WHY SUCH A HOOPLA OVER A POORLY WRITTEN ARTICLE IN ‘THE ECONOMIST’?

Mukesh Devrari   

On January 23, 2020 The Economist ran a story titled ‘Narendra Modi stokes division in the world’s biggest democracy’. First, it must be remembered that ‘The Economist’ is a British magazine. It has no role to play in the making of India. There is no reason for Indians to be overjoyed when it praises their country, neither they should feel despair at criticism. It is basically a white man’s take on world affairs. Secondly, it is also important to note that the whole world watches India with keen interest. Almost 20 per cent of the world’s population live in South Asia. The world has a stake in the economic progress of the region if India will be focusing more on the issues other than the economy, the world community is likely to question the country. 

Unfortunately, over the last six years, India is in news for wrong reasons. IMF has forecasted that the growth rate this year likely to remain less than five per cent. Just a decade earlier India was poised to grow at the rate of double digits, but that could never materialize due to large scale corruption and policy paralysis during the second tenure of UPA government. Modi has also failed in delivering results. He made global headlines for negative reasons including demonization, killings of rationalists and lynching of Muslims for eating cow by Hindutva zealots among other issues. 

BJP sympathizers must remember that all over the globe, Muslims, Christians as well as other Asians belong to meat-eating societies. They devour beef, bacon and fish like most Indians eat Potato and green vegetables. India due to the influence of Hinduism was never a meat-eating society. How a common Indian sees a cow, western society can never feel it, empathize with it, nor the Muslims will be able to understand it. As is the case with the caricature of the prophet Mohammad. Muslims don't tolerate the caricature of their prophet Mohammad. Western societies are also afraid of violent reaction from the Muslim community, so they resist from hurting feelings of Muslims, there is no such compulsion for Hindus, there is no sympathy of expectation of Hindus that cow slaughter should be banned.  

It is important to dismantle the false arguments and lies in the report published in 'The Economist'. Any constructive criticism of India should be welcomed but the bias, prejudice, hatred, falsehood and conjectures must not be passed as an objective report which will mislead the global audience. The Economist raised a question why India as a secular nation should shelter prosecuted Hindus from Afghanistan, Bangladesh & Pakistan? It means if Hindus are prosecuted due to their faith, India does not have a responsibility towards them as it is a secular nation. The world must understand that India is a secular Hindu country. It is a secular country because 80 per cent of the population consists of Hindus or indigenous religions. It goes without saying it is a natural homeland of Hindus.

It does not mean it has any ill will towards any other religion and prosecuted Muslim minorities are not welcome in India. It's a policy issue. There can be disagreements and parliament can discuss it. Once the government changes. Prosecuted Muslim minorities from non-Muslim countries can also be allowed to take refuge in India. Like it has been done in the past. 1959 Nehru allowed Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers to seek asylum in India, enraged China attacked India in 1962 and captured large portions of Indian territory including the Aksai Chin region of Union Territory of Ladakh. 

It is easy for 'The Economist' magazine and its western journalists to close their eyes and ignore the plight of Hindus. West has ignored the abduction of young girls, their forced conversion and marriage of Muslims who already have multiple wives in Pakistan. The concerted campaign against Hindus is supported by police, bureaucracy, Islamic seminaries, courts and other state apparatus. India is a natural homeland of Hindus. It is their motherland. BJP introduced a good law but unfortunately, Home Minister Amit Shah tried to collate it with NRC (National Register of Citizenship) and due to his arrogance in parliament, he gave an opportunity to his opponent to demonize India globally. 

Home Minister Amit Shah behaves like a bully, due to his misplaced arrogance, Muslims revolted against the law. Now BJP has been forced to backtrack but Muslim community leaders saw an opportunity to further sideline BJP over the issue, so the protests all the country are still on. It is important to note that Muslims resorted to direct action by attacking public property to protest against proposed NRC. In Delhi mob of Muslim protestors threw stones at the school bus carrying small children and burned the vehicles on road. Their rampage was stopped only after panicked Modi soft denied any plans of nationwide NRC. He claimed there is no such proposal, countering the claims of his own home minister. 

