When someone is just a kid he first experiences the power of rumors while in schools through his classmates. When a person gets grown-up he continuously passes through the world of rumors shaping around him. These rumors can be about him or about someone else he knows or doesn’t know. There is another name for this ‘quality’ humans have, and we better know it as ‘gossips’ that gives us a very soft impression of rumors.
History has noted that rumors have played a great role in throwing out kings and queens from their extremely powerful positions, even when they felt extremely safe about the power that they are holding, so one can easily understand the devastating impact it can do on someone. After the rise of social media in India, Indians are more or less aware of how Indian media is always willing and looking forward to spreading a different kind of rumors and call it authentic why quoting “our sources” that never exist.
Since 2014 the ethical fact-checkers on social media have busted such wrong pieces of information which were spread under the cover of ‘sources’ time and again, but our media always remain carefree and keeps on spreading wrong information just to create ripples in the various fields that effect our lives. Mostly in India, we can find rumors have been spread by media in the fields of politics, cricket, and Bollywood. These three are their favorite soft targets so that it can sit back and enjoy the aftershocks of the misinformation or fake information it has spread among the people in general.
Most of the time the sufferers have to come out in public to deny rumors making rounds in media about them. For starting our media does give this denial space but not without forcing their views that this denial can be wrong as well, again according to their ‘sources’. So these rumor mills keep on churning news for our media for many days.
We can easily say that such rumors are the other face of fake news or the fake narrative some people or a group of people spread to create a bad image about various celebrities and governments. Even after a strong and point-by-point denial, as mentioned above, they create a picture that the denial is wrong and not their fake narrative.
Anyways if we keep aside the rumors about the entertainment industry and sports fraternity, one must keep checking about facts if a rumor is a political rumor. Whether we believe it or not but a political rumor can certainly affect our daily lives as politicians decide our nation’s fate, whether they are right people or wrong. I have also said the same at the beginning of this blog while discussing the kings and queens losing their power due to rumors spread against them.
A political rumor can, at the end of the day, destabilize a stable government easily. The Chandrasekhar government in the early 1990s fell just because of a rumor that a few Delhi policemen were found roaming around the residence of the then former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Congress claimed that these policemen were spying about who’s coming and who’s going out of Gandhi’s home. Despite a strong denial from the government, the Congress withdrew its support, and Chandrasekhar’s government fell after just six months of being in the power.
Last week two strong rumors were spread by the media and both were political rumors. One was regarding the Shiv Sena may get back in the NDA fold and the other one, which was even looking stronger than the first one, the differences between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath. First, let us check about the Shiv Sena matter and then the ‘so-called’ differences between the PM and the CM of UP.
Maharashtra’s Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray met Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week at the latter’s official residence in the National Capital. After the meeting, the media asked the usual questions to Uddhav regarding the change of heart of his party to re-join the NDA. Uddhav Thackeray categorically denied this speculation and said that he has personal relations with Mr. Modi apart from the political ones and he can meet him using that capacity as well.
But media, as we know will never take back a step from the rumors it has started and it was helped by the Shiv Sena spokesman Sanjay Raut when he praised Narendra Modi just a day after Uddhav Thackeray’s meeting in Delhi. Again the speculations started in the media and the social media that something is definitely wrong in the Maha Vikas Aghadi and huge differences have surfaced between Shiv Sena, NCP, and Congress and hence Uddhav met Modi and Raut is praising the Prime Minister.
But if you look at the pictures which came out of that meeting you can clearly see that the former Chief Minister of Maharashtra Ashok Chavan and the current Deputy Chief Minister of the State and NCP leader Ajit Pawar is also sitting along with Uddhav Thackeray and Narendra Modi. This means that this trio has come down to Delhi to discuss issues related to their state as they are parts of the Maharashtra government. Only a fool can imagine that Uddhav Thackeray is discussing the realignment with Narendra Modi in presence of Congress and NCP leaders who are the current partners with him in Maharashtra.
Logically such discussions normally start with party top brass first and then once all the nitty-gritty are finalized, the formal proposal for the permission goes to the topmost leadership of the parties where a Chief Minister and a Prime Minister get involved. This is the simple logic every reasonable follower of Indian politics understands, but our media would take everyone for granted and starts spreading rumors.
Now about the second and somewhat stronger rumors about PM Modi and CM Yogi, although it was again certainly a laughable scenario for politically intelligent people of India. No one can deny that differences between two tall leaders of a political party can be a possibility, but that doesn’t mean that one of them is a rebel in the making. If Yogi Adityanath is a tall leader of the BJP then Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the tallest of all of them and probably the undisputed leader of the BJP currently.
A minor issue like not having his photo in a party propaganda poster in Uttar Pradesh cannot disturb Narendra Modi for sure. As mentioned above it is certainly laughable logic to say the least that Modi would get angry on Yogi on above said issue and Yogi had to run all the way from Lucknow to New Delhi to clarify his stand. If I have understood BJP’s current and next-generation politics well then after Narendra Modi, Amit Shah could be the one who will replace him and Shah can be then replaced by Yogi only when his turn comes up to lead India if the BJP keeps retaining power at the center in next 20 to 25 years.
So, in that case, one would certainly believe that Yogi is definitely not in hurry to overtake Modi and Modi too is aware of this fact and he sees no threat from Yogi as well. A huge public support Modi still enjoys even after COVID 19 scenario, and those big leaders of the BJP might have dropped the idea to challenge Modi in the 2024 general election as the Prime Ministerial candidate. The same goes for Yogi as well. Despite leading India’s most populous state, with his leadership skills he has shown greater control over the spread of COVID 19 in the state. That also proves the point that he too is not going to lose his position anytime soon.
So, the conclusion is that rumors will always remain rumors. If it is political speculation then one must study the facts first and the background of the situation with utmost sincerity and then make any conclusion, because as I said before that political rumors can ultimately affect our routine life as well. Even if you don’t like politics you have to get the overall idea of any news you feel suspicious by nature, because these days the media wants to dictate terms and wants to rule the country on its wishes, and my individual thinking is, that it would be more dangerous if media rules us than corrupt politicians.
14th June 2021, Monday
Ahmedabad
SiddTalks
