Deconstructing Truth In Post-truth Era And The Hatred Towards One Man

It is said that the best time to evaluate, understand and judge a person is during the time of a life and death crisis for that is when the true self of the person is revealed. But we live in times, where discourses are getting polarized and bucketed into binaries.

Anyone who appreciates the good work done by this government gets the tag of a ‘bhakt’ while those who criticize become ‘anti-nationals’. While extremist elements exist across the populace, a narrative has been put in place by the ‘woke’ and the so-called ‘intellectual’ community that the ‘bhakt’ gang under the leadership of Modi-Shah are peddling hatred and dividing this country while in fact it is they who share a mindless and blind hatred for one man, one party and one ideology because of their own religious, political and ideological affiliations.

Criticizing the Government and its policies is welcome and is fundamental for a vibrant democracy to thrive. But hatred towards a man sends them to an extent where they don’t mind going against the country itself.

So, how does someone navigate through such extremities and make sense of the truth? Is what is being portrayed as the truth is truth at all or is it part of a design? How far can one go to bring down one man and how high will this man rise despite all? This article seeks to present what the truth is in this post-truth era and is bound to offend those concerned.

The design

Any student of political science must have come across the great American political scientist, author of several books and a Nobel Peace Prize winner Gene Sharp.

In his 3 volume magnum opus ‘The Politics of Nonviolent Action’, Gene Sharp details 198 non-violent and democratic methods of bringing down a Government in the volume 2 titled ‘The Methods of Nonviolent Action’.

He says that there should be a movement that talks about peace and democracy and conduct protests that paralyses the government machinery. (In case of India, you can add dosages of secularism).

Some of these methods include harassing the police, throwing stones at armed forces, blocking roads, placing women and children on the front lines of a protest, throwing acid and petrol bombs, running negative campaigns through media, spreading fake news to mislead people and turn our own people against the government. Sounds eerily familiar doesn’t it?

These are nothing but strategies to diffuse a Government that is premeditated and has the blessings and contributions of a certain section of the media, academia, NGOs, actors and so called intellectuals. What is worrying is that these crooked, ill-willed and communal people are using the innocent as puppets in their act. What is more worrying is the intelligent falling for the act.

We can see these methods had its effect in Egypt, Tunisia, Ukraine and more recently in Hong Kong. But this is India. They say that the struggle is against fascism to protect the secular and democratic ethos of India. What the ‘woke intellectuals’ don’t realize is with the sheer size and diversity of Indian population, secularism (the more appropriate term is pluralism) and democracy cannot even be up for question!

We’re a nation that has survived the tyranny of Sultanate, Mughals, Portuguese, French, Dutch and the British with no compromise on ‘Sarva Dharma Samabhava’. We’re a nation that has ingrained democracy is every aspect of it. But if secularism means to appease minorities, then sorry, the time for that has ended.

So if you’re someone who is concerned about the democratic and secular ethos of India, worry not. What you need to worry about is the ugly game that is being played to bring down Modi and this Government that is even more dangerous to the democratic and secular fabric of this nation.

Who is the fascist?

We all know how any form of criticism or anything that would show the Chinese government in bad light, are taken down by their state machinery – be it the case of killing of dissenting voices, violent protests or their treatment of Uighur Muslims.

Compare this to the number of videos that flooded all social media during the opposition concocted Delhi violence, the Shaheenbagh, the videos of migrant workers gathering in thousands at Anand Vihar or the zillion tweets criticizing the government. Everything comes out.

If the government were to be a fascist one, would there be so much freedom of speech and expression that sometimes even violates the code of reasonable restrictions? Also, the government has had 6 year, if we were to become a fascist state, we would have already been one.

It is appalling to see people on Twitter especially the arm-chair activists, journalists and political commentators (is that even a legit profession?) stoop to unimaginable levels. The negativity on social media platforms is disturbing to say the least. There are nearly 5 billion people on the internet and if anyone spread fake news creating a narrative that the Government is inefficient, the job is half done. (Gene Sharp 101).

A group of influencers under the garb of social activists tweet and retweet anything that is against this Government just because of their shared hatred towards one man. Some are even paid to do the job with rates fixed per retweet. There are enough bots on Twitter that retweet at lightning speed without even reading. As they tweet their lives away in the evening and night, the west wakes up to these tweet and think that this is the reality.

This modus operandi is now being used to not just target the Government but to anyone who appreciates this Government. Take the case of the spiritual guru Jaggi Vasudev. No wonder certain motivated factions have descended on this man. While these people warm their seats tweeting their lives away from an air-conditioned room, the man doing some fantastic work at the ground level and even shaping policies on climate change.

So, if there exists a group of motivated individuals, that leaves no stone unturned to target and attack anyone who doesn’t agree with them, who is the fascist then?

