Ever since PM Modi returned to power after a resounding victory in 2019, there seems to be a synchronisation of thoughts and ideas among certain people in the Indian ‘Liberal-secular” media and the Pakistan establishment. A propaganda article in Hindustan Times written by Rajdeep Sardesai – one of the subcontinent’s biggest fake news peddlers, has got resounding support from the Pakistan establishment, as it is now being used to further anti-India propaganda.
On Thursday, Rajdeep Sardesai – the Michealangelo of Indian journalism, wrote an article concerning the recent violent protests that took place inside the JNU campus on January 5 and has unsurprisingly blamed the Modi government for all the controversies surrounding the university.
Implying that the Modi government has tried to hijack educational institutions, Sardesai wrote that PM Modi has brought his “Gujarat Model” to the national capital to suppress dissent in universities, especially in JNU.
According to him, the Modi government through the “Gujarat Model” is stifling dissent through a system of “control” on these universities through untrammelled state power. Sardesai wrote that a calculated attempt to stifle all forms of dissent on the campus in the name of enforcing discipline is being done by the Modi government in recent times, which he refers to it as “Gujarat Model”.
To make that ridiculous assertions, Rajdeep Sardesai wrote about an incident that took place in MS University, Vadodra in 2007 in which a group of VHP activists had allegedly attacked a student, Chandramohan, after they found that his paintings offended their religious sentiments. In his article, Rajdeep said that the police arrested the artist and threatened the faculty with an FIR for standing in support of Chandramohan. According to Rajdeep, the VHP activists were let off by the police, which he declares as part of the so-called ‘Gujarat Model’. Interestingly, Rajdeep is downright dishonest in connecting this with the then Gujarat CM Modi, since VHP was actually dessimated rather effectively by Modi in Gujarat and was in noway connected to BJP.
Falaciously rawing a parallel between the 2007 Gujarat incident and the JNU incident, in which left-wing students had unleashed violence against students inside the campus on January 5, Rajdeep Sardesai not only tried to absolve the crimes of the left-wing students but also declares them as the ‘victims’. Sardesai subtly hinted that the left-wing students were the ones who got attacked inside the university and it was wrong on part of Delhi police to register a case against the seven left-wing students for unleashing violence inside the university. He, of course, completely misses how the violence was started by the Left after they vandalised the server room and did not allow students to register for the new semester.
Further, Rajdeep Sardesai claimed that de-politicisation of the campus and stifling of dissent is one of the characteristics of the ‘Gujarat Model’, which according to Rajdeep, is now being pushed onto other campuses across the country by the Modi government. He wrote that the conscious de-politicisation of the campus has not been done with the idea of raising academic standards, but to prevent the student community from mobilising on contentious issues.
However, he himself contradicts on the issue of de-politicisation as he claimed that the Vice-Chancellors are being chosen solely on the basis of their loyalty to the ruling party. He then peddled half-truths that even private universities in Gujarat cannot resist any political pressure these days, which according to Sardesai happened after Ahmedabad University was forced to withdraw the appointment of the writer of “Gandhi fiction” Ramachandra Guha.
According to Rajdeep Sardesai, Guha, who claims to have written biography on MK Gandhi, must be allowed to teach in a university in a state as it is the birth state of Gandhi. Guha being a biographer of Gandhi and not teaching in Gujarat, a land where MK Gandhi was born, was a sign of excessive state control on universities as per Rajdeep Sardesai standards.
Essentially, what Rajdeep meant by ‘de-politicisation’ of the campus was essentially that only professors who support his political thinking and the Congress should be appointed.
The most bizarre part of the entire argument of Rajdeep Sardesai to justify the JNU riots came from that fact that there was no wrong in JNU left-wing students carrying out violent protest inside the campus against the fee hike as PM Narendra Modi had himself been a part of the Nav Nirman Andolan, which began in 1973, a student protest march against a 20% hike in hostel food fees, an agitation that rapidly spread across the state.
“Today, it is likely that the student protesters of the 1970s would be dubbed by the government as “urban Naxals”, “tukde tukde gang” and “anti-nationals” who need to be packed-off to Pakistan. Where once the space for dissent was valued, and even supported, today any contrarian view attracts instant vilification. Where once taking a political stand was encouraged, today students are being pushed to abandon any form of political activity by the same leaders who claim to have emerged from the embryo of student politics,” wrote Sardesai.
However, what Sardesai carefully omitted that the protests that often take place inside the JNU campus resonate with anti-India propaganda, as chants of ‘Aazadi’ and Pro-Pakistan slogans appear often inside the campus while PM Modi’s student protests were a mere protest to address a grievance rather than challenging the sovereignty of the country as it happens in JNU regularly.
Unsurprisingly, the fake propaganda of Rajdeep Sardesai found resonance with Pakistani establishment as Pakistan Minister Fawad Chaudhary, who is otherwise known to be one of the most deranged men, supported the propaganda and shared it on social media to further anti-India hatred.
https://twitter.com/fawadchaudhry/status/1218017068768993280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
It is not surprising to see the nexus between “liberal-secular” media, certain opposition parties and Pakistani establishment, as lately it is evident with certain political parties, the intelligentsia are openly willing to join hands with Pakistan if it helped them to discredit the Modi government. The terrorist state of Pakistan welcomes any such anti-India propaganda that emanates from within India and are happy to support the narrative.
It was also recently evident after a ‘Free Kashmir’ placard was spotted at the protests in Mumbai and Pakistan was quick to join the narrative to take advantage out of the incident. Reacting to the protests, DGISPR of Pakistan Asif Ghafoor declared the placards were a sign that it was the ‘beginning of the end’ for India. In his tweet, he also claimed that Kashmir is Pakistan.
Ever since Article 370 was abrogated and later with the passing of Citizenship Amendment Act, the Pakistan establishment have successfully used the anti-Indian voices that emanate within the country to target India globally. Shockingly, the “liberal-secular” media establishment consciously or unconsciously play it to the hands of Pakistan by supporting these anti-India ‘protests’ and protestors who often shout anti-India slogans and controversial Islamic slogans, in the same voice as Pakistan.