Modi in war phobia: Politics of Chowkidari

Radhakanta Barik

Two months back I was in my village where the migrant labourers have returned for harvesting works. In the morning they stand in the main lane of the village and make adda. They had no work and standing and gossiping or playing cards. This explains the nature of male workers today. Their number has declined progressively. It is reported in the Indian Express that 2011-12 data shows that from 30.4 cr in 2011-12 male labour has declined to 28.6 cr in 2017-18. This is the credit of Modi government who went for demonetization which resulted in decline of employment of labour in the informal sector of economy. Many labourers have migrated back from National capital region of Delhi to their villages as they got unemployed. On the backdrop of employment of labour has declined during Modi’s five year term. Specifically, Northern India is labour surplus region where migration of labour is the only answer. They have been pushed away by the Gujarat and come back to UP. In such a region the election battles are clearly defined.

The battle lines in Northern India are clearly defined as the BJP has brought out the first list of candidates who are going to contest. In opposition to the BSP-SP+ Congress these candidates are clearly going to lose as the most of the constituencies people are angry over the BJP and its old candidates. For instance some time back there were posters in NOIDA and Gaziabad regarding the abduction of these two candidates.  These powerful candidates such as V K Singh retired General a cabinet minister and Mr Sharma another cabinet minister who is a hardened Hindutva person. Three years back these posters came up telling this statement explains the voters' anger against them. Here the law and order problem has taken of a serious nature which has affected the dominant communities living here. The best things one can find in Banaras where young people gather at ashighats ( eighty ghats) and talk many things from New york to UP hardly anybody mentions the name of Modi. Some time back the protest of 5-thousand students, teachers and journalists spoke of their anger against Modi in Banaras. It looks UP is going to be graveyard of these leaders with arrogance. They are sick of the temple and border issues they want to fight the battle over issues affecting their lives and livelihoods. Women workers from UP have come to Delhi and working here as the helping hands in different houses. In conversation they exhibited their disgust of the temple politics as their schools and hospitals are disintegrating. Common people are dead against the temple issue but the Supreme Court has created a mediation cell headed by Sri Sri for raising the issue once more in UP politics while the general election is going on.

Yesterday, two cases have happened: One case is about the release of Aseemanand, and four RSS pracharaks who got released by the NIA court as they all got involved in a heinous crime of blasting of the Samjauta Express near Panipat which killed 68 passengers belonging to Muslim community. In the beginning the police arrested the some Muslims in the name of their involvement. But with Aseemanand's admission that he and other workers belonging to the RSS got involved in the blast, the NIA started investigation against them. There are substantive evidences against these people.  But the files have got stolen from the court for which the judgment came on fault.  Recently the files related to Rafael got stolen and now files related to serious terrorist blasts case have got stolen. Here Modi government is smart enough to put pressure on the judges to leave these culprits. In another case the arrest of Nirav Modi who had plundered Rs 13000 crore in Punjab National  Bank, a public sector bank whose chowkidari is the Prime Minister.  Nirav Modi went with the Prime Minister Modi to World Economic Forum and vanished from there. Both these cases have happened with the intervention of the chowkidar but one he claimed and another he hides. Yesterday in the evening Modi bhakta came to fish shop in the evening and told loudly that because of Modi's alertness Nirav Modi is arrested and coming back to India. But the truth is somewhere else that a journalist of Telegraph, London paper took bold steps to locate Nirav Modi and the case got filed in the court where the Judge gave the judgment for keeping Modi in custody as he would run away being most powerful. In the both these cases Chowkidar Modi has played role but his bhakts know the false bravado involved in the later which might fetch some votes for the BJP. The other thing they are not ready to disclose as they may lose some votes. Their backroom boys are very active for keeping the election machinery oiled and ready to go for false propaganda. They are active in the panshop, milk booth and fish market, barber's shop and tea stall and pakoda dokan for campaigning whereas the civil rights groups are taking steps to raise social, economic issues before Indian voters but they should come to these places to confront these people.

In 1970s the Jan Sangh later renamed as the BJP was known as the Marwari Party in Odisha. Some of the leaders of the Jan Sangha who were actively involved in the riots later got shifted to as the Presidents of the Rajsthan BJP. This tradition remained till yesterday. These Marwaris got involved in cheating and forgery of public money in Odisha. The best example is this that till Naveen Patnaik became the chief minister of Odisha they used to work as a pressure group to sabotage the Public Distribution System by taking over the storage facilities at district level. The food allotted for PDS used to be sold at the district headquarter level. Some of its loot used to go to MLAs of both the parties ruling and defeated candidates belonging to the opposition. They saw that the PDS was not getting implemented. They could not influence Naveen Babu which helped Naveen Patnaik's government in implementing the public distribution system all over Odisha including the tribal belt. This is the beginning of consolidation of Naveen Patnaik's government in his first term. After Modi came to power these traders cum industrialists who control the central government are trying to play the same role here by siphoning the public money be the Rafael Deal by Ambani or recently allotting six airports to Adani. They are the majority of the present Industrial class according to the study Harish Damodaran, India’s New Capitalist Class, the Marwaris and Gujarati banias constitute  45 percentage of the class which has kept the Modi government in their pockets. They want to capture the mineral rich and forest rich State of Odisha by which they can return back to the pre PDS date when they can create a poverty stricken province where they have a control over the trading and politics. They opposed the nationalization of Kendu leaves by which the tribals suffer the worst.  Their new slogan New Odisha has a symbolic value in Today's politics. The migrant workers face the problems while returning to their homes during the harvesting time.

