Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has been of late in the news for all the wrong reasons after witnessing rampant hooliganism on the campus by leftist students who fancy themselves as social activists. The good news is, despite the “goondagardi” and boycott calls by left-wing students’ union JNUSU, over 82% of JNU nearly 8,500 students have registered for the next semester. An abnormally low fee was being used by many students to foment trouble on the campus and enjoy the “good life” at the expense of honest taxpayers who have had to subsidise not only the education of hundreds of leftist goons but also their political adventurism. Turning JNU into a “squatters’ club” under the guise of doing scholarly work is something the Vice-Chancellor (VC) objected to. The VC wanted to simply discipline the campus and yet elicited so much ire, is not the surprising bit. What is both surprising and shocking is the naked bias of leftist media in India that has painted some of these leftist campus squatters as utopian activists.
And in a blatant show of hypocrisy, the opposition has had the audacity to term the Modi government intolerant. The truth, on the contrary, is the BJP led Modi government is both tolerant and open to constructive criticism, something which is lost by biased and discredited publications like the leftist “Economist” that has never forgiven Narendra Modi for becoming India’s most popular Prime Minister twice in a row. Don’t forget, on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, the “Economist” had proudly declared that Rahul Gandhi would be the next PM of India, throwing even the thinly veiled facade of unbiased reportage out of the window. Alas! After the crushing defeat of Rahul Gandhi’s party, that prediction fell flat and the “Economist” with a whole lot of egg on its face has been nursing its wounded hubris for several years, now.
Free speech is never absolute. It always comes with a license. Students who have been binging on honest taxpayers’ money, enjoying the largesse of the Indian State have never bothered to explain their seditious behaviour of chanting “Kashmir Se Azaadi“, “Jinnah Waali Azaadi“, “Savarkar Ki Kabr Khudegi AMU Ki Dharti Par”, “BJP Ki Kabr Khudegi AMU Ki Dharti Par”, “Intifada Inquilaab”, “Allah hu Akbar” and “La illahIllalah”. These chants and slogans have nothing to do even remotely with either the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) or the National Register of Citizens (NRC). These are largely anti-India and anti-Hindu slogans by Islamo fascist, Hindu-phobic, left-leaning students who have the audacity to demand sacking of the JNU VC, after running riot, damaging public property, making failed attempts at preventing freshers from registering for the new semester, faking injuries, murderously threatening teachers on the campus and then with shameless impunity asking that FIRs by Delhi police against these leftist vandals, aka “students” be withdrawn!
Which university or administration or government in the world will tolerate vandalism of state property, rioting, arson and loot in the guise of “peaceful protests”? Even in America, the Mecca of free speech, students at Columbia University faced strict disciplinary action when they sought to disrupt an address by Tommy Robinson who has stood up against radicalised Islam over the years.
What is peaceful about saying “Hindu-on Se Azaadi”? It is a hate-filled communal rant with a vested agenda to abet violence. What is worse is, mainstream media houses that should work impartially recently saw one of its anchors shamelessly running a campaign to put the entire onus of the violence in JNU on right-wing outfit- the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) while giving leftist goons from leftist outfits like All India Students Federation (AISF), All India Students Association (AISA), Democratic Students Federation (DSF) and the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), a clean chit. What was the desperate need for this disgraced anchor from a mainstream news channel who considers chanting “Vande Mataram” as anti-national to turn into Alfred Hitchcock overnight and demonize the ABVP when investigations by the Delhi police are still underway and footages from JNU clearly point at the pulverizing destructive role of the aforesaid leftist outfits in the ungainly violence at JNU and elsewhere?
Media’s job is to report, not to build a favourable narrative for an ideology they love (read as leftists) or to demonize an ideology they hate (read as right-wing). The “anti-CAA” protests in Shaheen Bagh are not the first instance where large sections of Indian media and academia have abdicated their responsibilities. For instance, if reports are to be believed, the likes of Tavleen Singh and Zaffar Sareshwalla recently did the unthinkable by brazenly white-washing those shouting communally divisive anti-India slogans like “Jinnah Waali Azaadi” at Shaheen Bagh, by claiming these protesters were not saying Jinnah, but only “Jeenewaali Azaadi“.
Reportedly, as if this shameful endorsement of inflammatory hate speech was not enough, it is said, this duo went a step further and in a display of sheer intolerance and cowardice, threatened an ordinary citizen on Twitter with dire consequences only because he jocularly called out their insolent bluff. What is to be noted here is that those from the left who constantly engage in virtue, signalling about the virtues of tolerance and free speech do not have the patience or temperament to digest any criticism, whatsoever. The only defence this bunch of leftist turncoats rendered irrelevant by the democratic apparatus, can come up with is accusing their critics of being trolls saffronised fringe and Bhagwa donning bhakts. Well, the Bhagwa is a badge of honour to be draped with pride, so clearly the Marxist radicals need to find a better way to attack their right-wing opponents.
