On Sunday (August 15), the barbaric, medieval-era terrorist outfit Taliban breached the capital city of Kabul and took control of Afghanistan barring the Panjshir valley. Soon after, a concerted campaign was orchestrated by the left-liberal media worldwide, including in India to present a softer and moderate picture of the Taliban. They are being rebranded as a benevolent Taliban– Taliban 2.0, which liberals are currently endorsing. To lend authenticity to their claims, the Taliban even conducted a press conference and took questions from a female reporter. Liberals went gaga and true to their nature, started attacking PM Modi.
And just like that, an ‘outfit’ that has undertaken unspeakable acts of violence on common Afghans in the near three decades of its existence became the perfect beacon of light for upholding journalistic integrity and freedom of the press. Indian liberals, frothing and salivating at a moderate Taliban started a Twitter trend with the hashtag #JustSaying where they took digs at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not conducting press conferences. ‘Even Taliban is conducting a press conference but no such luck with our leadership’ was the line being parroted.
Unscripted pic.twitter.com/oA6BIvcWNR
— Opinion Bakery (@IndiaSpeaksPR) August 17, 2021
The hatred for one man was such that they considered the extremist outfit as a benchmark against the world’s most popular leader, chosen consecutively by record margins by the world’s largest democracy. A terror outfit that will not waste a heartbeat to kill the ‘entire gang’ of them, if found in Afghanistan living their life under the liberties enshrined by the constitution of India — became their role model. All because it did a press conference. Who cares if they had assault rifles in their hands while they did it? And who cares if they declared that they would impose harsh Sharia law in Afghanistan now? They did a press conference and PM Modi didn’t. Indian liberals are real characters.
Read More: NDTV and others are promoting the myth of Taliban 2.0 with some great PR
But unlike his predecessors, PM Modi is known to think rationally and out of the box. He has done away with numerous archaic laws of the British raj that has hampered the bureaucracy in the country. The red-tapism that has contributed to the lethargy of the ‘babus’ has been done away with. Ask Cyrus Poonawalla who recently commended PM Modi and his cabinet for streamlining the vaccine manufacturing process.
Similarly, PM Modi has started a trend where subject experts are given the opportunity to stay in the limelight and ruminate the public, as well as the media about various government policies.
Earlier, the subject matter experts used to brief the PM and he/she used to present the rote numbers and figures without having any cadence to keep the conversation going as reporters peeled the nuances of the policy. It hindered the communication process and ended up causing more confusion, rather than clearing it.
Perhaps, it was the reason why during the first and second waves of the pandemic, the Health Ministry led by then Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, Health Secretary and ICMR professionals conducted the press conferences with charts, numbers, facts and everything in between.
The press conferences cleared the picture and provided every little detail about the government’s plan to deal with the virus. However well-briefed PM Modi might have been on the matter, he allowed experts to communicate the government’s decisions and assessments to the country, as it should be.
And what intended outcomes are press conferences supposed to reach? What do the media and opposition intend to learn from it apart from government policies and the ideas behind those policies? The Modi cabinet is already providing data on such policies with ample transparency through experts, ministers of their respective departments. The myth that Modi or Modi cabinet does not conduct press conferences has no leg to stand upon.
Take the entire Twitter and IT laws saga – every alternate day, the then Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad came out, fielded questions from the media and put forth the government’s position. It would have made no sense for PM Modi to get down and play dirty with an obviously partisan big tech company. There is a reason why he has such a big cabinet.
Moreover, the subject experts, if and when found wanting in their work were given a swift tap on the back as well. Both Ravi Shankar Prasad and Harshvardhan were called back to the pavilion after PM Modi found them coming short in dealing with their respective ministries.
And as laymen, we’d rather have a subject expert guide us than our political leader. It gives us clear details straight out of the expert’s mouth and save the Prime Minister’s precious time. Why should the PM waste his time giving media bytes every now and then even when it is not required?
Meanwhile, those claiming that PM Modi is afraid of press conferences should take a little trip down memory lane and look for videos where he has schooled the likes of Rajdeep Sardesai, Farooq Abdullah and Digvijay Singh. PM Modi is no greenhorn when it comes to Press conferences. While the Lutyens media wishes to corner Modi on the 2002 riots but Modi has played them perfectly.
Earlier, the Khan market gang used to settle cabinet berths and had their noses and ears in every policy decision. But the Modi government has kept them at an arm’s length. The TRP hungry media wants PM Modi in Press conferences to further their agenda by asking obviously vendetta driven questions.
By taking himself out of the equation and forcing the media to do its homework whilst dealing with subject experts in press conferences, the ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ journalists have not been able to fill in the gossip sections.
By portraying the Taliban as benevolent because they said sorry after killing Danish Siddiqui. By calling them civil and comparing it with the Modi government because their gun-wielding spokespersons conducted a press conference, the liberal cabal has shown its mental ineptitude, muddled thinking process and of course the inability to bring novel ideas to take on PM Modi.
