Amid Temple hype, a new book says - Modi Govt has no clear policy towards minorities
Ninglun Hanghal *
Book cover of 'Godhra – Journey of a Prime Minister'
A new book Godhra – Journey of a Prime Minister , by Nirendra Dev has detail accounts of the riots of 2002 and displays in more ways than one - how - Gujarat actually faced 'leadership crisis' during the turbulent days. The book provides updates on subsequent socio-political situation in the country which resulted in Narendra Modi’s metamorphosis into a major national leader, and subsequently as India’s Prime Minister.
This is second edition to the book 'Godhra - A Journey to Mayhem' written by Dev in 2004.A senior journalist Nirendra Dev has worked with India’s leading news agencies Press Trust of India (PTI), The Statesman and Indo-Asian News Service; and is currently with United News of India (UNI). He also the author of'The Talking Guns: North East India' and 'Ayodhya - Battle for Peace'.
Amid the build up for a Ram Temple at Ayodhya by the Hindu groups, Dev’s new book ‘Godhra –Journey of a Prime Minister’ says the Muslims and Christians are surely at political crossroads with “no easy choice before them”. “The political policy of the Modi government on religious minorities from time to time seems unclear,” writes Nirendra Dev, who covered post-Godhra mayhem in Gujarat of 2002 in details.
“It goes without saying, the general Indian public have always looked at Modi as a hardliner either romantically or acidly", Dev wrote. Truth may be the strength. But history is more about success and glories and sometime human catastrophes.
The 'Godhra' railway station mayhem of 2002 is one such. "Godhra, which was meant to be the end of a career actually became the turning point, and set Modi on a course that eventually led to his current position as Prime Minister of the country," says Dev, Four-and-half-years as Prime Minister of India and despite being known as a champion of the ‘Hindu cause’, the compendium says the onus is in effect on Narendra Modi himself to take all sections of people all along.
According to the book, “the onus is on him” to perform and deliver so that Modi does not “turn out to be Chief Minister Jyoti Basu in West Bengal – whose initial years have seen a time of great expectations but the end scandalously belied”.
The book deals with the circumstances and socio-political situations those resulted in Modi’s metamorphosis into a major national leader.
“...The onus is on him, as expectations too are from him as the Mandate 2014 suggested. The mandate of 2014 somehow had nothing or less to do with the Hindutva agenda even as a large number of Sadhus were deployed during the electioneering in 2014,” it notes.
In his Foreword to the book, a scholar from Germany’s Heidelberg University, Subrata K Mitra writes lucidly: “The impressive victory of the BJP under Narendra Modi raises a fundamental question about governance, leadership and the imperative of development and the making of popular will”.
Mr Mitra further points out –“The more the ‘secularists’ of India and their foreign backers hit out at Modi as a tainted leader, the more Modi fell back on his identification with the people of Gujarat and his showcasing of Gujarat’s development as the raison d’e^tre of his leadership”. The German-based educationist further writes: “The combination of popular elections, institutionalised countervailing powers, power-sharing.....delivered the Gujarat model, and in turn, the national mandate to Prime Minister Modi".
According to Mitra, in dissecting the methods of image-making by the media, author Nirendra Dev provides valuable insights into a process that links Macualay’s ‘Minutes’ with the post-Godhra witch-hunt by India’s left secular opinion makers and their global allies.
The book published by Maya Publishers, New Delhi is price at INR 371.
* Ninglun Hanghal wrote this article for e-pao.net
The writer can be reached at hanghal(DOT)ninglun(AT)gmail(DOT)com
This article was webcasted on November 21, 2018.
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