Hindustan Times
Modi: Goodwill hunting, but should he get it?
Nations can sometimes be found grappling with an odd political dilemma: should controversial leaders be praised when they get things right?
Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, is doggedly turning his state around. Industrialists fawn over his business-friendly manner. Foreign investments come chasing him. Mukesh Ambani, a fellow Gujarati industrialist counted as one of the world’s richest, almost has a man crush on him.
Elsewhere, investors still run into bureaucratic walls, but they are instantly cleared in Gujarat.
Ratan Tata, the head of Tata Sons – India’s second-biggest conglomerate that earns nearly 65% of its revenues from business abroad — loves to recall how he was offered a manufacturing place for the world’s cheapest car in just three days, after being driven out from Communist-ruled West Bengal.
Gujarat makes up for 5% of India’s population, but accounts for 16% of its industrial production, 22% of exports, has a literacy rate of 79.8% and is growing at 11% (above the national GDP of 8%). It produces more power than it needs and in 2009, contracted FDI worth US $ 243bn by signing over 800 MoUs.
Gujarat is moving fast on socio-economic indicators, although they are not the best in class. In India, good teachers are a scarce national resource. So, from children in village primary schools to would-be doctors in medical colleges, students in Gujarat are taught extensively using satellite-based EDUSAT modules. Now, Modi has grander projects. He has offered a location for India’s first geospatial technology park.
Few states can think of matching these benchmarks. Europe and the US, which still consider him a diplomatic pariah, are rethinking on doing business with him.
Today’s Gujarat serendipitously matches up against Germany of the Forties.
In 1929, stung by an economic depression, America rolled back its foreign loans, which ruined Weimar Germany. Its unemployment rose to 6 million. The government was helpless; the economy lay in tatters and middle-class Germans frustrated. This helped the Nazis to come to power.
Germans who suffered a great deal during the First World War and the Depression welcomed Hitler’s rejuvenating economic policies. Jobs were back. By 1939, unemployment in Germany was nearly wiped out. Public works were efficiently organised. Industrialists backed Hitler with money and investment.
A scheme was devised to allow workers to buy a Volkswagen Beetle for small weekly installments. Ordinary Germans could now buy a car and drive one on gleaming autobahns, much like the road from Ahmedabad to Surat.
The Nazis set up the SdA (Beauty of Work) to help Germans see dignity in work. They abolished trade unions and gave more power to the industrialists. Then came the Autarky — an attempt, though unsuccessful — to make Germany self-reliant.
There was also the KdF (Strength through Joy), which rewarded good workers with entertainment facilities and free holidays. There were so many good things about life in Nazi Germany. In a nutshell, Germany was strong and successful, much like our Gujarat.
Does history allow praise for Hitler for all that he achieved during his demagogic rule? It doesn’t, due to Hitler’s devilish extermination of millions of innocent Jews.
Modi’s fate is somewhat similar. US still hasn’t lifted a travel ban on him. “Do we want Indian demagogue in Canada?” said the Toronto Star recently, following an invitation sent to Modi to visit the country.
Despite his achievements, Modi’s troubled past ensures he remains a polarizing figure. In late January, Maulana Vastanvi, the current head of Darul Uloom, the seat of Sunni Islam in India, suggested that Muslims were benefiting from the state’s progress. That sent Muslims, who saw the remarks as endorsing Modi, gunning for the cleric’s scalp.
Nine years ago, in his state, Hindu-Muslim riots claimed more than 1,000 lives, three-quarters of them Muslims, dying at the hands of Hindu mobs. Modi has been accused of not preventing the killing of Muslims deliberately.
A team appointed by the Supreme Court to investigate charges against him has indicted him for trying to “water down” the seriousness of the killings and even justifying them, according to leaked media reports. The team however is said to have concluded that there is not enough evidence to try Modi.
Modi, however, is not doomed like Hitler. He has the option of reaching out to Muslims in a more obvious way. We have heard praises for Modi from Muslims, but haven’t yet heard Modi even remotely regret the killings of 2002. The onus of moving on should not lie on Muslims alone.
(69 votes, average: 2.35 out of 5)
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The current investigation into the bomb blasts.
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Ravi Reply:
February 6th, 2011 at 8:12 pm
The Hindu Right of which Narendra Modi is a standard-bearer believe:
1. Purity of Aryan Blood and Volksgeist.
2. They find Italian and German Fascist ideas appealing.
3. That Hindus for centuries have been emasculated and humiliated.
4. This needs to be cleansed and avenged, even if it takes riots and demolitions.
5. Modi presided over mass killings and rape of innocent muslims.
I could go on, but life is too short.
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jay Reply:
February 6th, 2011 at 11:38 pm
Hindus don’t want revenge from anyone, son….
All we want to do is uplift the poverty…..and to have a say in our own country, where we are still second class citizens……as the country even today is run by a forigner.
jai hind.
Btw…..Ravi…you don’t have to hide behind a hindu name, you can put your true name here….i’m sure it’s beautiful…no matter who you are.
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Ravi Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 2:42 am
Jay
Thanks for calling me your son, you would’t if you knew me.
I am not hiding.
Why should I hide, what would you do if you knew my true identity. Attack me. Ha ha ha.
