If we ignore the religious group which has inveterate aversion to Modi then we will come across in India, two major groups of Modi denigration. One of them is a political group involving Netas and party workers and the other group is an apolitical group that comprises of Individuals sharing a common abhorrence and a personal animosity towards Modi. The malevolence of this apolitical group towards Modi is based on misapprehension that a political party that has the objective of safe guarding the interests of Hindu community of this country necessarily has to be apathetic towards the Muslim community and hence it would never have secular values.
Their personal animosity towards Modi arises out their conviction that it was only due to him that BJP wrested the power from the so called secular axis. Due to Media propaganda machinations they all nurtured this conjectural surmise that Modi abetted the 2002 riots in Gujarat. This non neta group of Modi hecklers which professes itself to be apolitical would get tagged for the purpose of this blog as Non Neta Modi Carpers (NNMC).
At the forefront of the NNMC group you have media houses and media personnel who marshal the rest consisting of- academicians with left leaning, scholars nourished by Nehruvian socialism, professionals and activists who call themselves Liberals and that special breed of leftist intellectuals who live under the delusion that being seen as patrons of revolutionary ideologies like Naxalism adds authenticity to their intellectualism.
At the top rung of this group you have the champagne sipping elitists commonly bracketed in India as “Lutyens lobby” or “Khan market gang”. Those at the lower rung embrace liberal image as a symbol of progressive personality while at the higher rung people hold on to liberalism as an entry permit to the “Lobby of influencers”. NNMC holds that swearing by secularism is a prerequisite for being a Liberal. Secularism according to the Lutyens Lobby is trampling over Hindu prerogatives to uphold Muslim community privileges and this vitiated secularism in common parlance is labeled as ‘pseudo secularism’.
As far as politicians who occupy anti Modi space are concerned their existence in anti Modi mode is warranted by their fundamental need to remain relevant in the political arena. As long as opposing Modi makes them relevant, they continue to deride all his policies and refuse to concede any advantage to him in the political space. However when the time comes where in their own relevance of being in the opposite camp becomes pitiful, they sure know what to do. Since 2014 we have had one too many examples of this category of politicians, who have jumped from denounce Modi band wagon to defend Modi caravan. The most recent one is that of Maharaja Jyotiraditya Scindia of Madhaya Pradesh congress, a staunch loyalists of Congress dynasty, joining Modi camp.
Contrasting the flexibility available to the Netas in the anti Modi vocation is the peculiar quandary the NNMC are faced with. The NNMC has a more painful existence under Modi’s regime. Their life has been one of going through one misery after the other in a seemingly endless up surge of Modi’s popularity. It was not however Modi who disturbed their cocoons, it was the decaying congress party which had paved the way for the disenchanted public to welcome Modi with both the hands.
Their reaction to Modi emerging victorious has been one of blind aggressions towards him for his audacity to hand them this sad plight. They were so obsessed with vendetta that they would go to bed self evaluating as to did they do enough maligning of Modi for the day, and wake up the next day with new ideas of how to malign him. Sarcastic tweets mocking him and his policies, belittling all his new initiatives however innovative it might be, dolling out blog columns that would aim to put down his govt’s handling of various challenges would fully consume their day. Their aggression is meant to reassure themselves more that they are down but not out, than for others consumption.
They attacked his personality. They ridiculed his rustic social demeanor. They scoffed at his tendency to hug heads of states. They reviled his educational back ground and doubted the authenticity of his Educational degree. Law and order transgressions by anti socials were sized up to depict growing intolerance under his regime. They held him responsible for NPA mess in banking system which was in fact a legacy left behind by UPA. His novel ideas of using micro financing as a vehicle for self employment was mocked as “pakoda” economics.
The rock star like welcome from the hysterical crowd he received abroad caused the NNMC unbearable distress. So intense was their personal animosity with Modi and so desperate they were to put him on the mat that they were prepared to even settle for a situation that would prove calamitous to the country but could seriously dent is popularity, than accept a situation where it proves beneficial to the nation but at the same time the due credit goes to him.