Also, instead of condemning the attack by murderous anti-national vandals against journalist Deepak Chaurasia of News Nation and Nitendra Singh of Doordarshan, full-time trolls and anti-Modi propagandists, masquerading as journalists, Arfa Sherwani included, have chosen to show solidarity with secessionists at Shaheen Bagh, where the likes of Sharjeel Imam, an ex IIT-ian was seen openly exhorting the protesters by raising seditious slogans like, “Assam ko Kaatna Hamari zimmedaari hai“. It is shameful that in the heart of India’s capital city, treason and hate speech by radicalised Muslims is being passed off as dissent and free speech. What is even more shameful and unfortunate is the ghettoized mentality of international publications like the “Economist” who choose to hail these protesting arsonists and goons and term the Modi government intolerant in a classic case of missing the woods for the trees.
Even since the Modi government stormed to power in May 2014, personally humiliating attacks against Narendra Modi have reached venomous proportions. Modi is trolled, abused and lampooned in the vilest manner by a section of the left-leaning cabal, which is otherwise defunct has been rejected by the masses and has been electorally vanquished by the Modi juggernaut frequently and repeatedly. Shaheen Bagh is certainly not about CAA–it is about wanting to delegitimize the democratically elected, legitimate government of Narendra Modi, through means most foul. If anything, the Shaheen Bagh sham is a desperate attempt by certain radicalised Islamist groups to balkanise India under the guise of giving Muslims a more inclusive space.
There are about 51 Islamic nations globally with at least 45 where Islam is the official state religion. Minorities in these Islamic countries are treated like third-class citizens if not worse. The rabid bunch of Bollywood starlets, fading academicians and professional protesters on hire who are willing to sell their souls for merely Rs 500 and a plate of biryani have never ever voiced their concerns for minorities in these Muslim majority nations. Now that the Modi government, via the CAA seeks to accord citizenship status to persecuted minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh in a praiseworthy humanitarian gesture, why should that worry Indian Muslims? The CAA does not in any manner or form, hurt, harm or compromise, the rights of existing Indian Muslim citizens. Then what is the need for rabble-rousers like George Soros to peddle an ideologically perverse agenda against the Modi government? Why should the Hindus in India which is 80% Hindu dominated be made to feel apologetic all the time? What is intolerant about standing in solidarity with persecuted Hindus, Christians, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs, who are in minority and treated with savage inhumanity in Pakistan?
Close on the heels of Dr Ranjit Vijayahari, a doctor in Trivandrum, having been targetted for expressing views against Rahul Gandhi and supporting CAA, another doctor, Dr Vyas Vishwanathan was hounded by an online jihadi lynch mob and was forced to quit his hospital in Palakkad, in Kerala, a state ruled by the communists. A Hindu doctor being hounded by a radicalised Muslim lynch mob only because he supports the CAA is indeed the most chilling example of how indoctrinated Marxists and Islamo fascists who espouse the virtues of secularism are in reality a dangerously intolerant lot, that does not practice what it preaches.
This whole hysteria and hype therefore, about Muslims being suppressed and oppressed under the Modi regime, is only a whole lot of hogwash and little else. For instance, while 3.14 Crore minority students secured government scholarships tantamounting to Rs. 8715 Crore between 2014 and 2019 under Modi, the number stood at only 2.94 crores tantamounting to a much lower Rs. 5360 crore, under Manmohan Singh, between 2009-2014. This translates to a rise of 7 per cent in Muslim beneficiaries under the Modi government. Clearly, hard numbers suggest, Modi has done more for the betterment of Muslims than his predecessors under successive Congress regimes and hence, this biased narrative that the Modi led BJP government is anti-Muslims, is simply a figment of wicked minds.
Speaking of Bollywood, Soni Razdan, a forgettable actress who made some equally forgettable movies recently tweeted, “This is a travesty of justice. Who is going to bring back a man from the dead if he is innocent? This is why the death penalty is not to be used lightly, and this is why there also needs to be a solid enquiry into why Afzal Guru was made the scapegoat.” Indeed, if there is any entity that blinded by its visceral hatred for Modi has done more harm to India’s secular fabric than all the radicalised Hindu-phobic media houses put together, it is Bollywood. Razdan’s step-son, Rahul Bhatt was accused of befriending and conspiring with David Headley, convicted in the deadly Mumbai 26/11 terror attack. Shameful, that despite her family member being supposedly involved in the most ghastly terror attack on Indian soil, Razdan felt the need to put out a hate-filled tweet, trying to make a hero out of Afzal Guru, who was hanged in 2013, after 12 years of trial, after he was found guilty by the highest court in India of being the key conspirator in the 2001 terror attack on the Indian Parliament. What drives these Bollywood folks to turn into terror apologists, under the fake guise of upholding free speech? Razdan and bigots like her who understand zilch about the CAA are indulging in a dangerous game of polarising the Muslim community in India by abetting a false narrative that seeks to showcase Hindus as perpetrators and Muslims in India as the hapless lot.
