my friends there.  It is celebrated in the cities (and some villages) where people from North Indian states live.  When I settled down in Delhi in 2001 Diwali was a shock to me.  I was sitting in the balcony of a relative of mine who resided in Sadiq Nagar.  I was amazed to see the fireworks that lit up the city sky and polluted the entire atmosphere in the city.  There was a medical store nearby from which I could buy Otrivin nasal drops to open up those little holes in my nose (which have been examined by many physicians and given up as, perhaps, a hopeless case) which were blocked because of the Diwali smoke.  The festivals of North India

Unromantic Men

Romance is a tenderness of the heart. That is disappearing even from the movies. Tenderness of heart is not a virtue anymore; it is a weakness. Who is an ideal man in today’s world? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas would be considered as fools in today’s world in which the wealthiest individuals appear on elite lists, ‘strong’ leaders are hailed as nationalist heroes, and success is equated with anything other than traditional virtues. The protagonist of Colleen McCullough’s 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds [which sold more than 33 million copies], is torn between his idealism and his natural weaknesses as a human being. Ralph de Bricassart is a young Catholic priest who is sent on a kind of punishment-appointment to a remote rural area of Australia where the Cleary family arrives from New Zealand in 1921 to take care of the enormous estate of Mary Carson who is Paddy Cleary’s own sister. Meggy Cleary is the only daughter of Paddy and Fiona who have eight so