It seems that in the ongoing exercise by some vested interests to derail Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption, the habitual Narendra Modi-bashers have got a fresh opportunity to attract headlines and enhance their career prospects—persons associated with the non-governmental organisations getting additional grants from their patrons in India and abroad, officials going to greener pastures with the help of the central government and journalists managing foreign junkets and invitations to the high-profile and lavishly-funded seminar circuits. Sometimes, I wonder if the people, who have built their careers by demonising the Gujarat Chief Minister, are grateful to Modi in the heart of their hearts.
Incidentally, Anna, in a press conference organised by the Press Club of India, had said, while answering a question, that he liked Modi’s developmental work in the rural areas. Importantly, he had also said that Nitish Kumar in Bihar was doing a good job on the rural front. But what has happened since then is that Anna is being projected as a great supporter of Narendra Modi’s type of politics, despite the social activist’s repeated denial. Nobody is talking of poor Nitish Kumar in the process. Actually, the Bihar Chief Minister should be happy that because of the preponderance of the Narendra Modi-bashers in the national media, his record in rural development has not come under scrutiny. After all, if ground realties in Bihar are any indication, Nitish’s record is not all that great to write about and that his reputation is based on the positive image that he has been able to build with the help of the national media, dominated as it is by the so-called leftist and secular elements.
On the other hand, each of Modi’s “achievements” have been seen with suspicion. The Modi-baiters are aghast at the manner in which organisations, controlled by the so-called secular central government, have been pointing out the much-better progress being made by the Gujarat government in various fields, compared to those state governments which are led by the “secular” political forces. In Gujarat today, everybody gets assured power supply and there has been 9.8 per cent growth rate in agriculture, as against the national average of 2-3 per cent growth. Under Modi, other socio-developmental indicators such as literacy, female education and mortality rate have shown distinct improvement. Here, one does not hear about farmers’ suicide; nor have there been wars when industry has acquired lands.
Even, as the Sachar Committee has revealed, the much-abused Narendra Modi’s Gujarat was the best state as far as the Muslims were concerned. In terms of literacy level, Muslims in Gujarat stood at 73.5 per cent as compared to the national average of 59.1 per cent. While the figure for the urban males was 76 per cent, it was 81 per cent for those living in rural areas as compared to the national average of 70 per cent and 62 per cent respectively in similar category. Even Muslim women in the urban areas of Gujarat have average literacy rate 5 point higher than that of the national average, whereas their counterparts in rural areas of Gujarat fare even better with a literacy rate of 57 per cent as compared to the national average of 43 per cent, in similar category. Also in Gujarat, a greater percentage of Muslims have attained primary, secondary and higher secondary-level education, compared to the national average and other states. Against the national average of 60.9 per cent (and 42.2 per cent in UP), Gujarat had 74.9 per cent Muslims at the primary level, while the percentage is 45.3 at secondary level as compared to national average of 40.5 per cent and 29.2 per cent in Uttar Pradesh.
In terms of per month per capita income, the Sachar Committee said that Muslims in the urban areas of Gujarat earn an average of Rs 875, which is more than the national average of Rs 804. In contrast, it is Rs 662 in Uttar Pradesh and Rs 748 in West Bengal. In rural Gujarat, the per capita monthly income of the Muslims is 20-25 per cent more than the Muslims living in the rural areas of most other states. It is on an average of Rs 668 as compared to the national average of Rs 553. In terms of people living below poverty line, Gujarat had 54 per cent Muslims living below poverty line in 1987-88, while the figure stood at 34 per cent in 2004-2005, showing a healthy pace of improvement. Even in terms of share of Muslims in government jobs, it is 5.4 per cent in Gujarat, while it is 2.1 per cent in West Bengal.
Of course, these figures predate the latest census, whose interim findings have just come out. But when the new figures will be out, the record of the Modi government in the above fields is unlikely to be adversely affected, though our biased media elites are keeping their fingers crossed. I remember in this context how a leading television channel, known for its hatred for Modi, ran a programme during the last elections of the Gujarat Assembly. In this programme a Surat-based diamond merchant said: “What is the use in having electricity, if people are forced to pay for its consumption? Earlier we never paid for electricity. We never cleared our bills, but nobody cut our connections. But under Modi, not only are our connections cut, we are also being forced to go to courts to face legal charges against us,” while vowing that he would campaign for Modi’s ouster.
In other words, the channel thought that there was nothing wrong in stealing electricity, as long as Modi was denigrated. It was not impressed by the fact that Modi did not care much about populist politics of “subsidy-raj”, which, in reality, favours the rich like the diamond merchant, not the poor. If one goes by the real meaning of populism, it challenges status quo and is invariably against the elites. But in India, if populism has assumed wrong connotations, it is precisely because of the fact that the populist leaders here are essentially status quoists and pro-establishment—they do not want change; they want captive vote banks, which is possible when the people remain poor and poverty is glorified. Modi seems different. He believes in delivering goods to the people, provided people pay for those goods. No wonder he is disliked by India’s traditional political class and that includes many in even his own BJP.
The Modi-bashers are now going berserk, over the last few days, in the wake of senior Gujarat IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt giving an affidavit to the Supreme Court that the communal riots in 2002 were instigated by Narendra Modi. I am not going to discuss Modi’s role which is under Supreme Court’s investigation, but what I find amazing is the ease with which the media has taken Bhatt’s accusations as gospel truth. What has this gentleman been doing all these years? What is his service record? The 1988-batch IPS officer in his very first posting at Jamnagar had allegedly beaten a local journalist. In his second posting at Rajpipla as ASP, he was involved in a case with the royal family there for not leaving one of their properties which he was using as his residence. Bhatt has also been involved in an alleged kidnapping of a Rajasthan lawyer. So much so that the Gujarat government had to pay a hefty fine for Bhatt’s action, following strong indictment of the National Human Rights Commission. As Rajkot DCP earlier, he is reported to have a run-in with his senior officer and the present DGP Chittranjan Singh, in connection with an alleged land-grabbing case.
The selective presentation of the Bhatt episode, or for that matter overplaying of any allegation against Narendra Modi, by our national media is the concrete manifestation of the decline of journalistic credibility in India today. Most of our so-called investigative journalisms are not genuine exercises and are being done with some vested interests and often under the directions of the rivals of the persons or groups being investigated. I consider this to be another version of paid news.
By Prakash Nanda
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