The weekend seems to have been a very difficult one for The Hindu. They seem to have spent many hours trying to figure out new ways to find anti-Modi/BJP content to fill in their newspaper for Monday. Despite those long hours, they didn’t find worthwhile content to be published. So, they chose 3 bizarre ways to come up with such news and print it in prominent places in the newspaper.
The headline of their primary Op-Ed thunders as follows “Two messages from three photographs”.
If you are wondering, why there is only one photograph whilst the headline says three photographs then please join the queue! The author has a problem with the picture that is published because the Maharashtra governor is “stuffing sweets” into CM-elect Eknath Shinde’s mouth! What exactly is the problem? That, so far no other governor has “stuffed sweets” into new office bearers it seems! The author Peter Ronald Desouza was so disturbed by this photograph that he just went all over the place – “In our zest to decolonise like we did when we replaced ‘Abide with me’ with Aye mere watan ke logon…”. What exact link does that decision have with the Maharashtra governor offering sweets to the CM-elect? What exact link does decolonization have with the Governor offering sweets? It was at this point that I figured out that it is better to shut our brains and simply view these arguments for entertainment purposes! Remember, we are to talk about three photographs, and we are still discussing the first one!
The second photograph that the author has a problem, with is actually not a photograph. It’s a video of MLAs dancing on the tables when Eknath Shinde was announced as the CM! It is apparently an “unusual expression of our democratic culture”. Doesn’t it really amaze you how these folks somehow bring democracy into every argument they want to make? Dancing on the tables is now a serious threat to our democracy – can it really get any more entertaining than this! Yes, it can.
Let’s discuss the next photograph.
The author actually has heaped praises on the Electoral officer for sitting in his chair and accepting the nomination of Droupadi Murmu from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Apparently, this indicates “conformity with constitutional propriety”. The mind simply baffles at the small things these people get happy about. Going by this (rather absurd) logic, is the electoral officer in this picture below transgressing “constitutional propriety”?
Did the author write about this grave attack on our democracy back in 2012? Or was it not kosher back then to talk about dangers to our democracy? If you thought this was the only unusual article, then you are mistaken.
Since The Hindu still needed a lot of material to cover their pages today, they had Dushyant Dave thunder: “Preserving Democracy in India”.
He picks up on Prime Minister Modi’s “Congress-mukt Bharat” argument and extends it to “Opposition mukt Bharat” by citing Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh as examples.
The Karnataka assembly verdict of 2018 was crystal clear in booting Congress out of power. Congress and JD(S) formed a post-poll alliance to prevent BJP (the single largest party). People spoke overwhelmingly in favour of the BJP in the 2019 LS elections. 17 MLAs rebelled, resigned and won elections again from the BJP ticket – thus completing the democratic necessity. A similar story happened in Madhya Pradesh too – those who rebelled have resigned and gone back to the people and won elections. The Maharashtra example is even bizarre – in fact, the 2019 mandate is restored in 2022. What happened in 2019 was a travesty and what happened in 2022 is a correction of that travesty. Yet our analysts somehow want to paint this as an attempt to make an “opposition-mukt” Bharat! A basic fact check will tell us that there are still so many states where the BJP is not in power, but clearly, analysts are not interested in such mundane facts.
Dushyant Dave ends his article with – “Mr Modi and his party have a responsibility to ensure that India doesn’t turn into an undemocratic republic”. Such fancy statements may get approval in WhatsApp groups of English media journalists but how exactly is it Modi’s responsibility to strengthen the opposition? Mr Modi has won every election fair and square till now, yet these people keep coming up with bizarre articles that put an unnecessary burden on him to strengthen others!
Not content with two articles on how our democracy is in danger, The Hindu mysteriously figured out that they must get a member of the Congress party to write about RSS and BJP.
Apparently, RSS’s strict code wouldn’t have allowed BJP to move MLAs to other states, so democracy is in danger! No, really. That’s what the article is about. In fact, the author says that “Democracy requires the elevation of the political realm” – whatever that means! The irony of a member of the congress waxing eloquent on changes in governments is not lost out on the reader. However, it was lost out on the management of The Hindu!
On a more serious note, it’s one thing for the newspaper to print bizarre arguments in their Op-Ed space. But it’s a whole different thing to have come up with this graphic on their front page.
On a day when India covered 200 crores of vaccine doses (highest in the world by a wide margin), The Hindu thought it absolutely prudent to sound despondent instead of celebrating India’s achievement. This level of hatred for anything good that happens in today’s India is unparalleled even by The Hindu’s standards. All that can be said to them is – Get well soon!
