An Open Letter to PM Modi

Dear Modi-ji,

I belong to your generation though I’m ten years younger than you. My memories about Nehru and other genuine Indian nationalists were shaped in more or less the same time-period as yours. Yet the memories differ tremendously: your villains like the Pundit and the Mahatma are my heroes. Do let me remind you of certain irrefutable facts.

India was indeed fortunate to have a learned statesman like Nehru as its first Prime Minister. It is he who gave us the Navratna industries like the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, Hindustan Machine Tools, Bharat Heavy Electicals, and so on. Who established the steel plants in Bhilai, Rourkela, Durgapur and Bokaro? Who ushered in the technological revolution in India? Can we ever forget the marvellous contributions of the Council for Scientific Research (CSIR) which had labs all over the county? Can you recall the beginnings of the Atomic Energy Commission and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre?  Who started the IITs in Delhi, Bombay, Kanpur, Kharagpur and Madras? And Delhi’s AIIMS where all the politicians still get free treatment while the common man has to wait for days to get a chance to meet a doc? Remember Nehru calling dams the temples of modern India? Yes, Modi-ji, Nehru gave us technology, education, modernity, secularism, broadmindedness and, above all, prosperity – quite a contrast to you.

In your speeches, which are undoubtedly eloquent and mesmerising, you denigrate Nehru again and again. The great man died more than half a century ago, having given his best to the nation. Yet you choose to belittle him day after day. This is quite a perversion, dear Prime Minister. In fact, you are becoming smaller and smaller by doing this. Nothing will happen to Nehru’s stature at least for people like me who know India’s real history.

I’m concerned about the country’s youth, however. You know very well that half of India’s present population are below the age of 25 and two-thirds are below 35. Their memories about the genuine Indian nationalists are not as clear as yours and mine. As time passes memories blur, especially collective memories. You know that and you use that effectively for conjuring up new memories, new histories for the country. It is easy to do that particularly because the youth today are more familiar with the depraved politicians that the country was ill-fated to have in the last few decades. The youth wanted change. You promised that change. You promised the stars. But, alas, you delivered little more than bombastic speeches.

You have spent crores of rupees on publicity and memory-creating statues. What else have you contributed to the nation?

Your Tughlaqian act of demonetisation ruined the country’s economy so much that you had to raise the price of petroleum products every single day. In fact you were plainly lucky that crude oil prices hit an all-time low when you came to power in 2014. Instead of passing on the benefits of that fall to the people of India, you had to burden them more and more, day after day, with burgeoning prices just to pull the nation up from the quagmire you threw it into by demonetisation and other acts such as false propaganda and fatuous publicity.

Much worse than that is what you did to the communal atmosphere in the country. You have divided the nation into two: your Bhakts versus the rest. As a result, the country has already witnessed much violence though your ministers keep fooling the nation by presenting false statistics in the Parliament.

During your tenure as PM, up to June this year, there have been 2920 communal incidents in which 389 people were killed and 8890 injured. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reported 2885 communal riots in the first two years of your reign as PM. If you include charges of “promoting enmity on ground of religion, race and place of birth,” the number in 2016 alone was an alarming 61,974. The same NCRB data show that the years under Dr Manmohan Singh’s rule were the most peaceful in independent India’s history!

You gave us a lot of hollow promises, dear Prime Minister. We have forgotten the Rs 15 lakh in each of our accounts; we understand that it was mere “electoral jumla” as your bosom friend and Party President explained recently. What about the 2 crore jobs per year that you promised? Another jumla? According to statistics, you managed to generate 18 lakh jobs so far (in place of 9 crore = 2 crore x 4.5 years). Most of these jobs you generated belong to what the International Labour Organisation classifies as vulnerable employment. It’s easy to create pakoda sellers, dear PM; creating a prosperous nation requires creative vision.

As many people have pointed out, your words and actions reveal the megalomaniac in you. You love yourself and only yourself. You wish to see yourself as a creator of great histories. Even the Patel statue you created is part of that game plan. You want history to remember you as the creator of the world’s tallest statue. Belittling Nehru belongs to the same game. If you can’t raise yourself to the stature of Nehru, belittle him and make him look smaller than you. But history will come haunting you sooner than later. It will teach you how big or small you really are.

Yours sincerely,

A genuine Indian