My India ... A country that till 18 months ago, was blessed with perfect communal harmony, the country that enjoyed an absolute freedom of expression, the country that had not banned a single book, movie or play.

Written by Shefali Vaidya

Newspaper columnist, Intrepid Traveller, Amateur Photographer, Armchair Activist, Mum to triplets. You can follow her on twitter @shefvaidya

The post was originally published on author's facebook timeline here

No one had heard of the word ‘caste’ in my India and the word ‘religion’ either. There was no hunger, nor there was poverty. All the farmers were billionaires so no one ever committed suicide. It was a wonderful country where people could eat as much beef they wanted, anywhere they wanted. There were no laws banning cow slaughter in any state. No one had heard of words like corruption, murders and rape.Communal violence and riots were unheard of. The years 1947 and 1984 skipped India, therefore there were no such things as partition riots and anti-Sikh riots. The year 2002 however did happen in a terrible place called Gujarat, the single stain on the spotless secular fabric of India! Kashmiri Pandits lived in the valley in peace and harmony with their neighbours. The ethnic cleansing of the valley never happened. Serial bomb blasts and terrorist attacks were also terms that did not exist.Indians did not know what unhappiness or poverty or suffering meant. If they wanted to experience it, they would go on a conducted tour to Sudan or Palestine!Such was the paradise that was my India!Unfortunately, the good run did not last.16th May 2014, I still remember that dark day - the day Fascist Patriarchal Hindu Male Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister!That was the day India saw poverty, communal violence, law and order issues, farmer suicides, caste discrimination, gender discrimination, murders, rape, tax avoidance, spitting on the roads, litter in the streets, road rage and every other social evil that you can think of, for the very first time!!Thanks to this evil guy Modi, communal violence has crossed all limits. Every day millions of people are being massacred in India. At this rate, there will be no voters left to cast their vote in 2019!Some eminent historians and liberal thinkers have compared this regime to the Taliban - that social organisation formed by terrorists with no religion. The Taliban however is so hurt with this comparison that it wants Arvind Kejriwal to hold a dharna on its behalf!We enlightened citizens know that PM Modi is PERSONALLY responsible for everything from our constipation to clogged toilets at a railway station. I am upset that Modi has NOT issued a statement yet on why there are paan stains on the staircase leading to my building. Everything that is wrong in this country is the PM’s fault. NO ONE else is to be blamed.Oh my poor poor India! What have you done to deserve this? I need to find a suitable award to return to protest against this.I hope this Modi resigns soon and we liberal intellectuals can return to the perfect Utopian paradise that was India under the great leadership of intellectual icon, Rahul Gandhi!