[Excerpts from the I.E. Edit, at sl.no. I below, a comment by Pratap Bhanu Mehta, at sl. no. II below, and another, at sl. no. III below, from Karan Thapar, a veteran journalist, who had been an invitee to the "secret" treasonous meeting but couldn't eventually make it:
I. <<A day after the first phase of polling in Gujarat, he spoke about a former Pakistani army officer allegedly showing undue interest in the election and supporting Ahmed Patel for chief minister. And about a dinner meeting at Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar’s home, where Indian dignitaries, including a former PM, vice-president and army chief, met with a Pakistani delegation, including the Pak high commissioner, to hold secret talks in the midst of Gujarat polls. The import of the PM’s statements was inescapable and grim: Speaking in the same breath of the Congress, Pakistan and a Muslim candidate for CM, he suggested that they are partners in an unholy, rather anti-national, conspiracy. ***In one stroke, he (the Prime Minister) labelled his political opponent as unpatriotic [in fact, treasonous] and lent the immense weight of his office to a shameful politics of stereotyping that holds all of India’s Muslims to be pro-Pakistan and guilty*** [emphasis added].>> II. <<The conduct of the Prime Minister of India during the Gujarat election should set alarm bells ringing. Narendra Modi’s innuendo in an election speech in Banaskantha, in which he strung together communal canards and conspiracy theories, marks a new and dangerous low in Indian politics.>> III. <<I wonder what the prime minister would have said if he was aware that Wednesday’s dinner was not the first such event hosted by Aiyar with Kasuri as chief guest? A similar dinner was held at the Taj Mahal Hotel’s Chambers in April and, even earlier, in 2015 when Kasuri’s book was published. In fact, both Mr and Mrs Kasuri were guests at Aiyar’s daughter’s wedding and he was a cabinet minister at the time. Indeed, what might Modi have made of the fact — had he known of it — that the Pakistan high commissioner hosted a dinner on Sunday night, just hours after his angry allegations, for a similar selection of guests to meet Kasuri at the Taj Mahal Hotel’s House of Ming restaurant? This might have produced a flight of fancy akin to the very best of crime fiction!>> END ***So, this is no ordinary time.*** And, it's just for an election in a middle-sized state, for the state assembly. Of course, it's the PM's home state. That's all. And, in case one has forgotten, this very man, not so long back, had made a detour to Lahore, on his way back from Afghanistan, to greet his counterpart in Pakistan on his birthday, at his family home (not official residence), unscheduled and uninvited. (Ref.: < https://www.thequint.com/news/india/modi-springs-a-surprise-to-make-an-unscheduled-stop-in-pakistan >.) Also, an investigation team from Pakistan, including an ISI officer, was allowed access to the "restricted" Pathankot airbase, in the wake of a terror attack on it from across the border. (Ref.: < http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/restricted-pathankot-airbase-access-to-pakistani-investigators-government-roundup-116032800956_1.html >.) So, the danger signal, just make no mistake, is beeping loud and clear. One may opt to overlook it, only at one's great peril.] I/II. http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/no-prime-minister-narendra-modi-election-speech-banaskantha-gujarat-assembly-elections-mani-shankar-aiyar-dinner-meeting-4978548/ No, Prime Minister PM Narendra Modi's Congress-Pakistan-Muslim rhetoric may win him votes but it undermines his office — and poisons India’s politics By: Editorial | Updated: December 12, 2017 8:00 am PM Narendra Modi’s none-too-veiled innuendo in an election speech in Banaskantha district on Sunday has severely let down his constitutional commitment and office If politics in a mature constitutional democracy is also about the unwritten rules of the game, if it includes a reciprocal pact between players to acknowledge and uphold dignity, their own and their opponent’s, then this is a disquieting day. PM Narendra Modi’s none-too-veiled innuendo in an election speech in Banaskantha district on Sunday has severely let down his constitutional commitment and office. A day after the first phase of polling in Gujarat, he spoke about a former Pakistani army officer allegedly showing undue interest in the election and supporting Ahmed Patel for chief minister. And about a dinner meeting at Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar’s home, where Indian dignitaries, including a former PM, vice-president and army chief, met with a Pakistani delegation, including the Pak high commissioner, to hold secret talks