Thank You Media: Flurrying debates actually helping Modi Govt

New Delhi, July 27: The unique enigma called the electronic media has done it again. Presenting a motley bunch of disconnected events as if it is a part of conspiracy of ‘Hindu nationalists,’ the last two days were busy days for them, with their swords out and lambasting the ‘dakiyanoosi desi’ Hindutva people. But whose cause did it helped is a debatable issue.

The welcome debate

The debate raised by electronic media about ‘Hindu rashtra’ should be a welcome deviation for the government. The same media was totally silent when Arun Shourie, as on numerous previous occasions, showed ‘How history was made up at Nalanda’, by leftist historians who are not ashamed of lies and half truths. But in the same Indian Express, when Ritu Sharma raised a trivial issue of a circular of Gujarat government recommending some books to schools which includes Dinanath Batra’s books, the entire electronic media went berserk as if the whole education system of India has collapsed. The first three points highlighted by her at the beginning of the article were the most debated ones shows that perhaps these people did not read even complete article, let alone the original books, which were in Gujarati any way. Half of them were not sure whether it is a must read book or optional reading. The biggest purported crime of the book was to remind the children about the historical India and its boundaries.

Perhaps knowing that they are blowing a non issue out of proportion, the media people tried to add various spurious events ranging from some small altercation in Maharashtra Sadan of Delhi, to real tensions in U.P. The Goan ‘Hindu Rashtra’ was added by some channels, completely ignoring the irony that a Christian person is endorsing the idea of Hindu rashtra.

A look at the issues

The ‘Akhand Bharat’ was much dreaded or derided by the media. Actually it was enough for them to have a look at the history of Europe, which they adore. Just two years after the bloodiest war in the history, the Second World War, the same nations came together. As of 1950, the European Coal and Steel Community began to unite European countries economically and politically in order to secure lasting peace. The six founders of EU are Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, which were bitter enemies in the war. Nobody blamed the people who put up the thought. Dinanath Batra rightly asked on NDTV, if Germany and Korea can unite, why not India?

In fact the global boundaries do keep changing. The erstwhile Soviet Russia is no more. Scotland is going for a referendum on 18th September this year for whether to stay in Great Britain or to be independent. Therefore the feasibility of the idea of ‘akhand Bharat’ can be debated, but it is definitely not a sin in itself to remember historic India.

The communal tensions

The other favorite issue of Modi baiters is communal passions and the risk to communal peace by ‘Hindutva’. Here again outdated arguments abound. A recollection of the facts of last decade will not be out of order here. Post 2002, there were two major communal riots in India. Both surpassed the Gujarat riots in severity. One was in Assam. The other was in U.P., the fumes of which are still simmering. It should be noted that nobody was able to even blame the ‘Hindutva’ forces in Assam and U.P. at the time of riots. Media handled the chief ministers of both states by kid’s gloves.

In the same period, there were brutal riots in Myanmar. The Central African Republic is on the verge of civil war due to Christian and Muslim extremist factions. The Rebels in Iraq and Syria are attracting Muslim youths from all over the world including India. In last two days, violence erupted across Europe over the tensions in Gaza, created by ‘pro-Palestinian’ [read Islamic] forces. This flow of global events shows the necessity of analyzing communal tensions with a fresh look, rather than stereotype blames on ‘Hindutva forces’.

Should Modi thank the media?

The Modi Government should be more than happy. The same electronic media, whose consistent baseless demonization of Modi helped him in the last decade to emerge from a regional leader to national level as champion of Hindutva forces, has done it again. The frenzied debates we experienced in last two days have helped the government to shift the focus of people from the difficult subject of governance and delivery of promises to the usual shrill debates over ‘communalization’ of Indian politics.

The challenge before Modi

It is not that Modi government is deviated from the course. Modi and his team are very silently but tirelessly pushing the huge bureaucratic machinery towards efficiency. But the challenges are huge. If they want to push Judicial reforms, there are more than 75 lakh pending Cases in the judiciary, thanks to the vain promises and failed efforts of ministers like Kapil Sibbal. On financial front there is resource crunch. The PPP model needs to generate an amount of about 1 trillion dollars for the five year plan of 2012-2017 to succeed. The government is trying to fast track the projects. On the background of very high expectations, there was very little time for the budget to be radically different. Talking in parliament, Jyotiraditya Shindia actually called the budget as continuation of UPA government, to which Shri. Arun Jaitley replied in his mild humour that “I thought he was praising the budget. Actually he was criticizing it.” On this background, it was very difficult for Modi government to make significant announcements without losing rationality.

The social media factor

Lastly, by raising the non issues, media is helping the BJP government in yet another way. The social media, i.e. the common people who are not media, strongly supported Modi in the last decade. They were somewhat silent after formation of the government, gauging the new issues of governance. But this is their familiar turf. One has to only see the flood of comments against any anti Hindu rhetoric on any website.

The constant anti Modi campaign of media helped him and the BJP rise to national prominence. Continuation of the same may take him to new heights. Can that be the leadership of ‘SAARC’ countries? Then it will be not far away from Batra’s ‘Akhand Bharat’.