I am a Liberal Hindu, and you are a stupid man, who thinks that any one, who is critical of Hinduism, must be a Mulsim. For you life must be very simple.
Hinduism is more than 6000 years old, so is poverty, so when do you think this noble task of eradicating poverty will be completed. What is being done about it?
How do you think that those who by virtue of their low caste are in a poverty trap – put their by Upper Caste Hindus – get out of this poverty.
That foreigner is more of an Indian than you ever will be dad. In the last election, everyone in India knew about the Italian origins of Sonia Gandhi, yet they voted for her in droves.
You are one sad looser. Dad
Ravi is my real name and I am a Liberal Hindu. However, you can imagine what ever shite that suits your inherent prejudices.
Simba Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 3:42 am
Ravi, Who knows whether you are using a Hindu name but representing hardline Muslims. Since we have people like you and this writer India cannot progress.
Ram Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 4:26 am
Ravi, you are quick to point out the agenda of the Hindu (right as per you). How about the agenda of the muslim right? You call yourself a liberal hindu, but are completely silent about what happened to our Sikh brothers in 1984 and what happened to the kar sevaks just before the Gujarat issue. Why are/were Rajiv Gandhi and congress allowed to get away with such a heinous crime. I am amazed at the double standards here, it is securalism when standing up for muslims but do nothing for victims of hate crimes in other cases. Justice is for one and all. This kind of selective justice is of no use.
Bhavesh Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 11:02 am
Hey Ravi,
Poor exist in all caste whether it is brahmin or others. May be some of ur point is true but your have very poor logic to judge anything. Killing any one is “gunah” in all religion. Better you just improve your knowledge.
Thanks
Tejas Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 11:42 am
Ravi,
I can not believe that you are a Hindu. I can imagine a liberal Hindu criticising Modi but can not imagine trying to prove that Muslim Brotherhood is better than RSS. The so called saffron terrorism might be a reality but not as widespread as the so called green terrorism and the only way to stop safron is to stop green. And even if you are a “liberal”, you guys have no credibility because you are squarely one sided. So much so that you are more anti Hindu and anti India then liberal.
s.asim Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 11:52 am
Dear Mr.Ravi,
A liberal Hindu can do introspection but should not indulge in self-destruction. You read the history of India, we were subjugated by the Muslims and British basically because by the so-called liberal Hindus-Jaychand, Rai Durlav etc. History has not taught any lesson.From yr. note it seems that there was no destruction of temples prior to Babri demolition or there was no riots before Gujarat riot. Pl. read the riots of Noakhali,Direct Action Day,( don’t read any Hindu’s books, read Will Durant that will be enough) and so many more, also the history of temples destruction which continues unabated even today, see the Kali temple of Ramna (Dacca) has been converted into a public toilet if yr. blood does not boil you are really cold blooded.
I can’t blame the Muslims, it is people like you and the Media who are not allowing a healing touch, to proceed forward.
s.asim
B.V.SHENOY Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Ravi,
Just as Indians have voted for the foreigner in droves, Gujaratis too have voted for Modi in droves twice and in the recent local body elections, Muslims too ahve voted for Modi in droves. If this doesn’t prove that Modi takes care of all Gujaratis irrespective of their religion, so does Sonia Gandhi remain a foreigner.
By the way, do you think Ram Aautar is a Hindu?
farid Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 2:41 pm
@s asim
–have you seen RAMNA KALI MANDIR?
—your wrote it out of hatred or anger.
–not based on facts.
– I had been there many times.
–pl.go to the place then write about —-findings.
– propagation of hatred –based on wrong ideas/facts–helps none.
ram autar Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 12:11 am
rape murder and` killings of muslims was goining on from 1969.69 mascare was no less to 2002.but indira ,being wife of a muslim(feroze)was afraid to catch the culprits,due to safety of her sons.
rss snake very smooth skin.snake with smooth skin usually has more poison.
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Hamid Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 3:22 am
Bewakuf Feroz Gandhi is never muslim, he is a parsi.
ram autar Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 5:14 am
ghandhi made him parsi.he was from khan family of gujrat.ghandhi dont exist in allhabad.ghandhi was brought from south africa by brhmns to divide country between hindu and
muslim.and finish reforms in indian society started by britishers.so instead of singing something great for india.he started singing ISHWAR ALLAH TERE NAM.
Satish Haldankar Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 9:32 am
This is in response to ram autar.
Get your facts right. To be a Parsi, one must have a Parsi father. Children of a Parsi woman and a non-Parsi man are not admitted to the Zoroastrian faith. There is no such thing as conversion to the faith.
However, even if the contention (false anyway) that Feroze Gandhi was original a Muslim, so what? Is it a crime?
Gaurav MAlik Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 10:15 am
Plzzzz check history, he was not parsi….., He is muslim, son of vegetable seeler of gujarat. This was hide from people of india so that she can be PM. this is bbludyyyyy politics.
Satish Haldankar Reply:
February 8th, 2011 at 9:33 am
Gaurav
Which history? The distorted history by the RSS, which has been spreading falsehoods, lies and untruths?
Bhavesh Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 11:03 am
Haaaaaaaaa sick man
Amit Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 9:58 am
I agree, ur life and people of ur likes will have it too short……life and brain both
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