in the midst of Gujarat polls. The import of the PM’s statements was inescapable and grim: Speaking in the same breath of the Congress, Pakistan and a Muslim candidate for CM, he suggested that they are partners in an unholy, rather anti-national, conspiracy. In one stroke, he labelled his political opponent as unpatriotic and lent the immense weight of his office to a shameful politics of stereotyping that holds all of India’s Muslims to be pro-Pakistan and guilty. Whether the BJP wins the Gujarat election, or loses it, the PM’s day out in Banaskantha should bring a moment of reflection and pause. So far, over the last three years or so of the Modi regime, whenever unseemly and outright bigoted statements were made that cast the Muslim as the Other, the Anti-National, and the Enemy, the PM’s office was singed. And yet, it maintained a modicum of distance and deniability. It was the fringe, it could be said, and in any case, these were sporadic excesses that a large party like the BJP couldn’t possibly control. On Hindus and Muslims, in the Lok Sabha campaign on the eve of the 2014 polls in Bihar, Candidate Modi had struck a high note. Muslims and Hindus must not fight each other, he said, but together battle poverty. When he repeated that statement as PM during another Bihar campaign, this time for the state assembly, not even his party president Amit Shah’s incendiary remark, that firecrackers would be burst in Pakistan should the BJP lose, could fully extinguish the distinction between the PM and the Rest. Now, the PM’s statements at Banaskantha imperil that distinction. Several of Mani Shankar Aiyar’s guests, including and especially former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, have denied PM Modi’s version of the dinner party. Gujarat was not on the menu, they have said. The Modi government has sought to challenge their response, but the damage is done. It travels far and runs deep. Next time there is a hate crime, the next time a Shambhulal Regar counts on state protection and impunity, the silence of the PM can — and should — be interrogated more loudly. II. http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/power-and-insecurity-prime-minister-narendra-modi-gujarat-elections-communal-innuendos-4979986/ Power and insecurity PM’s Gujarat campaign shows the politics of hope has been replaced entirely by the politics of fear Written by Pratap Bhanu Mehta | Published: December 13, 2017 12:06 am PM Narendra Modi in Ahmedabad. (Express photo: Javed Raja/File) The conduct of the Prime Minister of India during the Gujarat election should set alarm bells ringing. Narendra Modi’s innuendo in an election speech in Banaskantha, in which he strung together communal canards and conspiracy theories, marks a new and dangerous low in Indian politics. It is perhaps a sign of the times, the new normal, that the demeaning of the office of the prime minister, low level demagoguery or even communal canards will not bother many citizens. In fact, these are now the central elements of the PM’s mystique, eclipsing whatever other promises he might have made about development. But these innuendos also show a prime minister creating the wildest conspiracy theories, not because they serve the national interest, but because they satiate his need for claiming monopoly over patriotism, perpetual scapegoating and playing the politics of victimhood. God help the country whose prime minister is now in such a frame of mind. The innuendo that former Pakistani officials were showing undue interest in supporting Ahmed Patel, that the former Prime Minister of India somehow held secret talks at the residence of Mani Shankar Aiyar during the Gujarat elections, whose purpose was to hatch some anti-national conspiracy, would be laughable if it were not shameful and dangerous. Think of all the dangers inherent in the prime minister himself not just putting his weight behind this story, but conjuring it out of thin air. It was an uncalled for attack on former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In a democracy there will be deep disagreements, there will also be attacks on particular leaders’ competencies, and sometimes their decisions will be questioned. True or false, these things are par for the course in a competitive democracy. But for a prime minister to paint a picture of a former prime minister as part of some social cabal in cahoots with foreign powers to meddle in the Gujarat elections is despicable. Whatever your political views, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s quiet, exemplary and thoughtful patriotism is self-evident and needs no defence. For Manmohan Singh, patriotism was not, as it has become for Modi, a scimitar to cut down political opponents and claim monopoly of