 As Gujarat has a tradition of long distance migration to their sugar plantations and textile mills they suffer worst at the railway stations. While Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat the Labour Secretary was asked by Modi to inquire into the plight of migrant workers. The labour secretary being a friend of mine told me that these migrant workers used to carry their savings with them while returning to their homes at the railway station. They get harassed by the dalals and police .They plunder their little wealth. This is an interesting observation which is applicable to the airport in these days that these VIPs such as Nirav Modi, Chowski and Malay and 22 rich people left airport without any check because of the instructions from the PMO where the chief chowkidar sits. It seems that workers used to be plundered by the police and dalals and today wealth of India is being plundered by these rich people with the support of the chief chowkidar Shri Modi who closed his eyes while these people were allowed to leave the airport despite the airport authority informed the PMO officials regarding their departure to foreign countries. They did not react in time. Despite we have a chowkidar at the helm of affairs the stealing and plundering of public wealth is going on.

Prof A D Pant, a renowned political science Professor of Allahabad University went to Gorakhpur and stayed in the circuit house of the city where the VIPs of UP used to live including the ministers and cabinet ministers from Delhi. As Prof Pant told us that once a VIP was staying in a VIP suite where every file got stolen and he abused the Chowkidar who was guarding his room. He asked “Do not you see the difference between thieves and VIPs ?” The chowkidar answered that very body looked him as the thieves. “This is a clear message which signals the changes in our VIP culture. That the present Prime Minister Modi claimed as Chowkidar could not differentiate between the thieves and VIPs. For him all those VIP such as Nirav Modi who went with him to the World Economic Forum and then vanished from there are actually thieves. These thieves like Modi , Chowski and Vijay Mallay all vanished as he treated them thieves in VIP dresses. Nirav Modi lives in luxury house in London and leads a life of high style so as Mallay. All these people plundered wealth from Indian banks where common people saved their money and vanished while chowkidar looked at them in a helpless manner. This is the pathetic behaviour of our present chowkidar.

 A friend IAS office was the District Magistrate of Banaras who had a chowkidar in front of his residence. Once he realized that from his bunglow all expensive things were stolen then he questioned the Chowkidar. It is an interesting reply from the Chowkidar, “I am guarding the front gate of your house but what is happening at the backdoor I am not responsible." This is applicable to present day Chowkidar Modi that he is guarding at the front gate but people like Nirav Modi, Choski, Vijay Mallya and 29 big business tycoons have fled away from the backdoor of his house, he is not responsible. This is an interesting observation on Prime Minister Modi and Amit Shah who claimed themselves as chowkidars , they are the chowkidars of the Indian Republic but people like Ambani and Adani have been given thousand crores of rupees from the Indian exchequer with his consent while chowkidar was dozing at the gate of Treasury. His chowkidari has created fear in minds of people.

“A few say fear is walking,
He’s wanting your blood to flow.
Seems like Death has come stalking,
To nourish his favorite crow”

This is a poem written by Cunningham and sent to me in Facebook.

After Modi came to power in 2014 we have lost our human touch to social problems of our country and foreign countries. Such a serious incident took place in New Zealand but Modi is silent where Trump and others have given their statements and stood with the Prime Minister of New Zealand. It is a sad commentary of our present leadership who did not take a stand on Rohingya refugees from Burma. The present leadership branded them as terrorists just because they are Muslims. India stands for fraternity which is a part of our preamble which explains we have some commitment to human problems which ever country they belong. Nehru founded such a humanistic foreign policy. Indian State stood in opposition to USA in the case of Korean problems or Suez canal problem against the European power etc. India's respectability got increased for which India became the chairman of non aligned countries and group of 77 became a strong power block in global politics. Today under Modi we have lost all our human concerns and we have buried our approach to human problems. Modi is interested in waging war against Pakistan as a part of agenda of the RSS. It is spoken today by the spokesman of the RSS Indresh Kumar who is speaking against the state of Pakistan - "Pakistan to be part of India after 2025". This is an imperialist slogan which needs to be opposed by all. Pakistan is a sovereign country like India which has the right to exit as an actor in international politics. This sort of statement is coming at the time of general election of 2019 in support of the militaristic jingoistic views of Modi. Is India getting reduced to a rogue state? They are showing only muscular power. The central government must file a case against Indresh Kumar under the Art51 of Indian constitution as his action is affecting our brotherhood with other foreign countries. The way New Zealand Prime Minister handled the killing of forty Muslim persons by a religious extremists belonging to Christianity is praiseworthy. She spoke for every citizen belonging to which ever place or whatever religious faith. Whereas the incidents like of killing of Muslims by cow vigilantes belonging to the BJP did not draw attention from our Prime Minister for days. Recent attacks on Kashmir youths in the BJP ruled States of Uttarkhanda and UP got a statement from the Prime Minister after a week. The attacks on Pulwam did not draw immediate reaction from Modi while he was enjoying his picnic in the Jim Corbett Park. It is painful the way attack on Balkot in Pakistan by Indian defense forces is getting politicized by Modi without feeling any remorse. The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern wrote an article in defense of diversity in today's Indian Express, "We were not chosen for this act of violence because we condone racism, because we are an enclave for extremism. We were chosen for the very fact that we are none of those things. Because we represent diversity, kindness, compassion. A home for those who share our values. Refuge for those who need it. And those values will not and cannot be shaken by this attack." In Indian diversity is under the attack from the Hindu  extremists but the Prime Minister is silent here. Let Modi speak out like Jacinda Ardern and write an article in Indian Express.

Prof Radhakanta Barik, retired as Professor, Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi

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Mar 23, 2019