Columnists
True Colours:
The Modi - BJP Leopard
T. SHER SINGH
King: Lions make leopards tame.
Mowbray: Yea, but not change his spots.
[Shakespeare, Richard II, i.1]
There is an easy opportunity for a good leader to show the world his strength.
Two, actually.
By showing some class upon victory … and upon defeat.
That Modi would be victorious has been a foregone conclusion for a few weeks. He’s had ample time to prepare for it.
So how has he performed so far, a week since his landslide electoral victory and the total decimation of his political opponents?
He’s performed the full gamut of rituals, appeared before a whole platoon of deities and thanked the stone idols, and covered every superstition in his firmament, to keep the omens right.
He’s daubed his forehead with a pound of sandalwood paste, and he’s liberally smeared vermillion over it. Apparently, this is how the gods purify you and give you their seal of approval.
He’s bowed his head and touched the ground at the seat of government -- apparently, all the goings-on within during the last 67 years have made it venerable and holy.
And he’s declared his party -- the BJP, the political front for the RSS -- to be his Mother.
There’s a long tradition amongst his people of calling things 'Mother'.
Anything that moves, anything that is frightening, anything that maims or kills or destroys, anything that wields power, gets declared a Mother.
The River Ganges is Mother.
The cow is Mother.
Countless idols are Mother. Kali (death) is Mother. So is Durga (power).
Indira Gandhi too, at the very height of her crimes against India and humanity, was proclaimed Mother.
So, not surprisingly, Modi announced yesterday that the BJP is now Mother too.
So is the RSS.
All of this is understandable, given the great religious traditions that Modi and his friends come from. Multiple gods and goddesses have to be appeased. The stars have to be assuaged. The brahmins have to be fed.
That's a big pile of sanctimony, isn’t it, from a man accused of being a mass-murderer, and whose party only in recent weeks engineered a slew of massacres of minorities in Muzzafarnagar and Assam in order to polarize their vote-base.
So, what else has Modi done so far, while he has been basking in the sun, and the world's been gawking in anticipation?
With still a few more days before he’s given the formal reins of power, here’s what has been accomplished with lightening efficiency:
One of his chief opponents has been dragged to jail.
Not a Congress leader, not any of the big guns Modi vanquished from UP or Bihar, but one who has proved to be the weakest, in terms of the seats he garnered in this election. [The predator pounces first on the weakest in the herd!]
BJP and his gang now directly control 336 seats out of a 543-seat House of Commons.
Arvind Kejriwal and his AAP -- the Aam Aadmi Party (the Common Man’s Party) -- won but four seats, even though the percentage of votes they attracted was substantial.
Yesterday, Kejriwal was summarily arrested and dragged to the Tihar Jail. That’s where they send rapists and murderers.
And Kejriwal’s crime?
During the campaign, Kejriwal had accused Modi’s crony, BJP leader Nitin Gadkari, of being ‘corrupt‘!
That’s it. That’s the extent of Kejriwal’s ‘crime‘ for which he is now sitting in one of India’s most notorious jails.
It is beside the point that Gadkari is corrupt. For heaven's sake, they’re all corrupt ... they all stink to high heaven.
But, more significantly, Gadkari has filed a defamation suit against Kejriwal. The matter is still pending. Some day, a judge will decide whether or not Kejriwal was being truthful. If not, he’ll be required to pay a fine.
So, why’s he in jail -- in the country‘s capital -- within days after Modi has been declared the leader of the country?
Because Kejriwal was asked to post a bond. For $160 or so.
He refused. This is political, he said, not a matter of crime and security.
Bail was refused by a judge who, with an eye on the new BJP warlords, refused to show spine.
And Kejriwal, one of the biggest names who opposed Modi, is already in jail.
Imagine! Within just five days of Modi and the BJP/RSS winning the election!
True colours?
Not much class, I'm afraid.
A leopard will not change his spots.
May 22, 2014
Conversation about this article
1: Labh Singh (New Delhi, India), May 22, 2014, 1:23 PM.
What's even more disappointing is that there hasn't been a single word of support for Kejriwal in the media. This for a man who was desperately trying to clean up this country by fighting its corruption. It's as if the entire media has suddenly reverted to its 1984 mode -- when, en masse, it had toed the government line!
2: Sangat Singh (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), May 22, 2014, 4:51 PM.
The new AAP had the attention of the whole world when it declared that half of the BJP politicians were corrupt, and this too after they were swept to total power. The AAP chief was hauled in. "Withdraw your statement or else ..." "OK, said the Chief. "I apologize and withdraw my statement ... What I meant to say was: Half of the BJP politicians are not corrupt."
3: G C Singh (USA), May 23, 2014, 10:20 AM.
The shape of things to come can be guessed from another incident yesterday when a Christian ship builder in Goa, Devu Chodankar, was arrested and sent to jail by a court in a BJP ruled state because of his comments on Facebook, fearing a Gujarat type holocaust against Christians after Modi becomes Prime Minister.
4: Dinesh Jhunjhunwala (New Delhi, India), May 23, 2014, 11:04 AM.
Arvind Kejriwal's incarceration has been extended by Two More Weeks to June 6. This horrendous story is still being ignored by the Modi-fawning media. Not a good sign for times to come for our country.