The Narendra Modi thread

[urbestfriend]

Months and months of selling "Modi" rather than "BJP" results in this and I am sure that this isn't an isolated incident - this would have happened in many places where people only know Modi but not the party he represents.

Absolutely. When I went to vote, BJP workers were pleading voters to press button 1 for Modi. Never once they uttered candidates name.

[ravishingravi]

Yeah NYT did go OTT in the article. But what about Modi's propaganda through Bal Narendra - you don't see anything wrong in that?

So when someone brings up 1984, you say, why bring up other cases, it doesn't justify 2002. When someone brings up propoganda article, you ask what about bal narendra.

[Sachin=GOD]

So when someone brings up 1984' date=' you say, why bring up other cases, it doesn't justify 2002. [b']When someone brings up propoganda article, you ask what about bal narendra.

the articles IS about Modi and his relations with Muslims and it mentions Bal Narendra. Also, the article might have exaggerated at places but I don't think the facts are wrong. While in case of Bal Narendra it looks like propaganda like what has been used by certain other leaders in the past.

[Sachin=GOD]

Granted that too is propaganda' date= but not outrageous in the context of Indian elections. But NYT is singling out Modi for special treatment here. Some of the description in the article makes Ahmadabad appear like Krakow or Auschwitz which is far from truth. This is seriously vicious propaganda!!

Really? Which other leader has had comics having his childhood heroics published? And BTW do you really believe in these stories about swimming across a river full of crocodiles or climbing up a tree with a razor blade in his mouth?

[Sachin=GOD]

India needs a thinker, not a despot on its peacock throne Gopalkrishna Gandhi April 18, 2014

There is a strange stillness in the air. Marine geographers have a word for it – the Doldrums. The word signifies a stupor, in which everyone and everything is listless, stagnant and immobilised. Coleridge describes the state of the Pacific Doldrums in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody Sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the Moon. Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean. The ship of our nationhood, during these election days, is meant to be moving. But is it moving at all? No one quite knows , no one wants to speculate on where, towards what port, we are headed if we are headed anywhere at all. One asks in Shailendra’s words and Mukesh’s voice animated by the one and only Raj Kapoor: Manzil kahaan? Kahaan ruknaa hai? To find the answer with the humour and sadness of resignation: Uuparvaalaa jaanay-ay-ay-ay Uuparvaalaa jaanay. But that is certainly not how the BJP looks at the scene today. For that party, this is already the hour before the coronation, before the golden moment it has been waiting for ever since the country voted its government out of office 10 years ago. Can a people who showed the door even to a person as esteemed and as utterly un-dislikable as AB Vajpayee, vote into office a government headed by one who has split the country into those who worship him and those fear him , those who adulate him and those who despise him, those who imagine he will steer the ship to a golden harbour and those who know he will do nothing of the kind ? Perhaps they can, perhaps they will. Perhaps a bloody sun at noon will shine over that phenomenon. Dictators have been wafted up by people voting democratically. The ballot box can receive the faith of innocence and emit a genie. It can receive trust unseeingly, disgorge its betrayal unblinkingly. That receptacle, now a machine, is neutral to the ethics of its arithmetic. It is concerned only with numbers. And so, for aught we know, the painted ship will bestir itself and move into, what I would call Port au Pain. Let us realise that the Doldrums feeling is true but is true only as a feeling. In actual fact, beneath the surface stillness, there is a great frenzy astir, a frenzy to bring to India’s helm, the reign of an ethnic majority, of a sectarian bigotry, of a denominational autocracy. And all in the name , the very specious name, of ‘strength’. Aurangzeb the unmusical, merciless, illiberal and ravenously ambitious Narcissus is slouching towards that helm, in the garb of his opposite number. And we, we Indians, who do not believe in the rule of the sharpened scimitar or of the pointed trisul, are the adherents of Dara Shukoh, waiting for the denouement. The Doldrums lie motionless in our minds. The Great Cyclone is taking furious shape in the new Alamgir’s. And, in this great contradiction, it is the spirit of Majma-ul-Bahrayn, or The Mingling of the Two Oceans, Dara’s great work on India’s two faith traditions, that calls for our attention. When, in 1659, Dara was captured and put to death in Delhi, on the orders of his brother, the new Emperor, Dara’s adherents and admirers were shocked, stunned and, of course, were persecuted, but even as it became clear that Aurangzeb was gaining ground and would become Emperor, another great number of Dara Shukoh’s supporters and ‘neutrals’ shifted their allegiance to the new power-centre. That is Delhi for us. The way men and women of standing and stature, as intellectuals, activists and writers, have slid, like sandbags on a see-saw, to the heavier side, is reminiscent of the nobility and the ignobility of Delhi and Agra that slid to the new order in Imperial Delhi, 355 years ago. That blood was on Aurangzeb’s hands seemed not to matter to them. That deceit, purchase, intimidation were used by that self-proclaimed Servant of God, seemed not to matter to them. ‘Hindustan is weak ; we need a strong sovereign’, was the selling line. The Alamgir’s path to the Peacock Throne was laid by the murderer, plastered by the rowdy, smoothed by the toady, washed by the traitor, petalled by the flatterer and finally perfumed by the simply-scared-out-of-his-wits courtier. And a man who swore by the Holy Word but swore at his rivals, peers, alternatives, came to lead India. Lead India he did, but to what, to where, we know. Claims of vision are not made by visionaries, but by myopics. Claims of strength are not made by the strong; they do not need to. Gandhi, Ambedkar and Nehru did not say “I am a visionary” ; others saw they were that. Patel did not say he was made of iron. Metal does not self-designate. Subhas Bose said ‘Dilli Chalo!’, not ‘Mujhe Dilli le chalo!’ Dilli may well be ‘paas ast’ (near), for the chief minister of Gujarat, but there moves in the debris of its earlier empires a spirit that is not about that city’s forts, gardens and ridges but about Hindustan. Hindustan in 2014 needs no despot on its Peacock Throne, but a thinker who is also a doer, one who will heal its wounds, not turn the knife in them, rub salt on them, make them bleed again. Is there such a one around ? We do not see one. But we know where Aurangzeb’s reign led Hindustan to. Gopalkrishna Gandhi is a former administrator, diplomat and governor