nationalism. For a PM to suggest that his political opponents are doing something bordering on treasonous is to open the floodgates of a new viciousness. If unhinged conspiracy theories about possibly treasonous socialising were not enough, this story was dripping with communal canards. The entire Gujarat campaign has been, even by the low standards set during the last three years, dripping in communal innuendo. At points, the BJP campaign has presented our only choices as being between Mandir and Masjid. The arguments over history, from Khilji to Babar, the pet themes of this election, are not about history: They are about Hindu majoritarianism wanting to make Muslims increasingly irrelevant to India’s history. But perhaps Modi did us a favour. You could say that in this campaign, he has, at last, broken his silence on the communal poison spreading through Indian political life. He now wants to shed whatever last veneer of deniability was left and claim full-throated responsibility for spreading this poison. By stringing together, in a crass case of loaded free association, Ahmed Patel, Congress and Pakistan in a seamless social web, Modi betrayed a whole series of prejudices that are unworthy of the Prime Minister of India: That Indian Muslim political leaders are always going to be under the pall of suspicion that they are in league with Pakistan. It is once again to raise the bogey that when it comes to patriotism a senior Muslim politician will be guilty of association with Pakistan until proven innocent. The consequence of this marginalising of the political agency of members of a community for Indian constitutional values are going to be profound. Whether we will any longer be shocked by the degradation of public discourse, by the diminution of the moral stature of the office of the prime minister, by open communalism, is an open question. Again, whatever one’s political views, Modi’s gift as a politician was to exude self-confidence, seduce the electorate in a way that artfully disguised the potential poison he might carry, and to tap into both the hope of development and the politics of fear simultaneously. In this campaign, more than any other in recent years, the sense of control and confidence has gone, the potential communal poison is not just one element that might be contained, but is becoming his whole being, and the politics of hope has been replaced entirely by the politics of fear. Only this can explain why a party that has been for so long in power in Gujarat, is running as if it were a vicious rabble-rousing outfit. But more seriously, Modi is increasingly showing a combination of qualities that should worry even his supporters. The more his power has grown, the more his speeches exude insecurity. A combination of great power and a deep sense of insecurity does not bode well. Even after the people of India have reposed power in him, his need to constantly play up a sense of personal and national victimhood, his need to perpetually play into stereotypes about minorities, has grown rather than diminished with his time in office. Paranoia is replacing confidence. Whatever Modi’s own political experiences, nothing in them justifies him playing a “Congress-Muslim-Pakistan conspiracy” card in the manner in which he has done in the election. Perhaps Modi will win the Gujarat election. The personal identification with him is perhaps too far gone for his supporters to divest of him easily. More ominously, Indian democracy is at a crossroads where all its inner demons and repressed ugliness are playing out in the open. This is a time that requires statesmanship, not nauseating divisiveness. The prime minister, instead of navigating constitutional values, ordinary decencies of discourse and civility, to safe harbour, is now bent on creating new storms. Whether he wins or loses in Gujarat, he is spreading a poison from which Indian politics will find it hard to recover for quite some time. In shoring his power through conflict he is taking India down the road to ruin. The writer is vice-chancellor, Ashoka University. Views are personal III. http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/a-meeting-a-conspiracy-narendra-modi-mani-shankar-aiyar-dinner-pakistan-former-foreign-minister-khurshid-kasuri-manmohan-singh-4978536/ A meeting, a conspiracy BJP’s fear and foreboding about the Gujarat outcome leads to a bizarre theory Written by Karan Thapar | Updated: December 12, 2017 11:06 am On Sunday, PM Narendra Modi deliberately and maliciously misconstrued an innocent meeting at Mani Shankar Aiyar’s residence on December 6. (Express Photo: Prem Nath Pandey/File) Politicians are usually very careful about what they say in public. They know it can be used against them. Consequently they have a knack