Naseeruddin Shah, another venom spewing bigot who fancies himself as a Muslim and not an Indian, was a great actor decades ago but has now been reduced to an abusive troll who thrives on Modi bashing, recently called his fellow actor and the far more accomplished Anupam Kher, a “clown” and a “sycophant” of the Modi government. And all this, simply because Kher- a formidable actor of international repute has been a vocal supporter of the CAA and has time and again fearlessly spoken out against the “Tukde Tukde gang“, that sometimes manifests itself in burqa-clad, biryani gorging women at Shaheen Bagh and on other occasions is seen in the form of Islamo fascists that run riot in West Bengal and Kerala under the facade of “Azaadi”. In recent times, if there has been anything more stupid and shameful than Naseer’s misguided rants against Kher, it is the headline-grabbing statement by Bollywood’s philanderer, Saif Ali Khan, who claimed there was no concept of India, till the Britishers came to India. This churlish attempt to run down India’s great ancestry and its rich cultural roots by a clutch of miserable “Bollywood-iyas”, under the pretext of free speech, would have been funny had it not been so brutally sinister in its intent.
The Janus faced hypocrisy of pseudo-secular, left-liberal, anti-Modi propagandists and “professional pessimists”, who are desperately trying to clutch at any fig leaf or straw in the wind, that comes their way by design or accident, know it is end game for them, in the war of narratives, because truth has a way of finding its own way, unhinged and unfettered. Most recently, Deepika Padukone found out the hard way that the unassuming, average Indian is far smarter than a whole lot of fading Bollywood starlets, lyricists and self-serving stars, put together. She chose to show solidarity with a hate-spewing mob of vandals when she had the choice to stand with Nirbhaya’s mother on that eventful day. She chose mobocracy over democracy and the audience too made a choice—it chose Tanhaji over Chhapaak!!
It is worth mentioning here that while Hindus are in majority in India, the Modi government is certainly not majoritarian. It truly believes in “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwaas“.
However, “Sabka Saath“, also means taking pride in chanting “Jai Shree Ram”, as much as it is about worshipping “Gau Mata” or celebrating the oneness of yoga and reclaiming our abandoned, old temples that were ravaged by marauding Mughals, centuries back. And what makes the Modi government stand out is the fact that it is not apologetic about the richness of Hinduism, its sages, saints, rishis, gurus, Vedas, Shankaracharyas, mutts, et al. This is precisely what the pseudo-secular lobby is not able to digest. So while the “radicalised minoritarian lobby” does not think twice before blaring “Azaan” from loudspeakers, five times a day, flouting umpteen court rulings, Hindus are demonised for celebrating Diwali with firecrackers or enjoying Holi, the festival of colours, by this leftist lobby, that has accused these festivals of being environment unfriendly. Ironically, this glib “pseudo-secular lobby”, looks the other way, when entire forests are stripped naked of trees during Christmas, or when countless goats are butchered mercilessly during Eid.
Coming back to the CAA, conferring UK born Pakistani singer Adnan Sami, the Indian citizenship, after Pakistan refused to renew his passport in 2015 and Sami sought an Indian citizenship is a vindication of the fact that any person who is willing to follow the due process of law and all procedural formalities will be given an Indian citizenship subject to certain conditions as laid down by the Indian Citizenship Act of 1955.That Sami, a reputed singer, who was in the eye of a needless storm created by a rudderless opposition, after being awarded the Padma Shri is again a reinforcement of the fact that the Modi government goes by merits of the case and the rule book. Religion, language and country of origin are secondary as long as legality & constitutionality of a specific case are in the right place.
Interestingly, those who are sloganeering against the CAA in India is the same bunch that has no qualms in supporting the Lautenberg Amendment of the USA, enacted in 1990, which sought to resettle and rehabilitate persecuted Jews from the former Soviet Union. The Lautenberg Amendment was expanded over the years to include persecuted religious minorities in other countries, such as Jews, Christians, and Baha’is from Iran.
If anything, it is the tyranny of minority-ism that India needs to be cautious of and not the imaginary majoritarianism that is often wrongfully blamed for anything that goes wrong. Stereotyping all Muslims in India is wrong and unacceptable. There are many tall leaders within the Muslim community whose heart and head are in the right place. However, both the local and international media should rid themselves of their anti-Modi bias to fully appreciate the path-breaking work being done by the Modi government for all communities including Muslims, cutting across ideological barriers, if any.
Ms Sanju Verma is an Economist, Chief Spokesperson for BJP Mumbai and Author of the Best Selling Book, “Truth &Dare–The Modi Dynamic”.