The challenges of India’s fight against corona

We’re into the 21 day lockdown and India is inching towards registering 4000+ corona positive cases. Given the scale of the crisis, India has to deal with a number of problems. It is easy to handle the innocent illiterates. But it is a nightmare to put up with evil politicians, educated illiterates, woke intellectuals.

The Prime Minister in his address to the nation begged with folded hands to stay put where they are and not travel. But still we saw sea of people stranded at Delhi-UP border. Why? Because many of them were misled that they would be able to take buses to their natives from Anand Vihar. A rumour was created and chaos ensued.

The Prime Minister begged with folded hands to employers to continue paying their employees yet we saw educated people asking “Why should I pay for nothing?” This is the unfortunate mindset of many educated people and as a result migrant workers lost their job and money triggering an onset of migrants. Thanks to the various state Governments who have come to the rescue of these distressed people.

It is being said that the lockdown has been an unplanned one and the Government did not think through it. Now arm-chair commentators think that they know better than those in the PMO. The Government must have anticipated this fallout knowing the Indian psyche.

The problem was that we were running out of time and giving further time to ready ourselves for the lockdown could have meant more damage. But nobody expected such chaos to unfold. It is unfortunate to see multiple forces working together to strike an opportunity to blame Modi even if it is at the cost of innocent lives and the nation.

Despite all this, look at what we as a nation have done. It took 10 days for China to build a 1000 bed hospital but India transformed the train coaches into 6370 bed facility overnight. We mobilised medical supplies at lightning speed, announced free rations and income support to save the poor and vulnerable, opened a fund where every Indian pitched in to contribute and even knocked sense into the international community that saving lives was more important than saving the economy.

The Modi Government has done everything in its power to curb the effect of this pandemic. The preparation and planning that has gone into managing the pandemic in a country like India is unprecedented in the history of humankind.

Yet, we see the opposition doing petty politics and calling the lockdown a ‘Modi-made disaster’. This just goes on to prove that the opposition is desperate and will go to any extent to garbage what the man has achieved.

At a time when the nation finds itself in a life or death scenario, at a time when everyone in unity should be standing up for the country, the haters have chosen to play their evil game using the vulnerable section as pawns just to vilify this one man.

The vile campaign against one man

For decades, this country has been looted and kept as a third world country. Corruption and dynasty politics thrived in the political and administrative system that made the rich get richer and poor get poorer. But then there emerged a leader from the bottom of the strata who sought to challenge this system. The journey wasn’t easy though.

Over the years, a whole fraternity has ganged up on him, running negative campaigns, portraying him as a religious bigot and continuously ostracising him. But why would someone hate this man so much? Is it because he is leaving no scope for corruption? Is it because he is putting an end to the hegemony of these people? Or is it because he just doesn’t have the surname or belong to the influential family?

The truth is that these people cannot stand the sight of a person coming from a lower socio-economic strata holding power. They don’t like to see him succeed and earn the love of the aam aadmi.

India has never had a leader who represented the 95% of the Indian populace, a common man hailing from a humble background. A chailwallah. Probably for the first time we have a leader who understands the aam aadmi. He understands that for change to happen in this country one needs to go beyond schemes and laws.

One needs to think out of the box. This out-of-the-box thinking is the reason behind the pace at which things are changing for the better for the common man. For all things said about him, nobody can disagree that the way he has been dealing with different exigencies is exceptional. The man offers leadership lessons with his every move and one of the things about being a leader is that you carry your team along with you irrespective of differences and internal scuffles.

I happened to listen to an audio record of a conversation between one doctor and Prime Minister Modi. To a question on what he has been upto these days, the Prime Minister responds “Sadhana”. “What kind of Sadhana?” the doctor asks. “Sadhana to control my sleep”. The doctor remarks “You’re already known for sleeping very little. How much more you want to reduce your sleep?”, to which the Prime Minister says “I don’t want to sleep at all.” For those of you who think it is an unachievable feat, it is possible to gain control over sleep through Sadhana. Many people practice it especially seekers.

Taken aback the doctor asks “But for what?”. Modi says “This is such a great nation! But we’re still in poverty. We’ve been looted and taken for granted for a long time. I need to fix it. 20 hours is not enough. I need all 24 hours.” The conversation then goes on to Modi’s days in the Himalayas, his vision for the country and a lot of other things about the country.

The doctor further asks “There are so many people out there to kill you. Aren’t you afraid?” and this is what Modi replies “The purpose of my life is to serve this nation. Until I fulfil this purpose, nobody can kill me and once my purpose has been fulfilled, nobody can save me. I am not afraid of death. I am here to fulfil my life’s calling.”

This man has been mocked at and knocked several times before he became what he is today. So no matter how much one tries to bring him down, he will continue to rise up further and further.

It takes enormous guts, grit, strength and blessings of ancestors to take all this in and emerge victorious. I have full faith that under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, we as a nation will survive not just this pandemic but anything that comes across its way!