Modi, Shah and Kashmir

Ascension or rather re-ascension of Modi and Shah, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic doppelgänger, has caused unlikely flutters at the unlikeliest of places. In Kashmir, suddenly both separatists and collaborators have come together in fawning of the criminal duo in the Delhi durbar. The paeans seem to be flowing uninterrupted and the two of them, who in a civil world would be spending their time in hard labor wearing prison outfits, are being praised for their vision and virility. The scene has a feeling of been taken straight from A Tale of Two Cities, where Monseigneur having eased his four men of their burdens and taken his chocolate, caused the doors of the Holiest of Holiests to be thrown open, and issued forth. Then, what submission, what cringing and fawning, what servility, what abject humiliation! 

On the collaborator front that boy wonder Omar Abdullah, over the objections of his own father, seems to be leering a stitch up with Modi-Shah. One wonders how early the amnesia strikes the shameless tribe, otherwise that dimwit would remember the humiliation that visited Muftis after their Faustian bargain with Modi. What could be more discomfiting than the people shunning the funeral of Mufti Sayeed in his own home? Or is that Omar Abdullah doesn’t want too many attendees if and when his father leaves this world? One could never be sure about the devilish plans of a progeny. 

Why would suddenly separatists start seeing light in that thuggish duo, who essentially captured the throne in Delhi based on the atrocities unleashed on Muslims in Gujarat during riots of 2002? And Amit Shah as the state home minister was put in jail for orchestrating stage managed encounters. But then we do live in a post truth world or else we have crossed an alternate dimension and no one told me about that, but about one thing I am absolutely sure, Modi and Shah will have nothing but malice towards Kashmir. Sooner that hard fact is understood, better it would be for all concerned.

Dark cave and a monster

Just before the Indian election results were out on May 23, 2019, there was a spurt of articles in international media highlighting the true nature of Modi’s personality, divisive and polarizing, given to hyperboles, with an intrinsic hatred for anything intellectual, unapologetic Hindu nationalist, with scant respect of either truth or decency. It was not that international media had suddenly turned against Modi but rather analyses were based on observations of the person who built his entire life on total deceptions where his frequent claims to contradictory version of his own life didn’t add up to a logical truth. But given that in the five years of his first term he multiple times obliterated the borders between myth and history, unintentionally or intentionally distorted the history and historical figures, it hardly surprises anyone that he would add layers to his arid life built on tunnel vision that would not add up. 

While it would be hard to not acknowledge the gargantuan scale of his win yet it would be, at the same time, hard not to understand the power of his singularly divisive agenda of fear and hatred, inculcation of victim hood in Hindu psyche and priming it for retribution against what they call as a millennium of foreign domination, in relegating the real issues of governance to the background. From north to south and east to west, people voted for Modi for creation of a Hindu nation and assigning his massive victory to anything else simply doesn’t count, it’s an out loud message to minorities and dissenters that notion of an inclusive India had gone far too long. 

The image of Modi as savior of Hindu didn’t built up in last five years of his rule. The foundation of that image was laid when he went on air on that fateful day of the Godhra train burning and demanded charred bodies brought back to the state capital of his Gujarat; then he let hell loose on the Muslims of the state in the following days. The camps set up for the escaping Muslims were out loudly described by Modi as children producing factories and Hindus of the state roared in approval and the rest of the country’s majority people took a notice of him. From that point on it was a potent mix of business and ultra Hinduism.

His dominant government in Delhi since 2014 might have not fulfilled many of the promises, but he didn’t waver in his vision of division and cruelty. He maintained a steadied silence when his followers embarked on lynchings and killings overtly on the basis of religion; he unleashed a down right economic cruelty when he made 86 percent of people’s money redundant and famously made fun of it. Steve Forbes called that act as awful and immoral but nothing Modi ever did could be termed as Moral. How many people can forget a desperate call by Ahsan Jaffry to Modi when Hindu marauders attacked the Muslim dominated area during the 2002 riots in Gujarat only to be taunted? The only issue on which Modi remained steadfast in past years was to show the minorities their place and to strangulate all institutions of secularism, turn education and history into farce, fill scientific conferences with sessions on mythology.

The people voted in overwhelming numbers through the breadth and length for Modi, as a brilliant analyst called, they bought his vision of Hinduism hook, line and stinker; anyone trying to cloak it with a patina of vision probably doesn’t understand the term visionary. Nehru was a visionary, who built the edifice of democracy in a country full of contradictions yet didn’t become an autocrat. India might survive another five years of total domination of Modi, it will emerge a different place with scathed minorities. Five years is a long time and given his propensity for bluster and awol at the time of attacks on minorities, the country for now is headed  into a dark cave without knowing where it does end. Those from the majority who voted for Modi with gusto should not get too complacent, strong men need to feed their egos and find scapegoats for failures and never hesitate to turn their hoodlums  on anyone. It’s like you created a Frankenstein’s monster.

