June – July of 2024? Oh that’s too far, isn’t it? The answer to these questions is both yes and no. For the last many years, the Lok Sabha elections are held in the months of June and July and next year will be no different. So, the current government still has a little bit more than a year to execute its policies and prepare its agenda for the elections. For the opposition, it is time to start making decisions on how it will go about Lok Sabha Elections 2024. So in that context, the answer to those questions is no.
But for the public in general or in other words the voters of India the months of June and July are indeed far from today as the election doesn’t affect them right now and they can think about them at the turn of next year. The ever-ready left–liberal ecosystem has already started to oil its outdated and rusty anti-India and anti-Modi machinery. If the documentary on the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi by BBC is anything to go by, the Lok Sabha Elections 2024 will not be any different than the previous two.
Let me admit that I have not seen that anti-Modi documentary by the BBC and I have no intention to watch it either. There are a few reasons for not watching it. One is that it is again talking about the Gujarat riots of 2002 and two is that it is produced by the BBC whose anti-India and anti-Modi stand is known to me for the last many years. Hence, in this blog, I will not indulge myself in how the documentary is made and how much truth or lies it tries to spread.
My focus in this blog will be that why this flogging the dead horse kind of activity by the left–liberal ecosystem worldwide to demean Narendra Modi is going to get fail again miserably in their preparation for the Lok Sabha Elections 2024. Being a Gujarati I have always said that the 2002 post-Godhara riots were one of the big blots in Gujarat’s history. But then being a Gujarati I also accept two facts. First, the anti-reservation agitation of 1985 under the rule of the Congress Chief Minister Madhav Sinh Solanki, which later turned into communal riots was deadlier than in 2002. I can also say that the 1992 communal riots of Gujarat under the rule of another Congress Chief Minister Chimanbhai Patel were even deadlier than 1985, forget 2002.
The second fact that I always accept is that the 2002 riots started because 59 Karsevaks were burned alive in a railway coach by jihadis and whatever happened two days later was a reaction to it. This fact is easily hidden and always gets backstage when left–liberal ecosystem tries to portray Gujarat and we Gujaratis in a bad light, but millions of Gujaratis like me have never forgotten what spark the post-Godhara riots. We also know that those riots of 2002 were controlled by the then Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi with his swift actions in much better time than in 1985 and 1992 respectively.
So, these are the facts or real things of the Gujarat riots of 2002 that get no notice or are easily ignored by that ecosystem. But, what they think is that by rising and discussing those riots again and again in the public domain and also worldwide they will be able to dent the image of Narendra Modi, Gujarat, and now India. The documentary BBC that talks about these riots are another attempt by the foreign media to support the Indian left–liberal ecosystem. Then again after two decades are passed already and since 2002 Narendra Modi by providing good governance in Gujarat raised his image immensely and today he is the Prime Minister of India after winning the popular vote across the country, another fact remains that this ecosystem doesn’t want to understand or wants to agree that people have moved on in last two decades.
Since 2002 in every assembly election in Gujarat this issue was raised and the BJP and Narendra Modi kept gaining more and more votes and seats in the assembly. Last month the latest results of the Gujarat Assembly Elections 2022 were announced and without Modi being CM of the state for last almost nine years, the BJP won 156 seats in the 182 seats house, a number that no other party has matched in the history of Gujarat’s politics. Even in the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, the BJP won 282 seats, a clear majority for the first time and in 2019 it won 303 seats. These two elections also saw the propaganda of 2002 being marketed by the opposition parties and their ecosystem, but it failed and BJP gained more than ever before.
So, the point is that by staging such drama again and again either self-created or with the help of some foreign hand, the opposition parties like the Congress, TMC, SP, RJD, AAP, and the left, will not gain any success convince the voters of the Lok Sabha Elections 2024, that Narendra Modi is miserable for them and for India. Yes, by organizing this 2002-related stuff they can keep their image of saviors in the minds of the Muslim voters but they will not be able to woo the majority Hindu voters, because the Hindu voters are now surely getting committed towards Modi and the BJP.
The most important part of this debate is why should people of India believe in what the BBC is saying when the Supreme Court of India has time and again given its clean chits to Narendra Modi. The latest verdict came last year when the top court again rejected the plea by Zakia Jaffery to start the trial against Modi for his alleged inactivity to control the 2002 riots. The Indian public has grown up intellectually pretty fast in the last three decades or so. We know what is right and what is not. Who is telling the truth, a half-truth, a lie, or an utter lie? With the social media boom in India, Indians have become more enlightened, more informed, and more precise in their thinking and also in their decision-making process. In such a scenario, if you still think that 2002 will work for you to topple Narendra Modi then it is a foregone conclusion that you are not living in the present.
Not only Indians, but the leaders and the people world over are now seeing and analyzing Narendra Modi in a totally different way. Because the same ecosystem I have talked about before was working like well-oiled machinery from 2004 to 2014 it got success to malign the image of Narendra Modi in foreign countries. But ever since Modi has taken over the reins of India, things have started to change and now world leaders see him as one of the most powerful and important factors to decide the world agenda.
Narendra Modi has not only made Indian borders stronger, but he has also dared to show his guts when big terror attacks happened in the country and answered them in the same language. Twice India made strikes inside Pakistan after two major terror attacks on the Indian army protecting the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The same Narendra Modi government has shown the courage to remove articles 370 and 35A that were giving special treatment to the state of J&K. The same Indian government under Modi sent thousands of anti-Covid vaccination doses to many poor, small and third-world countries and won their hearts.
In this era, people’s perception regarding political views changes fast within hours and 20 years is a long time. Maybe there are sections of Indian society that still want to live in 2002 and don’t want to progress, but the vast majority of the country has moved on. Today India is making progress on many fronts both inside and outside the country. A common Indian sees feel and experiences this change himself. But if the left–liberal ecosystem doesn’t want to see this change or doesn’t want to be part of it then Indians will not wait for them to join.
For me, this BBC documentary is just the start of another smear propaganda against Narendra Modi that we will experience in the next one and half years or in other words prior to Lok Sabha Elections 2024. The first assault has come from a foreign country, but many more will come slowly but surely from within the country, where a well-spread ecosystem is still working with its utmost power despite the BJP government is now almost 9 years old.
But, I don’t see things going to change on the ground. The Modi government has executed plenty of pro-people policies successfully and that has benefitted every needy Indian without the discrimination of his or her religion. Hence this foreign or local vicious campaign that started with the BBC’s anti-Modi documentary will hardly have any effect on the mindset of the Indian voters when he will go to vote for the Lok Sabha Elections 2024 in the months of June and July.
Till the next time we meet, it’s Avjo from my side.
21st January 2023, Saturday
Ahmedabad
SiddTalks
