BJP has found in Narendra Modi a fearless ,principled and incorruptible leader in the mould of the great Robespierre of the French Revolution.
The people of India seem to be fed up with the ruling party’s failure to eradicate the disease of corruption which is responsible for the country’s social and cultural stagnation. The opinion polls consistently show that the days of the Congress monopoly of power in India are over. Fearful of the probable impending defeat of the U.P.A, since after Nehru India ceased to be non aligned, ingratiating itself with the west, there is a synchronised global campaign to portray Modi as the destroyer of secular democracy to create a jingoistic Hindu fundamentalist state. This becomes obvious from the fear expressed in the The Economist with its April 5 issue titled : Can any one stop Narendra Modi.
Although the British Economist is a respected weekly, it got carried away by its own self assumed importance that it actually appears to believe that it is not just a weekly news paper but a powerful political force that can actually change the international landscape. Fortunately, apart from a few pompous media and colonially brain- washed Indian intellectuals, only a very read the expensively priced Economist in India. Yet the weekly’s correspondent lectures its readers about its choice of party that should govern India.
It is sad that the Economist forgets that India is no longer a British colony but a sovereign independent nation with a press that is more active, diverse and free than anywhere else in the world and its citizens need no advice on how they should vote at elections.
Modi is an elected Chief Minister and was repeatedly re elected. He respects the Indian constitution and the democratic traditions of Indian people. Modi seems to be a straight forward politician and he will be utterly ruthless in implementing social and economic policies, intolerant of the corruption that keeps India down. This is what his enemies at home and their supporters in the west most fear. And that is the reason for their venomous opposition to the strong possibility of a BJP government led by Modi. This again confirms the western media’s paranoia and suspicion.
Yes, much has been made and is being made of the nation’s spectacular economic, technological and scientific progress, but the ugly and offensive truth is that India still is really backward in many respects. In the face of its grandiose claims of economic growth, India still has crores of people below the poverty line and has failed to deliver basic services to the poor. The lack of public toilets, simple hygiene facilities, adequate medical care, drinking water in every village are some of the obvious examples. Ironically ,India has the resources needed to end this dreadful scandal-this massive hygiene failure.
Delay for progress in this regard is attributed is being attributed to corruption and hypocritical indifference to the poor.
Under Jawaharlal Nehru India produced one of the most democratic written constitutions in the world – a constitution which outlawed the brutal cast system and most important of all in a backward and sexist world enshrined the principle of gender equality at a time when even the so called advanced nations treated their women as an inferior .
For decades the Indian people loyally supported the Nehru family but now they are bitterly disillusioned. This disillusionment is being expressed in opinion polls which show that the Indian people want change and radical change too.
This seems to terrify the western press and some European and America-based Indian intellectuals, writers, artists etc.
Some of them shamelessly play the religious card conveniently forgetting that the Muslims of India, larger than the population of Pakistan and second only to the largest Muslim-populated Indonesia, are a valued part of the secular democracy of India. They choose to forget that ever since its independence India remained, thanks to its excellent constitution, a democratic nation while many other nations in the east and the west fell before the guns of some of the most brutal dictators in history. One has also to acknowledge the role of the people of India who from ancient times and even under foreign occupations clang stub bornly to a democratic way of life.
The Indian elections ,despite infantile attempts to twist it in to a Hindu-Muslim conflict ,is fundamentally is about a clean, incorruptible administration to benefit all its citizens, hindu, muslim Christian, sikh, etc.The people of India do not read the ponderous pages of the liberal western press ,urging them to support a particular party -they know what is in their best interests and what is good for India.
Corruption, inefficiency and arrogance must go. Only the enemies of India will disagree with their passionate desire to usher in an era of progress, not just in terms of trade, science, technology etc. but in the most important and vital sphere of all--an end to corruption and the beginning of a new era of material, cultural, political and economic justice for all the peoples of our great country.
India is rapidly advancing to global super economic status. It goes without saying that India requires a strong, capable, determined and patriotic leader to hasten the process.