Exit polls of hatred

It is likely that those exit polls were mere wishes of the bootlicking media or perhaps an exercise in enriching themselves through stock market manipulation. On the latter account, the international situation might have rained on their aspirations.

But one cannot discount the possibility of those exit polls being true. One just has to imagine the ramification of that reality. This was not an election where sinister motives were cloaked under a blanket of progress and inclusiveness.

Communalism of the worst kind was in open display; the hatred particularly against Muslims was the theme of the entire campaign. Maligning of history and progressive historical figures remained foremost on their agenda.

If Modi wins that means Indians will have voted for that unhinged hate and bigotry without any excuse. Not that they voted for anything else in 2014. Lest they forget, the worst dictator in the history was approved by his people repeatedly for his zealousness for violence against the vulnerable. That didn't stop from him from ending ignominiously.

Unraveling of a malevolent clown

Modi has lost his mind or to put in simple terms, he has become mad; he’s behaving on the campaign trail like a panic stricken barmy nut. The most crucial phases of the current elections are almost; the question is why all of a sudden he has become so pathetic? Not that he was not always pathetic but there’s a symptom in his rantings that alternate with his self-pitying groveling. That has all of a sudden become a comic spectacle.

At this point, it wouldn’t matter much whether he wins as everyone has witnessed him into turning a complete lunatic. The metamorphosis of Modi from an authoritarian kook to a raving lunatic remains a mystery or perhaps not or maybe he knows something that we don’t; maybe the truth is about to catch up with him and five years of deceitful fudging of economic data were not enough to save him from falling in an abyss. Truth be told, he dragged everyone into the abyss with him. Surprise remains, why everyone is surprised?

Didn’t he use deceit to evict his predecessor to become the chief minister in Gujrat? Didn’t he incite and preside over genocide in the aftermath of Ghodra tragedy and didn’t he create an atmosphere of fear and terror during his time in Gujrat? Didn’t as the prime minister in last five years usher in an ambience of hate and criminality? Didn’t he choose to not utter a word when his followers unleashed lynching in the name of cow? Didn’t he remain silent when intellectuals opposed to him were murdered? Then, surprise to what end? We might as well enjoy the spectacle of his mental unraveling; the malevolent clown might yet win to continue his vision of hatred and deceit.           

Low life cretin

It was in June 2017, Modi attended the St. Petersburg International Forum meeting and for that occasion, Megyn Kelly from NBC was there to interview Vladimir Putin. During the course of that meeting, at one point  Putin, Modi and Kelly were walking together. Modi started drooling like a louche at flamingly blonde Megyn Kelly and told her, with a shamelessly grinning open mouth with all yellowish dark teeth, suitable for an underworld thug, that he had seen her profile picture with an umbrella on Twitter. Megyn Kelly responded with a characteristic nonchalance, "Oh really! Are you on Twitter?" Modi with his foolishly still open grinning shook his head in affirmative in manner of a famished dog being offered a bone. 

One would assume him from that incident him to be a docilely anodyne but foolish person but in reality Modi throughout has been a sinister human with a dark soul without a trace of any compassion, who manipulated himself into power through unethical machinations and unbound duplicity. It's his record in the government throughout and in particular as prime minister that reflects on his lowliness as a human being. His every action has been aimed to spread in hurt in the most vulnerable sections of the society. 

However, the worst in him comes from the fear of losing power and being voted out of power. And for that reason the electioneering brings out his inner darkness in him. No depth is too deep for him. Last time, fearing loss in Gujarat, he spread canard that the former prime minister, his predecessor, Manmohan Singh, a saintly scholar was hatching a conspiracy with Pakistan to win those elections.

Fresh in the midst of the current elections, he once against stooped that low that any human being would find it gross. Fearing loss to Rahul Gandhi, he resorted to attack his dead father. Rajiv Gandhi was blown to pieces by a Sri Lankan terrorist during an election campaign in 1991. But then Modi had also called Sonia Gandhi a Congress widow and characterized Rahul and Priyanka as autistics. Surprise is not that Modi acts like an ugly cretin, the unfathomable facts remains that there exists people who support such a creepy cretin. 

How do such people get themselves up in the morning and look into a mirror and not think of Akhlaq and Pehlu Khan, who were lynched by very thugs of Modi and who never uttered a word of remorse? Those were not the only people killed during the five years of Modi. There remains a long catalogue of heinousness that will grow in his next term.