http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/gopalkrishnagandhi/india-needs-a-thinker-not-a-despot-on-it-peacock-throne/article1-1209715.aspx

[ravishingravi]

What propaganda' date=' either its correct information or it isnt. If it wasnt then by now a blog and 100k tweets would have attacked this article, writer and everybody else[/quote'] Information can be misinterpreted and made propaganda. Let take an example that hits close to home for you. Modi says"even if a puppy dies it hurts us and we are talking about people here" . Interpretation :- he called all Muslims dogs and their lives worthless. And you keep repeating this, it becomes propaganda.

[ravishingravi]

India needs a thinker' date= not a despot on its peacock throne Gopalkrishna Gandhi April 18, 2014 http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/gopalkrishnagandhi/india-needs-a-thinker-not-a-despot-on-it-peacock-throne/article1-1209715.aspx

Not surprising coming from him. We had a thinker for 10 years. Where has that taken us ? We need a leader. Advani and Modi are only options on the table. Well, one is out now.

[bulbul]

Not surprising coming from him. We had a thinker for 10 years. Where has that taken us ? We need a leader. Advani and Modi are only options on the table. Well, one is out now.

Advani is not a option.

[hhunaeh]

Here is Modiji's puppy remark, just so that it is not misinterpreted

I’ll tell you. India’s Supreme Court is considered a good court today in the world. The Supreme Court created a special investigative team (SIT) and top-most, very bright officers who overlook oversee the SIT. That report came. In that report, I was given a thoroughly clean chit, a thoroughly clean chit. Another thing, any person if we are driving a car, we are a driver, and someone else is driving a car and we’re sitting behind, even then if a puppy comes under the wheel, will it be painful or not? Of course it is. If I’m a chief minister or not, I’m a human being. If something bad happens anywhere, it is natural to be sad.

[ravishingravi]

The Narendra Modi thread ^ actually the full statement is even harder to misinterpret unless you deliberately want to. I see absolutely no reference to any section of population.

[Sachin=GOD]

Not surprising coming from him. We had a thinker for 10 years. Where has that taken us ? We need a leader. Advani and Modi are only options on the table. Well, one is out now.

History has shown that in Indian politics nobody's out until the results come out :winky: and BTW why is Sushma Swaraj not an option?

[adi B]

modi is beginning to give interviews to various news channels as sg pointed out correctly.currently gave an interview to ibn,might soon give to arnab

[Sachin=GOD]

I doubt I will ever get an answer but still I will ask the question - from where exactly is BJP getting all the money to afford such expensive Ads (and other massive expenses of this campaign)?

[adi B]

I doubt I will ever get an answer but still I will ask the question - from where exactly is BJP getting all the money to afford such expensive Ads (and other massive expenses of this campaign)?

party funds,business collaborations :dontknow:

[ganeshran]

party funds' date='business collaborations :dontknow:[/quote'] The money that BJP has spent must be ranging in the thousands of crores, who exactly is giving this money, what is the quid pro quo that he/she is expecting. This is why transparent party financing records are required.

[adi B]

The money that BJP has spent must be ranging in the thousands of crores, who exactly is giving this money, what is the quid pro quo that he/she is expecting. This is why transparent party financing records are required.

all parties should come under RTI,but we know it wont happen

[ganeshran]

all parties should come under RTI' date='but we know it wont happen[/quote'] And the reason for that is because the major parties don't support it. Both the Congress and BJP and probably most regional parties too. Why should parties which are in the public domain be exempt from RTI for all their administrative aspects. In fact like DM posted one day, this information should all be already available on the websites.

[adi B]

And the reason for that is because the major parties don't support it. Both the Congress and BJP and probably most regional parties too. Why should parties which are in the public domain be exempt from RTI for all their administrative aspects. In fact like DM posted one day, this information should all be already available on the websites.

absolutely but that would be like a reverie. we might know and allege from where bjp or cong get these surplus funds but we cant prove it,thats the sad part.they'll get away

[hhunaeh]

^ actually the full statement is even harder to misinterpret unless you deliberately want to. I see absolutely no reference to any section of population.

Can you post a link to the full statement? I got this from reuters website and a youtube video which i thought had the full statement to the question he was posed. Interview with BJP leader Narendra Modi zSGKSb0RCgc

[ravishingravi]

What you posted earlier was the full statement. I m not contesting that.