Modi dominates the week again

Media Watch

India Today has dedicated almost the entire issue [dated 6 June 2022] to Mr Narendra Modi who is completing eight years in power at the Centre. It has outdone last week’s Open in singing Modi’s panegyrics. Modi has taken India a long way, according to the periodical, with an unmatched vision. He revoked Article 370, the Supreme Court issued the verdict in favour of the Ayodhya Temple, and the Citizenship Act was amended. Modi took the country forward by leaps and bounds in economy, home affairs, foreign affairs, roads and infrastructure, defence, industries, sports, and so on. Privatisation of Public Sector Units is seen by India Today as a “radical long-term goal that will fortify the metabolism of the Indian economy.”

India Today is of the view that Modi tided the country over many a disastrous hurdle like the pandemic which saw the largest exodus within the country after the Partition and the economic woes caused by the Ukraine War. Aroon Purie, the editor, adds just one diminutive sentence in his editorial that “A country that lives in the past has no future” as the only apparent advice that Modi needs today. 

Almost the entire issue is on Modi's achievements

While Modi has, no doubt, made certain valuable contributions to the country’s progress in hard times, can we say that he is the greatest Prime Minister that India has had? Can a leader who steals the past of an entire section of his citizens be acclaimed as great? Along with their history are these people’s food and dresses and languages and identities endangered. 

The Frontline provides the counterbalance to India Today. It is highly critical of the Modi government’s efforts to steal people’s languages by seeking to impose Hindi as the national language. The magazine reports how the North-eastern states, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are opposing vociferously the Centre’s move on languages. In one of the many articles, Alok Rai, author of Hindi Nationalism, is quoted to caution the government that its one-language policy can undermine the unity of the country. It reminds Modi and Shah that the Constituent Assembly had almost broken up because of the language issue. And the issue had to be deferred for no less than 15 years. When the debate started again after the 15 years, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu protested violently.

In a country which has at least 1652 languages belonging to five linguistic families, imposing one particular language as the national language is not only unjust but a mindless massacre of the country’s beautiful diversity. The magazine points out that as many as 57 languages were subsumed under Hindi, according to the 2011 Census. Do we want to kill more languages? What is the ulterior motive of people who want to eliminate the languages and cultures and religion of other people?

The Week takes us to China, the serious threat posed by that country with its two new bridges on Pangong Tso. The second bridge was completed just a month after the first was. It can carry not only troops but also battle tanks. China’s greed for neighbours’ lands is notorious. India is taking the new threat seriously, reports The Week.

From The Week

Living in Pangong Tso area is tough, The Week quotes Lt Gen Rakesh Sharma (retd). “The first problem faced by a soldier in Pangong Tso is survival; fighting the enemy comes only next,” he says. You have to exercise your entire will power in order to withstand the killing winds that burn the marrow of your bones. You tend to lose appetite in that sort of a place where the ice has to be melted in order to get water for anything. Frostbite, snow-blindness and hypoxia are some of the serious threats. Why do countries go grabbing lands in such places and disrupt peace and harmony? Well, that’s a stupid question, I guess, and The Week doesn’t ask that. I did.