Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assertion that he was “not scared of being seen with big industrialists and businessmen” as a riposte to Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s remark that Indian taxpayers would have “to pay Mr 56-inch friend’s joint venture Rs 1 trillion over the next 50 years to maintain the Rafale aircraft” was baffling, if anything. He seems to have made it in the fond hope that it will help in warding off attacks by the Opposition on his alleged links with “corrupt and crony capitalists” and erasing the suit-boot ki sarkar label.
But it is unlikely to go down well with people at a time when the government is unable to prove that it did not favour anyone in the Rafale deal. Further, he unfairly bracketed together the big industrialists and businessmen with the impoverished masses comprising farmers and labourers. His equation of support from India Inc. with that from the common people without saying a word on equalising the distribution of wealth and resources lends no weight to his claim that he is a bhagidaar (collaborator) with the latter. His certificate that leading industrialists are not chor-looterey (thieves and looters) should guarantee him their continued support.
Furthermore, Modi held that “industrialists are vital for nation-building”. Reading between the lines, we tend to think that political funding from them is vital for nation-building. By dragging in Mahatma Gandhi’s stay with the Birla family, Modi made a vain bid to justify his close association with corporate behemoths. The Mahatma was never anyone’s prop. It was far from flattering that he chose to criticise 70 years of non-BJP rule for the country’s ills instead of enumerating what he did for suraaj (good governance) which by the way he described as “our birthright” and acche din (happy days).
G David Milton, Maruthancode
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