of speaking at length but not saying very much. This is not eloquence but self-protection. So it’s particularly surprising when one of them puts his foot firmly in his mouth and does so not once but repeatedly. When that individual happens to be the prime minister, a man who’s known for carefully thinking through what he says, you have to ask why he’s doing this? On Sunday, Narendra Modi deliberately and maliciously misconstrued an innocent meeting at Mani Shankar Aiyar’s residence on December 6 and presented it as a conspiracy by Pakistan to interfere in the Gujarat polls. I was invited to that meeting — a one-hour discussion with Pakistan’s former foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri followed by dinner — although, at the last moment, I was unable to make it. The other guests included former high commissioners to Pakistan, former foreign secretaries and foreign ministers, a former vice president and a former army chief and a few journalists. The intention was to talk about the India-Pakistan situation, obviously with specific reference to Kashmir and terror. Kasuri is a confirmed and passionate dove devoted to improving relations and seeking creative solutions to our problems. This transparent and irreproachable meeting was presented by the prime minister as “a secret meeting”. With heavy insinuation, he said: “Pakistan’s high commissioner, former foreign minister, India’s former vice-president and India’s former PM Manmohan Singh all met at Aiyar’s house for three hours and then, the next day, Mani Shankar calls Modi neech. This is a serious and sensitive issue… what is the reason for such a secret meeting amidst Gujarat elections?” [Video: CM Yogi Attacks Mani Shankar Aiyar Over 'Neech' Remark, Warns Congress Of Gujarat Polls] The prime minister then proceeded to draw two connections, one ludicrous and the other factually incorrect. First, he claimed “after the meeting, people of Gujarat, backward communities, poor people and Modi were insulted, don’t you think such events raise doubts here?” This was the ridiculous part. Read | Manmohan Singh’s statement full text: ‘PM Modi must apologise to nation to restore dignity of his office’ Speaking at Sanand, he claimed the meeting was held a day after “a former chief of the Pakistan army”, Arshad Rafiq, had called for Ahmed Patel to be made chief minister of Gujarat. “Why is Pakistan’s senior retired army officer exercising his brain in the Gujarat elections?”, he asked. Rafiq, however, is not a former Pakistani army chief but just a former D.G. This was the inaccurate bit. It also has no connection with the meeting held at Aiyar’s house. I wonder what the prime minister would have said if he was aware that Wednesday’s dinner was not the first such event hosted by Aiyar with Kasuri as chief guest? A similar dinner was held at the Taj Mahal Hotel’s Chambers in April and, even earlier, in 2015 when Kasuri’s book was published. In fact, both Mr and Mrs Kasuri were guests at Aiyar’s daughter’s wedding and he was a cabinet minister at the time. Indeed, what might Modi have made of the fact — had he known of it — that the Pakistan high commissioner hosted a dinner on Sunday night, just hours after his angry allegations, for a similar selection of guests to meet Kasuri at the Taj Mahal Hotel’s House of Ming restaurant? This might have produced a flight of fancy akin to the very best of crime fiction! The truth is the prime minister’s allegations and suspicions are not just malicious and delusional but utter nonsense. Whilst seeking to defame Aiyar and his guests he’s actually demeaned himself. This was not just undignified but unethical and, because Modi knows it’s a lie, also immoral. So why did he do it? Normally Modi is meticulous about the accusations he raises and the innuendos he levels. Such juvenile and hallucinatory conspiracy theories are not his style. Does this suggest that fear and foreboding of the Gujarat outcome has put him in a funk? Is this electoral panic? In fact, this wasn’t the first time the prime minister’s speeches have betrayed deep anxiety. At one of his early Gujarat rallies he accused the Gandhi family of revealing to the world what Morarji Desai used to drink. Earlier only a few knew what he was referring to but now his bizarre comments have informed lakhs more. Yet the truth is in an interview to Mark Tully Desai readily admitted he drank his own urine and even wrote a book on the subject. It’s a relief the Gujarat campaign ends on Tuesday evening. India cannot afford for its PM to inflict further wilful damage on himself, unless he’s determined to pluck defeat from the jaws of presumed victory. The writer is president of Infotainment Television and a TV anchor -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
