The visit of the USA President Donald Trump has caused much heartburn among the left-liberals as they work overtime to discredit the meet between two of the world’s most powerful leaders as the two countries come closer than ever.
Congress mouthpiece National Herald has seemingly blurred the line between being anti-government and anti-India as the publication ran a crass article titled: ‘India is the only poor and ‘sh*t-hole country’ that Donald Trump has ever visited’. Unsurprisingly, the article was full of hollow claims and disinformation and the publication’s attempt to take an unnecessary dig at Trump at the expense of the nation has terribly backfired.
Ex-Executive Director of Amnesty India and a staunch loyalist of the Gandhi family who was last seen crying over the removal of SPG from the Gandhi family came up with an article full of inconsistencies. Aakar Patel writes: “Donald Trump is visiting India for neither strategic reasons nor for trade. The visit is designed to massage the ego of the Indian diaspora in the US and get them to root for him.” There is no doubt that the Indian diaspora has emerged as a powerful lobby with the recent UK elections a further testament to this fact. Boris Johnson swept to power in the United Kingdom on the back of the majority of the Indian diaspora supporting the conservatives as the opposition Labour party was full of love for Pakistan and regularly made anti-India statements. In the US, the situation is pretty much the same with the Democrats thanks to the presence of radical Islamists like Ilhan Omar, the party is venturing into unchartered leftist territories. Donald Trump is well aware that he doesn’t need to come to India to win over the Indian diaspora. Instead of being proud of this historic engagement, Patel decides to peddle hate.
Patel seems to be living in a world full of fairy stories where Rahul Gandhi is the Prime Minister of India assumes that Americans, in general, don’t like to travel abroad. He further writes: “Donald Trump since becoming president has visited 20 countries of which the majority are in Europe. He has been to France four times. He dislikes the developing world and doesn’t want immigrants from what he calls ‘shit-hole country’, in which list the presumably includes India. He has been to Afghanistan but only to an American military base there. India will be the first poor nation that he would have visited as President and probably the first poor nation he will ever see. It will be interesting to see what his observations are, especially because he is not shy to say impolite things.”
Only a Gandhi loyalist can have the audacity to say that India is a poor country and probably the only poor country that Donald Trump will ever visit. Patel blinded by his hatred towards Modi and India conveniently ignores the fact that India is the World’s 5th largest economy with 1.3 billion aspiring people. Patel doesn’t seem to realise the Congress’s increasingly emptying coffers cannot be equated with India’s economy.
Additionally, since January 2017, Trump has visited 22 countries, India being the 23rd and unless Aakar Patel considers Philippines, Japan, Vietnam, North Korea, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Singapore as ‘European countries’, he is way off the mark.
Patel then pens a love letter to the former President Bill Clinton as he goes overboard in displaying his love for the Democrats. Patel unabashedly displays his love for Obama as he writes: “Barack Obama has come to India twice, once when Manmohan was PM and then of course when he was served tea by Modi wearing that suit with his name embroidered on it. Obama is a very middle-class man and wears shoes that are frequently resoled. I wonder what he thought of Modi and Indians when the Indian Prime Minister appeared before him wearing that suit.”
For Patel, Obama whose net worth amounts to a whopping $40 million became a ‘very middle-class man’ who wears resoled shoes whereas PM Modi who used to sell tea for a living and has meagre assets is portrayed as a villain with deep-pockets. While Obama continues to make millions post his tenure, Narendra Modi has assets worth Rs 2.5 crore including a residential plot in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar, fixed deposits of Rs 1.27 crore and a meagre Rs 38,750 cash in hand with a cash balance in the savings bank account amounting to a meagre Rs 4,143.
Patel then moves to sell half-truths in a blatant attempt at fear-mongering. He writes: “Obama is an intellectual and called Manmohan his guru. Trump and Modi are similar in that sense. Both are men of the people who like addressing rallies, are active on social media, are egotistical (Modi refers to himself in the third person frequently, while Trump can honestly be described as a proper egomaniac). Both have been aggressively anti-immigrant. Trump had a ban on Muslims travelling to the US from certain nations and Modi has excluded Muslims from his Citizenship Amendment Act.”
For the uninitiated, CAA aims to expedite citizenship to persecuted minorities from neighbouring nations and since the law is aimed towards persecuted, religious minorities, the question of excluding the majority people of Islamic nations does not arise. Patel further spreads fake news about how people were evicted from their homes in Ahmedabad two facilitate the meet — a claim which has been busted by Ahmedabad Municipal Commissioner Vijay Nehra.
In an attempt to discredit Narendra Modi, Patel and national Herald end up exposing their ulterior motives. Such anti-India articles are commonplace in the Congress mouthpiece as after the dastardly Pulwama attack, it attempted to humanise the terrorists. National Herald tried to portray Dar, who was a suicide bomber, as a normal kid who was a cricket fan.
In a shameless act, the National Herald article goes on to describe the ‘hardship’ of terrorist’s family wherein his father uses terms such as ‘responsible kid’, ‘militant’ and ‘martyr’ to describe him. His father also calls him an ‘innocent kid’ whereas the truth of the matter is that Adil Ahmad Dar has been involved in terrorist activities since very long. Dar actively participated in the 2016 Burhan Wani uprising and had even been shot at once by the security personnel. Dar was also involved in stone-pelting activities in Jammu and Kashmir.
National Herald despite going much into the details of Dar’s terror activities have only stated how Adil Ahmad Dar was ‘beaten up’ and ‘harassed’ by the troops. Not only that, the media house further alleged that in May last year, the security forces had attempted to torch Adil’s house in the darkness of the night. It seems that the Congress has officially blurred the line between being anti-government and anti-India.