Educated Indians' support for Modi is a sad let down

Perhaps some of the Indian readers won't like what I am going to write. After all, Pakistan by no stretch of imagination is a tolerant country itself. They may simply ask me to shut up and mind my own business or concentrate more on the problems of my own country.

My first defense is that as a Pakistani, I have witnessed my country going down the slope due to religious intolerance. I have not been in denial and therefore written extensively against it and have at times been reprimanded by my own countrymen for supposedly maligning Pakistan's image in the international arena. And yet, I would always insist that whatever I wrote was due to concern for my motherland.

My second defense is that I have always been genuinely interested in India. Part of this interest is academic and is springing from the fact that I am a student of Political Science. And part of it is because I think identity is a complex and overarching phenomenon and consequently I feel affinity to Indians. I have already articulated this in my article on Huffpost titled as "A Pakistani and an Indian".

One of the major problems which many from the educated middle class overlooked while voting for Modi ( for development reasons) was the fact that the core support of BJP is hardline and after being in absolute power the party had to appease them. Before the elections despite clear warning signs, many were simply dismissing such possibility from occurring. The argument at that time was that with moderate and modernist urban middle class behind the recent resurgence of Modi, the focus of BJP will be more towards governance and leaner and efficient government rather than communal politics. The electorate was so sick of the incompetency of Congress that it was literally willing to overlook the dangers.

And now the evidence is showing as to how wrong those assumptions were. Not only the hardliners have literally taken over the control but what makes the entire situation ironic is that the many educated people from the urban middle class are in denial. Rather than opposing the excesses, many are simply calling critics as "sickulars" "pseudo seculars /liberals" or terming it as a conspiracy of Congress to malign BJP.

Whipping up communalism by BJP and RSS is generally justified by citing examples as to how Congress too has tried to play on the wicket of communalism by indulging in minority appeasement. Moreover, every time some violent incident takes place, rather than being critical the focus of many is to simply deflect by referring to either 1984 riots against Sikhs under Congress rule or some contemporary incident where member of BJP has been harmed or where minority has acted violently against majority. The critics ( seculars in almost all the cases) are then mockingly asked to show the same level of anger which they show when minorities are attacked.

There is a huge problem with this entire approach. First of all it is trying to create false equivalences. Minority appeasement does not create the kind of dangers which whipping up majority communal sentiments does. Although one could make a normative arguments against both but whipping majority communalism can lead to tyranny of the majority and also to violence at a much larger scale. It's potential to inflict harm is way greater than so called minority appeasement.

brie wrote:from where did you get the title of this post? it does not appear in the article. did you cite from a wrong article by mistake? the contents of this article (by a pakistani) are plagiarized, in substance, from an article that appeared in my local daily and which was penned by an ex "JNU" professor. that article carried the title of your post. you forgot to mention this?

Kris wrote:

confuzzled dude wrote:

Kris wrote:
1) I guess its your word against the millions who voted for them and the minority members of the BJP and the international leaders and businessmen who want to do business with them. 

2) Then why the original heartache over educated voters voting for the BJP?

If that is your measuring stick, they do business with China, Saudi and Pakistan too, right?

>>>Why did you selectively leave out the rest of my statement as to what my measuring stick is? Can you show me the number of jewish members in the ruling establishment of Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or prove that the rulers of Saudi or China contested in open elections and were voted in?

truthbetold wrote:Majority of educated andhraites voted against Congress and ysr Congress in andhra pradesh. Why is cd slavishly supporting most corrupt jagan?

confuzzled dude wrote:

truthbetold wrote:Majority of educated andhraites voted against Congress and ysr Congress in andhra pradesh. Why is cd slavishly supporting most corrupt jagan?

Are you going to repeat the same lie? when in fact you (& TANA) are the slaves of CBN.

Hellsangel wrote:

confuzzled dude wrote:

truthbetold wrote:Majority of educated andhraites voted against Congress and ysr Congress in andhra pradesh. Why is cd slavishly supporting most corrupt jagan?

