The hypocrisy of Narendra Modi’s detractors

Those who refuse to believe this BJP-is-communal-Congress-is-secular line have an additional argument against Modi: his unwillingness to apologise or express regret for the administrative failures in 2002.

The counters to this argument are several. Has the Gandhi family apologised for even 1984, leave alone all the scores of riots that happened from 1947 to 1998, before the BJP came to power at the centre? Has any party, at state or centre, done so even now? CPM for Nandigram, the SP for the 8-10 minor riots in Uttar Pradesh after its return to power?

An apology is relevant only when it is real – not something offered as a political concession. And this Modi has indirectly offered through the Sadhbhavna fasts and silent efforts to reach out to some Muslim groups in Gujarat. I suspect believe that these efforts to reach out may be more meaningful to Muslims than fake apologies and hypocritical behaviour.

One should also notice another thing: it is only the card-carrying old-generation secularists who are making a song-and-dance about Modi’s non-apology, not today’s young who have other things on their mind than the legacy of Hindu-Muslim conflicts. Modi has reinvented himself by repositioning himself as a messiah of growth and governance, but the rest of the non-young are stuck in the past.

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/the-hypocrisy-of-narendra-modis-detractors-847029.html

The second point is about Modi’s arrogance. Even LK Advani’s praise for Shivraj Singh Chauhan’s humility – presumably to contrast it with Modi’s braggadocio – is intended to convey the importance of outward humility in a leader. Advani himself is this type of person. Atal Behari Vajpayee falls in this category.

But we know where Advani ended up: as a loser. Despite being the architect of the Ayodhya movement, it was Vajpayee who became PM.

This is typically the trait of the traditional – and usually older – Indian. Indians are paranoid about claiming success for several reasons. We worry about the evil eye (kahin nazar na lag jaaye). We worry about what people will think of us. We are wary about receiving compliments and the traditional way of dealing with praise is to demur and say (Yeh bhagwan ki kripa hai, or even better, turn it back on the person giving the compliments with Ye aap ki meherbani hai).

Modi, despite his Hindutva image, is actually more like a western politician who is willing to make a pitch for himself, who is not afraid to claim success in this or that. He is unwilling to accept fake humility.

What this tells us about ourselves is this. We are afraid of success, or about claiming credit for it. We would like to pretend modesty, and let others extol our virtues, which we can then bashfully deny and emphasise our humility.

This is humbug and hypocrisy – which we are so fond of pointing out in others but not in ourselves. This is precisely why the young – who are unburdened by the need for excess modesty or humility – take to Modi while the old crib about his arrogance.

The young have a sense of entitlement and impatience about getting things done. They have no problems with Modi’s alleged arrogance for the simple reason that they themselves would not like to be left behind by being timid or self-effacing. They know that nice guys finish last, and they do not agree with the values of their parents’ generation that you should hold yourself back and not be pushy.

Read the complete article. I think Jagannathan makes a lot of sense.

He is essentially describing how fukularists self-deprecate and pretend to be scholarly and enlightened. China is giggling.