A VIDEO OF CANARY WHARF, THE BANKING HUB OF LONDON, showing the electronic marquee with flashing letters that said ‘Modi wins landslide victory in India’s biggest state‘ was posted to many by a friend.
It did make me proud …and also set me thinking.
If Modi’s win in UP is flashed in London bank street it is only because UK banks get big money from India. In USA most people think we ‘Injuns’ live on trees and are beggars. Perhaps 90 pc of people in US and Europe would not know who Modi is. His coming to power was a small item on inside pages there.
Their ignorance is as much, if not more, than that in remote rural India. Western channels including Nat Geo show ONLY the negative side of India. Switching on NG recently, I found a documentary on India showing cows lazily chewing the cud sitting on crowded roads.
True India became more noticed after Modi’s whirlwind tour of the world and the recent launching of 104 satellites into space on a single launch vehicle by ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation). It ‘shocked’ the CIA chief in the US and made others take note.
At that time there was news of the ISRO chief had saying ISRO had sought Government clearance to launch a space station. The Congress must have got two reactions to it ready – one against and the other for the space station idea.
If the clearance is given, Diggy Raja (Digvijay Singh) would say that poverty and starvation still exist in India with Modi doing nothing but sleep over the people’s problems, which were more important than the space station.
If the permission was denied, someone like Abhishek Sanghvi would immediately allege the Modi Government was against science and modernity and was taking the country back into the stone age.
They found fault with attempts to eradicate black money. The surgical strike on Pakistan was criticised. Opening of crores of bank accounts for the poor was assailed.The diplomatic offensive against Pakistan was derided. They patronise Vijay Mallyas, but blame Modi for it
Even the movements for cleanliness, rural toilets and girls’ education were ridiculed. Dozens of such examples can be given.
In sharp contrast, Vajypayee praised Indira Gandhi as Durga when she helped liberate Bangladesh. Within weeks of Modi coming to power he was asked why money stashed abroad was not brought back. The DDs (dynasty devotees) do not say why ‘Garibi Hatao’ slogan went on for years, with only the dynasty’s poverty removed.
True cows on streets, filth all around, offices and buildings inaccessible to handicapped people, lakhs living in slums, caste system and many such problems still exist in India. (Don’t add “despite 67 years of Congress rule”. The dynasty did prosper.)
The new government, only half-way though its first term, cannot set everything right overnight. That it has started is obvious, except to the blind. The Opposition thinks it is its duty to put hurdles in its way, to ensure that it fails.
We have to set our house in order for the world to admire India. That day will come.
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Writing on politics, I had said in a blog post (‘Scavenging With Pen‘) has been a dirty job which I tried to avoid. But you cannot escape it when political sloganeering defying logic is unthinkingly accepted by many as truth.