Are you going to repeat the same lie? when in fact you (& TANA) are the slaves of CBN.

Tavarisch, why so many associations - TANA, ATA, NATA...? Oh and now TATA.

confuzzled dude wrote:

brie wrote:from where did you get the title of this post? it does not appear in the article. did you cite from a wrong article by mistake? the contents of this article (by a pakistani) are plagiarized, in substance, from an article that appeared in my local daily and which was penned by an ex "JNU" professor. that article carried the title of your post. you forgot to mention this?

Looks like you mistook this as a separate thread, no this is page 2 of the same thread where I posted the JNU professor's column.

confuzzled dude wrote:

Kris wrote:

confuzzled dude wrote:

Kris wrote:
1) I guess its your word against the millions who voted for them and the minority members of the BJP and the international leaders and businessmen who want to do business with them. 

2) Then why the original heartache over educated voters voting for the BJP?

If that is your measuring stick, they do business with China, Saudi and Pakistan too, right?

>>>Why did you selectively leave out the rest of my statement as to what my measuring stick is? Can you show me the number of jewish members in the ruling establishment of Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or prove that the rulers of Saudi or China contested in open elections and were voted in?

There is nothing selective about it, you've been hammering on that point for a while now, as if development is talked about only in the last year and FDI inflows begun coming only under this administration.

brie wrote:

confuzzled dude wrote:

brie wrote:from where did you get the title of this post? it does not appear in the article. did you cite from a wrong article by mistake? the contents of this article (by a pakistani) are plagiarized, in substance, from an article that appeared in my local daily and which was penned by an ex "JNU" professor. that article carried the title of your post. you forgot to mention this?

Looks like you mistook this as a separate thread, no this is page 2 of the same thread where I posted the JNU professor's column.

my fault! sorry and profuse aplogies!

Kris wrote:
>>>

You are still not answering my question. You selectively used one of my criteria (foreign investments) to show that Saudi Arabia and China and Pakistan have those too, to refute my point. My question to you then was why you left out my other criteria, namely winning in open elections and minority membership in the party (to counter the point about the presumably imminent danger to minorities). Now you seem to be saying "oh yeah, FDI happened in the previous admin as well".  In order for you to validate your Saudi Arabia/China/Pakistan argument as a refutation of my criteria, you need to produce the data on the number of Jewish members in the ruling establishment of Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or prove that the rulers of Saudi or China contested in open elections and were voted in. "Congress also had FDI" (the policies to attract which seem to have been inconsistent, btw) may be a truism, but unrelated to your refutation.

truthbetold wrote:http://profit.ndtv.com/news/economy/article-india-pips-china-us-to-emerge-as-favourite-foreign-investment-destination-report-1224530

According to the news item from pseudo secular favorite NDTV, FDI in India

First half of 2014 - $12B

First half of 2015 - $31B  (ahead of China and US)

Lazy intellectuals of this forum still claim Modi's foreign trips are not producing any  changes.  Is this a case of fighting facts?

NEW DELHI: India remains far behind China in terms of 'gross FDI inflows' despite a recent spurt and funds are largely coming into the consumption space such as e-commerce and not in manufacturing, says a new study.

"The recent media hype over India surpassing China and US in FDI inflows, is supposedly considered an affirmation of the success of 'Make in India'.

"However, data suggests that FDI flows have centred on exploiting domestic consumption, (and) rather than stimulating domestic manufacturing it is likely to have catalysed imports," it said.

The report further said that the gross FDI inflows to China far exceeded India by 3.6 times and China's lower net FDI is due to higher investments abroad.

