The 29th Day of April 2019 is an epic day. This very day has confirmed that our very own Mohammed Aamir Hussain Khan and his wife Kiran Rao who were feeling petrified in November 2015 and were seriously considering to migrate to some other country – have not gone anywhere till date. Instead, they have stayed on and have carried on with their usual business with no hindrance. Whatever nightmares of social unrest they had proved to be baseless so much so that they did a great amount of business during the period and came out on the election day and cast their vote. They also posed for pictures (as shared by ANI on twitter) and Mr. Khan gave a news byte – they looked confident and hopeful that change is coming.
India as a country has lost many jewels to intruders, lost a lot many brains to western temptations – but has retained the highly intellectual family of Mohammed Aamir Hussain Khan with all dignity and purpose. The family has reposed their faith in the Indian democracy. They are still stars by their own rights and neither Modi nor his government or his followers have intervened in their lives in any matter. They are respected citizens of the country and that Modi has not put to perils the country that they so much love. This day is proof of that. It marks the end of the first part of the propaganda that this family kick-started in 2015.
Yes, we have moved on from this comment on 2015. But though we tried our best to ignore those comments by alluding them to gas formed from severe indigestion or as an overstatement, we failed. Because time again it proved to be an abrupt conclusion driven by an un-named phobia (read Modi Phobia). Neither could we ignore it nor did we forget. Most importantly they did not let us forget. Because it was a textbook case of ‘propaganda’ and till this day, from when Amir made this comment on November 2015 a lot of people from different stages have kept it alive; and when in 2019 the general elections were approaching another stalwart from the same fraternity of Amir Khan – Nasirrudin Shah came up with the same type of statements.
Today when the cloud of intolerance is getting cleared, we can say that they were acting – playing their part in a campaign that was spread over the last 4 years of Modi rule. If Amir’s was Act 1 scene 1 Nasir Sahab’s was Act 3 Scene 4. The scenes of these acts were well scripted and rehearsed. It had only one purpose – to ensure that people realize they are potentially unsafe under the Modi government and that when the time comes they should vote it out of power. Recently this year in 2019, just a few days back these people came up with a signature campaign asking all of us not to vote for Modi.
In the meantime someone wrote a song – sorry rap that Mr. Shekhar Gupta in his revolutionary column ‘National Interest’ has quoted, it says:
Do hazaar athra hai, desh ko khatra hai / Har taraf aag hai tum aag ke beech ho / Jor se chilla lo, sabko dara do / Aapni zahrili been baja ke sabka dhyan khinch lo.
Now my humble question is who do the lines incriminate? Mr Amir Khan, Nasir Sahab or Modi? Confused! then look at the next few lines of the rap-
Khincho, nocho, pakdo, pel do / Sukhi sukhi nafrton mein garam garam tel do / Dheere dheere saare bimar khud hi daud jayenge / Inke murdo ke piche ke murdo ko tum sting do.
Now sit back and think. Till the end of 2018 did Modi try to frighten us by saying Desh Khatre mei hai or did he say India is safe, safe from blasts and communal riots? Did he not invoke the concept of a Majboot Srakar during this time? Then who in the last four years has done the act of igniting the fault lines of society? Who has deliberately raked up one issue – the issue of faith and religion in every social crime? Is it the Modi government or the Khan-Shah-Dutt-Ghosh cabal? The answer lies in the minds of the people who have never sensed any insecurity on the ground for the last five years.
This campaign of fear for the last four years did everything possible to unsettle us, so much so that some wise person had to say ‘please stay away from social and conventional media for some time and you will find that India at the ground is moving peacefully’. But what is astonishing is that this campaign, this utter nonsense propaganda never invoked the thought of any ‘ism’ in the minds of any crafted writers like Shekhar Gupta & Co.
The virtual terror that was constantly promoted for the last four years by these people by hammering some terms into our minds like ‘intolerance’ ‘lynching’ ‘lynchistan’ ‘hyper-nationalism’ or ‘post-truth’ does not amount to Jingoism, but when Modi talks about National security it is Jingoism. Our self-appointed preceptor Mr. Gupta doesn’t understand that – if evoking national interest and national security from the perspective of Hindu identity is Jingoism, then evoking sectarian interest and sectarian phobia through sectarian identity is also jingoism. If saying Desh khatrey me hain and you need a leader who can save it is Jingoism then saying Minorities (read Musalman) Khatrey mei hai and you need to change your leader to save it is also Jingoism. It is not Modi who has turned India into Jingostan by putting the countrymen into paranoia, but it is the intolerance cabal who tried to instill paranoia and turn this land into Jingostan.
Yes, Modi talks of a fifth column. This is the column who always puts specific interests over national interest. This is the column who in their hate for Modi never thinks twice to say such things which do no good but to stresses the social fabric. This Fifth Column knows that the easiest way to fan a popular discourse in India is through Bollywood. So when Bollywood peddles a sense of fear among minorities, and in doing so it moves to point where it literally jerks them and asks them to be aware of the dangers lurking in the society due to the rule of Modi, then Bollywood is seen as voicing dissent against the Modi government but not as promoting an act of igniting a communal sense of insecurity.
It’s another discourse that their endeavor did not stir a ground except some intellectual grey matter. What good did these intellectual elitists try to achieve by igniting a perpetual sense of fear along religious lines? If they were not trying to do any good then what were they trying to achieve? … let’s not say the word because it amounts to intolerance. The mundane who generally does not pay heed to Bollywood elitists and carry on with their normal lively-hood did not listen to them. Communal riots did not flare up (are lowest in the last five years).
Now when the fifth column’s propaganda charo taraf khatra hai, aag hai for the past four years has fallen flat – it is suddenly saying India is fine, there is no danger lurking on it – so there is no place for the premise of a national security concern in these elections. Everything is well and good and India is very safe – it has no threats from inside our outside of its territory. And anyone who is invoking National Security as an agenda is doing nothing but turning the country into Jingostan. Its no doubt that these manipulated conversations from Bollywood have miserably failed to ring a bell among the masses, but a song from the same Bollywood written with honest passions by Kavi Pradeep in the late 50s stills finds its way to our hearts.
The lines: “sambhal ke rehnaa apne ghar mein / chhipe huye gaddaaron se / jhaank rahe hain apne dushman / apni hi deewaaron se were relevant then, are relevant now and will be relevant forever to any nation-state that wants to survive. We have survived the part one of the vicious propaganda by the fifth column – let’s get ready for part two.
