The old Leftist rhetoric that has dominated India’s politics for decades is now falling on deaf ears and becoming rejected by voters. Both recent UP and Delhi elections indicate this trend. Though the old Indian media continues to raise a shrill campaign of Leftist outrage against the dangers of Narendra Modi and the BJP, voters have gone over to them in a landslide.

Strategies

Special media and campaign strategies were implemented in India prior to 2014 to keep the BJP out of power, and after Modi’s victory in 2014 to weaken his influence and remove him from power. These strategies reflect the propaganda approaches of the old socialist-communist mind-set, with exaggerations, allegations, and name-calling, but little by way of actual facts. Let us examine the most relevant of these charges.

The charge of fascism has been made for decades against BJP/RSS, even comparing the Sangh with the Islamic State. Yet, the fact is that the BJP national and state governments are the most competent in recent India, doing more for the poor and to improve administration and infrastructure. This is a welcome change from the corruption of the old Congress dynasty and its regional warlords, with their divide-and-rule policies that prevented development and perpetuated social unrest. The truth is that the Left historically has promoted militancy and genocide, extending to the murdering of Hindu workers in communist Kerala and Maoist violence in India today.

Similarly, a charge of intolerance is raised against Hindus, as if they were the main group inhibiting harmony in India. This includes exaggerating or inventing Hindu attacks on Muslims and Christians. The fact is that Hindus are more tolerant than any other religious group because they don’t follow any theology of salvation and damnation. Far from suppressing other religions, Hindus continue to be targeted by missionary aggression inside India and outside. In addition, Christians and Muslims in India have more freedom than in any other country in Asia. Hindus in Pakistan comparatively have a marginal existence and are being systematically eliminated.

The charge of majoritarianism is another key part of the anti-Modi agenda with the claim is that there is now an oppressive Hindu majority in power. Actually democracy is majority-ruled, so the majority does have a right to rule within the bounds of the law. In this regard, the majority in India, which is largely Hindu, is much more accommodating than the majority in any Islamic country. Those who make the charge of majoritarianism have long been cultivating minority vote banks, defined on caste and religious grounds. They are afraid of national unity that would compromise their electoral base.

The charge of Hindu or saffron terrorism is perhaps the most extreme Leftist claim. This is one of the biggest falsifications brought about by affording repeated media attention to a few isolated cases eventually dismissed as false. All Hindu terrorist charges could highlight is a Hindu woman swami, Sadhvi Pragya, kept in jail without bail for nine years until the case against her was dismissed for lack of evidence. Compare this to ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Taliban, with their organised armies, massacres and terrorist attacks that the media hesitates to call Islamic terror.

Danger

Cow vigilantism and the attempt to make cow protectors as dangerous as ISIS and jihadi terrorism are false equivalents. Incidents of violence relative to cow smuggling and cow protection have occurred for decades, but this is hardly a Hindu attack on non-Hindus, much less a national security issue. In addition, India, like all countries, would benefit by less meat in the diet. Only in India do liberals emphasise beef eating rather than reduction of unnecessary meat consumption.

Assault on student freedoms relative to JNU student protests is another frequent item of Leftist outrage. Yet JNU communist student unions have long promoted anti-government, pro-Maoist, pro-Kashmiri separatist sentiments under the guise of freedom of expression. India’s sympathetic media has portrayed such students as innocent victims of state aggression, for questioning their motives or actions. The same JNU students try to prevent any pro-Hindu speakers from doing programmes.

Allegation

A new allegation is the danger of having a Swami as chief minister, mixing religion and politics, with Yogi Adityanath taking up the reins of Uttar Pradesh. Since before Mahatma Gandhi, a spiritual voice has been present in Indian politics and social discourse. Yogi Adityanath is performing better as CM than did the previous so-called secular government known for its corruption and decay of law and order, and the Yogi is gaining respect accordingly. It is performance that matters today, not simply name or background.

Apart from manufacturing perpetual outrage, the Left has no positive agenda for national growth or futuristic development of the country. Congress and the left are leaderless and self-destructing, with a number of their prominent representatives becoming figures of public derision.

Meanwhile the BJP has come to represent aspirational India at both economic and cultural levels. There is nothing wrong with such national pride and enthusiasm. It is a long overdue change from the old socialist era in which individual initiative was blocked and India’s culture denigrated. Such unity is needed for India to progress in the world of nations, which the Nehruvian-Marxist alliance could never deliver.

India has a great dharmic civilisation with much to offer the world. The world should be happy that India is willing to move forward according to its own civilisational ethos and no longer function as another failed socialist state looking for global sympathy. Yet, it seems the Leftist media was happier with a Lalu Prasad and his backward Bihar than Narendra Modi and his new dynamic India. Fortunately, voters can no longer be deceived.

(Courtesy: Mail Today)

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