The setbacks in Hindi heartland assembly election, the much hyped about dissatisfaction among unemployed youth, the slowdown in economy all combined together they zealously hoped would unseat Modi in the next term. All their hopes were dashed. The victory for Modi was so resounding that even the invincible Mamata Didi of West Bengal was left jittery. NNMC in their tweets vented out their angst against the voter verdict by insinuating that the general mass that voted for Modi were uneducated and applauded Kerala, which rejected BJP, for living up to its stature as the leading literate state of India.
Rubbing salt on to their deep wounds was Modi’s soaring popularity in the wake of Ayodhya verdict, Passage of triple Talaq Bill, Revocation of article 370 in Kashmir and Citizenship amendment acts. Such was his popularity that many surveys showed that if an election was to be held, Modi would have trounced everyone and none of the opposition parties would have mustered more than a single digit number of seats. Some consolatory events like BJP losing Delhi assembly election was doused in the accompanying gloom of congress getting routed again.
The NNMC kept hurtling Muslim Marginalization charge at Modi and tried to exploit the unfortunate communal riots of Delhi 2020 to defame him internationally. Many of them went hysterical with their venomous hate directed at him in the social media and print media. However, except for few foreign media mouthpieces under the influence of evangelist institutions, the international community cold shouldered their clamor to internationalize the issue.
Now the NNMC is back to square one and in a quandary. All their brick bats have not only failed to dent Modi’s image in any way but on the contrary has gone on to add few more meters to the pedestal on which he is already positioned unassailable. To add to their miseries the saddle of MP Govt slid away from congress back to the BJP. The “Corona Virus” in one stroke has dealt a severe blow to the world economy as a whole. They are very apprehensive that the economic woes of Modi govt would get camouflaged under the “Corona effect” and their most potent weapon against Modi would get blunted.
Modism (Modi’s leadership) has been an enigmatic phenomenon for the NNMC. Everytime they expected him to trip and fall into their trap he has surprised them with most unexpected conduct from him. They expected him to pursue a pro capitalist policies but he surprised his adversaries with more pro poor oriented economic policies than the staunch socialists themselves. They surmised that he will be forced to compromise with powerful parallel economy lobby, but then he made them run helter-skelter with his demonetization measures. They took it for granted that the boiling pot of Kashmir can always be used to subdue him, but then he dared to nullify Kashmir as an issue anymore. They never imagined he would ever have media support but then he surprised everyone by winning over some media outfits. Indian media establishment had never witnessed such a spectacle of Pro and anti Govt divergence.
When the corona virus was brow beating all nations including the rich and the powerful were gleefully looking forward to Modi making a false move, given the economic woes the country was already saddled with. Yet again he surprised them by making a very bold move. His stature in the wake of dealing with the Pandemic soared so high that the world leaders keenly following his initiatives and invited him to lead the combined nations fight against the virus.
Modi has always surprised his detractors because they never bothered to spend time to understand him as a person and as a political leader. Perhaps like staunch atheists who avoid going to place of worship for the lurking fear that they may acquire faith in god, these Modi skeptics purposefully steered clear of efforts to know him better for the fear of becoming one of his bhakt and losing their carefully built rebellious liberal image. However their ignorance of his personality and background has in no way stopped many of them from posing as experts and second guessing why Modi did what he did.
Their biggest regret is that Modi never gives them a chance to get at his throat with their viciously loaded questions in an open press conference. The presstitutes feel let down as their power to make the mighty feel uncomfortable and run them down has been robbed off them by Modi. That Modi has set in a new order in which he directly communicates with people through social media, radio, TV medium etc has caught them off guard. He asks his people to appear in their balconies to applaud and light candles and they do it for him in full earnestness much to the consternation of his detractors.
One may not have given much thought to the plight of NNMC but it must really be a very grueling existence for them. Hate is an emotion most intensely harmful than all other negative emotions. To live in a perpetual state of hate with a person can definitely have deleterious effects on one’s mental as well as physical health. It should not surprise us if many of them end up with some serious mental and physical disorder. How many of them would survive next term of Modi could be quite unsettling issue, especially given the prognosis of many world leaders, spiritual masters and famed astrologers that Modi is here to stay for long. This unfortunately for the hate Modi brigade is also corroborated by the stark reality of absence of any true leader in the offing in opposition camp.