India is seeing a slow growth and cannot afford civil riots at the national capital. For the first time since 1947 Muslims openly revolted and forced the government to bend what they described as an existential fight against the combined effect of CAA and NRC. Both laws are interpreted as an assault on their citizenship rights. The biggest flaw of NRC is that it assumes no one is a citizen of India unless he or she proves it. Unfortunately, India is not a small European country. It is a large, highly disorganized, corrupt, illiterate, poor and over-populated country. No such exercise is viable. Anyone and everyone who has come here is our citizen. Rathe government should award citizenship cards on the basis by linking Adhar card with voter cards, passports, bank accounts and pan cards.  

The Economist also claimed that Muslims were lynched for sleight to the 'Hinduism' like loving Hindu women and eating cow. Attack on Hinduism is an attack on pride of India and its extraordinary cultural heritage. Hindutva and Hinduism are two different things. It is a great disrespect to millions of Hindus who created this country, its philosophy, its culture, its religions, its languages. There is no doubt India is still a conservative society. People prefer to establish family relations within their communities. It is not only about religion, but it is also about region, caste, dialect and ethnicity. There are hardly any marriages between the people living in different parts of the country. India is highly heterogeneous and perhaps more diverse than Europe. It is an exaggeration to claim that Muslims are lynched for having a relationship with Hindu girls, but there is no doubt there is no social sanctity to inter-religious or inter-caste marriages in India. As there is no widespread acceptance to interracial marriages in modern western societies. In both cases it is not illegal to do it. These things are likely to change in the next few generations, but complete decimation of cultural practices will not be possible even in the next hundreds of years. 

The Economist report also claimed that BJP stokes anti-Muslims sentiment which led to the massacre of Muslims many times like the one in Gujarat in 2002. This is another lie. It is wrong to argue that the indiscriminate and brutal killings of Muslims area common occurrence in India. It is not only factually wrong, but it is tantamount to abusing the country and attempt to malign the Hindus communities in India. The article also accuses Modi of 'war-like rhetoric about Pakistan'. This is the most problematic remark. In fact, Modi was extremely enthusiastic to build good relations with Pakistan. He went to Pakistan uninvited to attend the family event of Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif. He allowed ISI, spy agency who kept and protected Osama Bin Laden in Abottabad (military town of Pakistan), officers to visit India to investigate Pathankot terror attack to appease Pakistan. But in return Pakistani military establishment continued to foment trouble in Kashmir. It continued to support Islamic terrorist groups and pursue its policy of bleed India by thousand cuts. Pakistan based Islamist outfit JeM openly took the responsibility for Pulwama suicide attack. JeM Chief is freely lives in Pakistan and protected by the Pakistani state.  

The magazine also argued that BJP wants to put lower caste Hindus at a disadvantage. Although the article did not cite any example of how BJP has done it, because of the simple reason, there is no such example. No political party in India can afford to adopt policies which will put lower caste Hindus at a disadvantage. BJP is not politically naïve to do it. This argument also false flat on its face and merely an imagination of the author. In fact, it is an old way of describing BJP as Brahmin and Baniya party by the left parties, but it simply means the writer is well versed with the transformation of BJP as a political outfit in last few decades.  

The article also argued that the speakers of a language other than Hindi are also being put at a disadvantage. It is also unfair to argue. It must be remembered that the mother tongue of PM Narendra Modi is Gujarati, not Hindi. So, there is no question of any bias towards non-Hindi speakers. Language is a settled debate in India. Every state has its own language. Hindi and English are the most common language in India. None is being imposed on anyone. People in Gujarat, which was directly ruled by Modi for three decades, students learn English and Gujarati in Schools. They also learn Hindi. 

The reaction in India over such a weak article published in 'The Economist' shows how sensitive Indians are about any criticism.  

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