"It will be premature to extrapolate the recent upsurge in FDI inflows as proof of revival in the investment cycle in India," it added.

confuzzled dude wrote:

Kris wrote:
>>>

You are still not answering my question. You selectively used one of my criteria (foreign investments) to show that Saudi Arabia and China and Pakistan have those too, to refute my point. My question to you then was why you left out my other criteria, namely winning in open elections and minority membership in the party (to counter the point about the presumably imminent danger to minorities). Now you seem to be saying "oh yeah, FDI happened in the previous admin as well".  In order for you to validate your Saudi Arabia/China/Pakistan argument as a refutation of my criteria, you need to produce the data on the number of Jewish members in the ruling establishment of Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or prove that the rulers of Saudi or China contested in open elections and were voted in. "Congress also had FDI" (the policies to attract which seem to have been inconsistent, btw) may be a truism, but unrelated to your refutation.

I think we're going in circles here. Your point was, "if BJP was communal, how are those international leaders and businessmen hugging Modiji", for which I responded with the examples of China, Saudi and Pak. Now, you're trying take it to another direction i.e. minority membership etc.

>>>No.. See my copy-paste below. You can look up-thread to verify for yourself. My point was the millions of voters who voted for this party and its own minority membership and the international/ business world recognition refutes your thesis about it. I don't remember having mentioned anyone hugging modiji or any-ji ever (could you oblige me and show me where I did this?) 

 "I guess its your word against the millions who voted for them and the minority members of the BJP and the international leaders and businessmen who want to do business with them". 

, for which my response has always been, Nehru and other responsible leaders who made sure that India remained a democracy and didn't turn into another religious country.

>>> Minority membership in this party throws a monkey wrench into your thesis about this party. Nehru had nothing to do with minorities joining BJP. 

Kris wrote:

confuzzled dude wrote:

Kris wrote:
>>>

You are still not answering my question. You selectively used one of my criteria (foreign investments) to show that Saudi Arabia and China and Pakistan have those too, to refute my point. My question to you then was why you left out my other criteria, namely winning in open elections and minority membership in the party (to counter the point about the presumably imminent danger to minorities). Now you seem to be saying "oh yeah, FDI happened in the previous admin as well".  In order for you to validate your Saudi Arabia/China/Pakistan argument as a refutation of my criteria, you need to produce the data on the number of Jewish members in the ruling establishment of Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or prove that the rulers of Saudi or China contested in open elections and were voted in. "Congress also had FDI" (the policies to attract which seem to have been inconsistent, btw) may be a truism, but unrelated to your refutation.

I think we're going in circles here. Your point was, "if BJP was communal, how are those international leaders and businessmen hugging Modiji", for which I responded with the examples of China, Saudi and Pak. Now, you're trying take it to another direction i.e. minority membership etc.

>>>No.. See my copy-paste below. You can look up-thread to verify for yourself. My point was the millions of voters who voted for this party and its own minority membership and the international/ business world recognition refutes your thesis about it. I don't remember having mentioned anyone hugging modiji or any-ji ever (could you oblige me and show me where I did this?) 

 "I guess its your word against the millions who voted for them and the minority members of the BJP and the international leaders and businessmen who want to do business with them". 

, for which my response has always been, Nehru and other responsible leaders who made sure that India remained a democracy and didn't turn into another religious country.

>>> Minority membership in this party throws a monkey wrench into your thesis about this party. Nehru had nothing to do with minorities joining BJP. 

For starters, not a single parliamentarian out of 282 seats won by the BJP is a Muslim. This is something unique in India’s parliamentary history — a ruling party has failed to elect even a single member from the minority community which comprises over 13 percent of India’s population.

In addition, Muslim representation in parliament is at its lowest level in the past six decades. Only 20 Muslim members were elected, as opposed to 30 in the last elections. As a result, Muslim representation dropped to a mere 4.5 percent, a decline from 6 percent in the 2009 elections.

Most interestingly, the largest state of Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 members to the Lower House, did not elect a single Muslim member despite the minority making up around 19 percent of the population. The state has historically been the largest contributor of minority seats in the parliament. The BJP won 71 seats in this electorally crucial state.

These figures suggest a complete polarization of Hindu votes in favor of the BJP.

truthbetold wrote:Cd
Stop lying. We are exposing your lies about fdi.