{"id":4176,"date":"2023-01-26T20:46:29","date_gmt":"2023-01-26T15:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/?p=4176"},"modified":"2023-01-26T21:11:25","modified_gmt":"2023-01-26T15:26:25","slug":"where-modi-government-has-faltered-vis-a-vis-the-modi-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/where-modi-government-has-faltered-vis-a-vis-the-modi-documentary.html","title":{"rendered":"Where Modi government has faltered vis- a – vis the Modi documentary."},"content":{"rendered":"

Where Modi government, by banning documentary on prime minister: ‘ India: The Modi Question’, has unwittingly placed an albatross around its own neck.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Vivekanand Jha Ranchi:<\/strong> It was in 2014, I landed in Ahmedabad for the book launch of Delhi Beckons: RaGa for NaMo, in Vibrant Gujarat Education Summit, from Delhi. Coincidentally, I landed up at the garment shop, adjacent to the railway station, for buying a towel. Inadvertently, I landed up at the shop of a Muslim, without realising the ownership of the shop. My degree of exuberance showed an irrepressible urge to glean information about the Prime Minister, least aware of the fact that all the denizens of Ahmedabad need not be Modi admirers, especially the pockets of Muslim which remained pretty hostile to him. Barely had I broached Modi topic, lo and behold! the fussilades of bullets flew from the other end: ‘ Oh, for the heaven sake, do not talk about the murderer of innocent people. He had butchered the innocent people, and has the blood of innocents in his hand’. My blood boiled, I felt like punching that man who had spoken in such outrageous terms against the man who was the darling of the nation. Yet, being new entrant to the city, I did not respond to that man, as prudence suggested that I should prefer tobe a listener. Later while I alluded about the incident to certain people, they disdainfully dismissed it as preposterous concoction, not to be given any weightage, far less taken cognizance of, such balderdash. Unequivocally, I could make out that the ghost of Gujarat riots, which was unconscionably blown out of proportion by the secular brigades, systematically orchestrating the propaganda to depict Hindus in poor light, will have its long term implications, irrespective of Modi Reaching Delhi Durbar.<\/p>\n

Gujarat riots, with the benefits of hindsight, was neither the first not the last, communal riots in the country. However, as one of the core members of Sonia team, selected for keeping tab on Modi in 2010, working under Sam Pitroda, had revealed certain vital information to me, ‘ Look, Sonia Gandhi had figured out Narendra Modi as the potential threat for Rahul Gandhi; hence, she had formed a core team to pin Modi down’. Sri Ajaynath Jha, who is no more today, had confided in me then. Small wonder then, in the wake of riots in Gujarat breaking out, the pet journalists like Barkha Dutt, Sagarika Ghosh, Rajdeep and others, had landed up in Gujarat for witch hunting. Worse still, Arundhati, the foremost baiter of Hindutava, had left no stone unturned in her malicious endeavours to exaggerate the scale of riots in cahoots with her journalist friends and foreign collaborators to unleash a propaganda of humongous magnitude to stigmatise the Modi government in Gujarat and Vajpayee government in centre. Evidently, the conspiracy was of stupendous degree motivated to defame and disgrace Vajpayee government in Delhi, prompting the then Prime Minister to offer his famous advice on ‘ Raj Dharma’ to his colleague, Narendra Modi, the then chief minister of Gujarat. The chain of events followed to entrap Modi on one pretext or the other, pointed towards Modi, ever since Gujarat riots broke out, being the prime target of Sonia and her cohorts. Yet she failed drastically in her ulterior motto to frame Modi on one ground or the other.<\/p>\n

But then, ban placed against any book or documentary, far from extinguishing the fire engendered by the book or documentary, only aids in further aggravating it. For instance, Satanic Verse, which would have passed off as another novel, became the world famous, on account of the fatwa being issued against the author by Abdullah Khomeini of Iran. The poor Salman had to go underground to save his life, and finally when he resurfaced in US in a book function, he was stabbed by a fanatic. Lajja, another ordinary novel –there is nothing in that novel which could have contributed to its popularity had Taslima Nasreen, the author, would not have faced the death threats from Muslim fanatics. Today she is cooling her heels as a guest in India. In other words, had there been no threats to their lives, their books, as aforementioned, would never have arouse any extraordinary curiousity as they eventually did. Thus the inference which most legitimately would be drawn of the above situations is this: ignore the provocation and make it look so very ordinary, a pedestrian stuff; succumb to it, and make even an ordinary situation transpose into an extraordinary one.<\/p>\n

