Early Times Report
Jammu, June 15: The massive victory of PM Narendra Modi in the just-held general election has not gone down well with his bitter critics in and outside India. The Congress, the Left, the BSP, the SP, the TMC, the RJD, the National Conference, the People's Democratic Party and their outside supporters and Left-leaning "intellectuals" have all described the Modi's victory as victory of pseudo-nationalism".
PM Modi didn't win because he had performed on the social and economic fronts but because of his oratory and his capacity to divert people's attention from the real issues facing the country and the general populace has been the major refrain of his critics.
"Nationalism can have a positive role in unifying people and transcending internecine group conflicts, but the kind of ethnic pseudo-nationalism that the RSS/BJP propagates is highly divisive, not unifying. If it is really the case that Modi's appeal can cut across castes and regions, and therefore is a positive step for India, then this nationalism has to transcend majoritarian ethnicity. It has to be, instead, a kind of 'constitutional nationalism', based on our constitutional values and norms. Modi once called the Constitution his 'holy book, but that has been mere empty rhetoric; in reality he has connived with his party members and associates, frequently violating the Constitution in letter and spirit," say the critics of PM Narendra Modi, including those in Kashmir who suffered a humiliating defeat in the general election and even those who could just make it to the Lok Sabha.
"Majoritarianism is not democracy. Effectively turning nearly 200 million people in our country into intimidated, second-class citizens is a violation of that constitutional nationalism, however impressive Modi's electoral victory may be. Concentration of power in one person, intimidation of critics and dissenters, weakening of institutions of checks and balances and misuse of police, bureaucracy, tax and investigative agencies against political opponents, are all gross violations of the Constitution which can put the world's largest democracy to shame," they also say.
The main grouse of the critics of Modi is that -- instead of contesting elections on social, democratic and economic issues - he contested elections on emotive issues, including Kashmir, Pulwma killing of 40 CRPF jawans, surgical strike, Balakot airstrike, Article 35A, Article 370, defence forces, Pakistan, national integration and Indian sovereignty. They have asserted that all these issues aroused popular passions and the result was that PM Narendra Modi won 303 seats.
All this suggests that the critics of PM Modi have still not learn any lesson from the 2019 mandate. PM Modi felt the pulse of the nation and he conducted himself accordingly and won and the Congress and other so-called secular parties treaded the path they had been treading since 1947 and they lost. |
