Sovereignty is a key word in our Constitution, one of the main reasons for which the Indian independence movement took off. We wanted to be ruled by ourselves without any foreign power dictating the terms. A pseudo liberal who’s a leftist and endorses a border-less world cannot accept it. They can’t even think for themselves, forget about withstanding pressure. Their herd mentality has been exposed many times and almost everyone on social media can recognize their modus operandi of co-ordinated tweeting for a particular day’s agenda. They drool to see India being bullied, for not toeing the line and becoming isolated in the world. Sometimes they go to the extend of hallucinating and end up writing fairy tales on complex subjects like foreign policy, which is a very tedious and endless process to be handled by expert diplomats.
A few days ago, there was a controversy over India lifting the ban on HCQ exports amidst the world’s fight against COVID 19. As expected, there were many rumors on “India buckling under US Pressure” and so on. Many of these propaganda pieces also had a statement of US President Trump threatening to retaliate if India didn’t lift the ban on exports of HCQ. However, all their hallucinatory claims by misquoting him were debunked in no time. Shekhar Gupta himself came out with a clarification about India lifting the export ban on HCQ, hours before Trump’s ‘threat’ call.
The latest speculation made by some of them were about India being forced to pay $ 2.6 million dollars for 200 ventilators which USA donated. It was later corrected (with a disclaimer).
The cost of the ventilators have been made to look synonymous with the price India has to pay. Adding question marks are assumed to be a safe way out to twist and create a perception. This turned out to be false, again when it was reported that the USAID would bear the cost of the ventilators.
On Citizenship Amendment Act 2019
There was a huge confusion created in a similar manner over the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019, where people from the same stable were out, creating conspiracy theories – about how India got bullied. This was after they had tried all their best to misinterpret and distort a small, harmless amendment which would benefit persecuted migrants who came to India seeking refuge, before 31 December 2014. The Act aimed to help specific persecuted religious minorities of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh get Indian citizenship. CAA was NOT a law that prevented Muslims from any of these countries from getting Indian citizenship. Read this report about a Muslim woman from Pakistan getting an Indian citizenship, after the so called anti-Muslim amendment was made.
One of those controversies ‘manufactured’ in the Parliament, just days before the Citizenship Amendment Act became one, was about the inclusion of Christians in the Citizenship Amendment Bill. Dayanidhi Maran, a DMK MP had claimed that India was forced to include Christians. Reasons being – “Probably the fear of the West, the fear of being isolated by West”. He was seen ‘quoting’ the BJP Manifesto and claiming that BJP had excluded Christians from CAA and did not have the same love for Christians while preparing the manifesto. Here is his full statement (December 2019).
In an attempt to prove that “BJP was fearing the West”, he ended up showing the first, ‘un-corrected version’ of the 2019 BJP Manifesto which was having many mistakes, some pretty embarrassing. It is true that the CAB head under the first version of the 2019 Manifesto (in April 2020) did not mention Parsis and Christians. There were many attempts that time, to claim that BJP made the correction in the Sankalp Patra (election manifesto) just before passing the CAB in December 2019. The omission of Christians in the manifesto was reported on April 10th 2019. The report says that the manifesto was corrected to the extent of adding Christians, within one hour that day. This is more than 6 months before the DMK MP made that statement.
Here is the corrected portion of the BJP’s Sankalp Patra 2019 where the change has been reflected. Since there are no ‘Parsi countries’ today, there could not be any claims of India being bullied to add Parsis in the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019. (Read this to understand how the inclusion of persecuted religious minorities in CAA was done)
Even if this does not sound convincing, a look into the history of the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 can prove the point. The CAB as it was known, was introduced in Lok Sabha in 2016. This is around 3 years before it became an Act. The Bill at that point of time, mentioned Parsis and Christians. So it can be clearly seen that it was not a sudden love for Christians induced by fear of the West as claimed above.
Jews who are a persecuted minority in Islamic countries were not included in the CAA (it’s also true that Jews didn’t come on streets to riot for that). Should it be inferred that there was no pressure from Israel to include Jews? Or is it even right to conclude that there was no pressure from Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) or any of the Arab nations, which are Islamic countries? Or even Iran, which is a Shi’a majority country, whose counterparts are being persecuted in Pakistan?
On PM Modi’s call for Unity
Recently, many Indian citizens who were working in the Gulf countries got fired and/or jailed for voicing their ‘Islamophobic’ opinions on social media. This was an aftermath of the Tablighi Jamaat members coming under scrutiny for the spread of COVID 19 in India. Prime Minister Modi had appealed for unity in fighting COVID 19. Shortly after this, ‘Journalist’ Rana Ayyub immediately came out with a new theory of PM Modi buckling under pressure from the Gulf countries. The same pressure which he’escaped’ from, during the CAA controversy.
The Indian ambassador to UAE had also taken the same stand, as UAE was a sovereign nation just like India. But, this was not due to any pressure which India had faced from such countries. There were also shocking reports of Indians losing jobs in the Gulf for supporting CAA, because of the distortion done by such thugs. If it was true, India would have succumbed to the same pressure which was there, when Citizenship Amendment Bill 2019 was passed. How is it sensible to believe that few Indians tweeting something anti-Islamic can damage or undo the decades-old diplomatic ties which even the CAA or the abrogation of Article 370 could not?
Pseudo liberals who are armchair activists, have a very shallow sense of understanding and show an unusual sense of disconnect from the reality. Be it about the cost involved in building toilets or the foreign policy. They can be seen quarreling endlessly and making absurd claims, without understanding how wrong they were. After all, it’s said one should not disturb an enemy when he (or she) is making a mistake.
There is also a deep sense of satisfaction in the hearts of these so called Indians, on any occasion where India is defeated or humiliated. This article is not to prove that India faced no pressure or that it has always withstood it. A lot of things had happened even before today’s regime came into power which escaped scrutiny, unlike today’s scenario. These are just few instances where such people have been caught hallucinating about it, with a glee.