The recent BBC documentary on Modi: ‘ India: The Modi Question’, is the latest burning issue which has severely jeopardised the credibility of Modi government worldwide. Especially the hasty steps taken by the government to block the documentary from networking sites. Significantly, the observation of Jack Straw, the former foreign minister of U.K, who had pointed out the accusing finger at Narendra Modi for engineering the Gujarat riots in 2001, stirred the honest nest across India, and the world. Worse still, India being the host of G 23 group of nations in 2023, when the government began to take giant strides in the given direction, the government’s uncalled for move to block the documentary, unequivocally exposes the government to the charges of intolerance towards dissent and freedom of speech. Apparently, the government of India purportedly took a misstep which, with the situation deteriorating fast, appeared to have backfired: The government managers should have taken the past precedents of Satanic Verses and Lajja into consideration before acting on impulse. Prima facie, the movie appears to cause jittery to Narendra Modi when he was the chief minister of Gujarat, yet he should have soft- pedaled the issue; ignored the provocations galore to undermine him, and the documentary should have been allowed a free run. No wonder, had the government managers would not have raised a hue and cry on the issue of Indian sovereignty being under attack, with such documentary proving to be too big to shake the strong foundation of the republic, resulted in the spark quickly graduating into conflagration: The issue gaining currency is this: Modi government is rankled by the documentary; obviously the issues picked up, realy hurts, so there are elements of truth in them.<\/p>\n

With the benefits of hindsight, the decision to block the documentary, unnecessarily though, has given an opportunity for the Modi detractors and his opponents to unite. The issues shown in the documentary like the abrogation of Article 370 of Indian Constitution, CAA, the North-East Delhi riots, killings of Muslims for the killings of cows etc–all that to depict Modi as anti- Muslim–stands antithetical to reasons. However, there might have been omissions and commissions –keeping Kapil Mishra in BJP and Anurag Thakur as ministers, despite their obnoxious slogan of ‘ desh ke gaddaron ko goli maro saalon ko’– ought to have been punished, instead they were rewarded. Worse still, the fear psychosis prevailing today in opposition of investigative agencies being set upon them, is the vindication of Modi government taking recourse to arm twisting tactics for browbeating the opposition into submission. Unequivocally then, Indian democracy has not been the thriving one as it was when Vajpayee presided over nation’s destiny. Fearlessness, which was the hallmark of Vajpayee regime, appears to be conspicuous by its absence today under Modi dispensation.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Modi government is the need of the hour. With the ever burgeoning crises seeking to upend the polity, India today needs Narendra Modi at all cost. Also, the timing of the documentary itself engenders a serious question: how, with the general election being almost one and half year away, the release of this documentary raises severe scepticism in the minds of fellow citizens. Moreover, Rahul Gandhi, already embarking on his mission of ‘ Bharat Jodo’, the synchronisation of this documentary to put the question mark on the government’s credibility, snacks of serious conspiracy to emasculate the government. Interestingly, the release of this documentary has mobilised the Modi baiters once again to join hands to berate Narendra Modi by this witch hunting through this documentary, the ghost of which was long buried, especially when the apex court had given a clean chit to Narendra Modi. However, the version that the apex court, in view of its verdict of exonerating Modi, the matter ought to have been closed, appears flawed: The investigative journalism or a historian’s research has every right to reopen the discussions on the same issue upon which apex court had already given its verdict. All said and done! the decision of the Modi government to block this documentary stands flawed, for the blocking of this documentary has already given a fillip to the whole issue which has aroused the people’s curiosity to see that documentary. Willy nilly the Gujarat riots which should have been long buried, needlessly has gained salliance with this hasty steps of the government to block this documentary. In short, the documentary which would have passed off as the pedestrian one, unnecessary was given the unconscionable hype by the government’s own shakiness and lack of confidence on its own leader’s omissions and commissions in the past. Unfortunately, Modi government has stirred the honest nest by blocking the documentary, and it has to be steadfast in its approach to deal with its fallouts now.<\/p>\n

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Vivekanand Jha, author of Delhi Beckons: RaGa for NaMo, 56 Inches and The Making of Narendra Modi, Unmaking of Jawaharlal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Vivekanand Jha
\nAuthor, Academician and a Public Intellectual. He is the Convener of Education pe Charcha.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Where Modi government, by banning documentary on prime minister: ‘ India: The Modi Question’, has unwittingly placed an albatross around its own neck. Vivekanand Jha Ranchi: It was in 2014, I landed in Ahmedabad for the book launch of Delhi Beckons: RaGa for NaMo, in Vibrant Gujarat Education Summit, from Delhi. Coincidentally, I landed up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/GridArt_20230126_202510567-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C2560&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paS11m-15m","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/himalini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}