“Unka Sankalp, Vipareet Bharat”
“Sab ka Naash, Sab ka Vinaash”

By Aravind Bhatikar

THE 78th Independence Day speech of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was at best a desperate emotional outburst of a super-ambitious politician dreaming of a full third term and more as prime minister of India. But his days are numbered and the writing is on the wall for everybody to see.
Lord Krishna, the eight child of Devaki, the sister of the evil King Kansa, was destined to kill Kansa. Kansa was haunted by the fear of being killed by Krishna and tried all means to get rid of Krishna. Similarly, Modi seems to be haunted by the fear of Rahul Gandhi ousting him from the prime ministerial throne. Hence, he is ostensibly doing everything within his power to decimate the popular scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family from the Indian political scene. Modi’s army includes the cronies — godi media, the holier-than-thou investigation agencies like ED and CBI and of course the huge troll brigades on social media.
Modi’s crony media and troll brigades were more busy during Modi’s Independence Day speech than Modi himself! When Rahul Gandhi was arriving at the Red Fort venue, an anchor of a leading TV channel quipped that Rahul Gandhi should feel happy that he could at least reach the Red Fort, instead of reaching the Prime Minister’s Office to occupy the Prime Minister’s chair. The official cameras focused on Rahul Gandhi when Modi was raving and ranting about his efforts to defeat the forces of corruption and “family raj.”
There are two Narendra Modi’s who are India’s prime ministers. The first Modi is the one who is expected to govern, but does nothing about it. The second Modi is the one who is busy all the time in delivering hollow speeches. It was the second Modi who was delivering this year’s Independence Day speech.
The problem confronting those who listened to Modi on Independence Day was whether to enjoy his eloquence and theatrics or to blame themselves for wasting time in listening to his “sound and fury signifying nothing.”
The Modi who is expected to govern promised the nation in 2014 that every citizen’s bank account would be credited with Rs15 lakh after the BJP government brings back to India all the black money stashed in foreign banks. The second Modi no longer mentions no longer remembers this promise in his increasingly more and more hollow speeches.
The first Modi promised the youth of the country in 2014 two crore jobs per year. The second Modi does not even mention this promise in his usual dramatics. The first Modi promised that farmers’ income would be doubled by 2022. The second Modi still keeps talking but has not only forgotten the doubling of incomes but also the existence of farmers.
The first Modi promised that every Indian would be having a roof over his head by 2022. The second Modi later realized that there have to be walls under the roof and quickly forgot about the roof. The first Modi gave a Modi’s guarantees in a rally at Bhopal that those who were responsible for a Rs70,000 crore irrigation scam in Maharashtra would be jailed. He was obviously referring to Ajit Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party of Sharad Pawar. The second Modi four days later welcomed Ajit Pawar to the Bhartiya Janata Party and made him the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra.
The first Modi assured the country, in all his rallies, that he would continue his fight against corruption. The second Modi forgot about corruption and welcomed scores of corrupt political leaders into the BJP fold. The second Modi never mentions BJP’s corruption in his hollow speeches.
The first Modi promised to get rid of “family raj”. The second Modi forgot about family raj and welcomed dozens of scions of politically well know families in his government.
Isn’t it dangerous to allow two prime ministers to rule simultaneously over our “mother of democracy?” What will happen if the second prime minister suddenly forgets that India is flanked by nuclear powers and thinks that India is the only country in Asia which is a nuclear power? Can we entrust the life of 145 crore Indians to a forgetful or irresponsible prime minister?
Shouldn’t WE, THE PEOPLE take urgent action to remove such a prime minister and place our country in safe hands?

Modi on way out?
(21-08-2024)

THEY say if things CAN go wrong, they WILL go wrong. Things have begun going wrong for the Modi-Shah duo. Paramatma seems to have stopped advising the NBNM (Non-Biological Narendra Modi) to distinguish between right and wrong. Modi now seems to believe that his own aatma has become paramatma and so he has conveyed his belief to the original paramatma, implying that he no longer needed the advice of the original paramatma.
The original paramatma is now disillusioned with NBNM and he is reportedly considering defection to INDIA. Pending his defection, he is believed to have severed his hotline with NBNM. Since then, Modi’s dictatorship is no longer tolerated either by the BJP or by the NDA or by the Lok Sabha.
If proof of Modi’s diminishing clout in and out of BJP is required, one has only to consider the recent setback suffered by him:
The Waqf (Amendment) Bill had to be withdrawn and referred to a JPC (Joint Parliamentary Committee) to be formed by the government. The bill, under the garb of improvement in the administration of the Waqf Board, actually sought to provide for large scale interference of government in the administration of Waqf.
It is now an open secret that Chandrababu Naidu and Nitish Kumar were extremely uncomfortable with the bill, since their parties heavily depend on Muslim votes in their own states. Besides, Modi had forgotten the fact that he is now the head of a coalition government and that he should have consulted the main NDA members before introducing such a bill. The bill faced the risk of being defeated in Lok Sabha and hence the escape route taken by the government.
Information available in public domain is making it clear that godi media’s viewership is on a steep downward slide and that of X, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms is on a vertical climb. YouTubers, with their merciless criticism and exposure of wrong doings of the Modi government have served as the main publicity instrument for Opposition parties and independent journalists.
There is widespread apprehension about the recent steps taken by the government to bring a broadcasting bill to increase government interference and reduce the power of social media. The draft bill of 2023 was widely circulated to all stakeholders. The draft bill of 2024 was circulated only to selected stakeholders, leaving out the most popular content creators in the social media. However, the bureaucracy in the government, especially the one in the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, now seem to factor in possible public opposition to undue government control on social media. The government has now postponed the introduction of the bill and invited comments from a much wider section of the media by November 2024.
The practice of lateral recruitment of senior executives and specialists to fill in a defined number of posts at higher level of government has been, for the time being, postponed due to a strong criticism of the system by INDIA led by the Congress. Though the idea of the lateral entry of higher level executives and specialists in government service for a limited period was initially propounded by the Indian National Congress, the way it was sought to be implemented by the BJP government now would be by-passing the reservation policy laid down in the Constitution.
It was the “reservation” issue which was mainly responsible for the debacle of the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The government was quick to postpone the lateral entry, the moment INDIA leaders including Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge raised the “reservation” issue.
The U-turn on these three issues has clearly exposed the weakness of the Modi government. It remains to be seen how it faces the attack of the Opposition of the Madhavi Buch issue and whether Modi will continue to be the prime minister when the disillusionment and frustration of the voters spills out on the streets. Shouldn’t WE, THE PEOPLE do everything that we can to expedite the exit of the BJP government under the Modi-Shah duo?