The rise of the political force that is the Bharatiya Janata Party under Modi’s leadership has been providing employment opportunities to a lot of columnists and Left-liberal propagandists around the world for nearly a decade now. An entire cabal of Left-liberal ‘analysts’, self-proclaimed ‘intellectuals’ and columnists keep themselves gainfully employed by writing doom and gloom pieces against India, its so-called downfall to an imaginary abyss of misery because that is what their Leftist ecosystem, and Western paymasters love to read.
The whole system works like the fanbase of a fantasy universe. The doom and gloom never come. Modi keeps winning election after election, India prospers faster and faster and keeps rising as a major global power, contrary to everything that the Leftists have been predicting (wrongly) for nearly a decade. But there is just no course correction. The higher-ups pay for fantasy pieces hating on Modi, so the columnists of the bottom keep producing the lies, again and again. The ecosystem survives on Modi hate and India hate.
The latest in this series is another word salad of lies and falsehoods published in Bloomberg, written by Ruth Pollard. The article, titled “India’s identity is more hardline Hindu than ever“, doesn’t even know how to deal with the reality that Modi is set to win another term in office. In desperation, the author has jotted down some points and tried very hard to paint a picture of doom and gloom with so many lies and blatant misinformation that the result is a pathetic rant, not even worthy of being called an opinion.
Pollard begins by noting down the BJP’s 3 key objectives. And acknowledges that 2 of them have already been achieved. She adds that BJP came to power with 3 major promises:
- Removing Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir (which she misleadingly calls ‘special status’ of Kashmir, India’s only Muslim majority state)
- Building Ram Mandir at Ram Janmabhoomi (which she falsely claims was a Muslim mosque)
- Bringing a Uniform Civil Code (which she claims will be unfair to Muslims and other minorities. No reason, just “trust me bro”)
Here is how Pollard has lied through her teeth in this article. What is surprising is that publications like Bloomberg do not even engage a minimal editorial scrutiny or basic fact checks before publishing utter nonsense.
Pollard claims that Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only ‘Muslim majority state’ was “forcibly brought under the control of the federal government in 2019”. Pollard has tried to create the idea that Jammu and Kashmir was somehow NOT a part of India and under India’s territorial and administrative sovereignty, just because it was ‘Muslim majority’.
The abrogation of Article 370 that allowed Jammu and Kashmir to TEMPORARILY have its own laws and penal code was legal, constitutional, and was done in the democratically elected Parliament, by the power vested on the government by the people of India. It was supported by a majority vote of the Members of Parliament, which includes representatives from the region and has been upheld by all Indian laws.
Whatever made Ruth Pollard believe that India cannot give the residents of Jammu and Kashmir the same rights that are enjoyed by all other Indians, is certainly derived from similar-level trash op-eds by her fellow Left propagandists and not rooted in an actual understanding of Indian laws and constitutional process.
Lies about the UCC and Ram Janmabhoomi
The Bloomberg columnist peddles utter lies on the Uniform Civil Code next. She insinuates, out of nothing, just her imagination, that the Uniform Civil Code, which by its very definition means a single, uniform code for all Indian citizens, will be unfair to Muslims. She then peddles total lies to justify that conjecture, that Modi will somehow sneak in loopholes that would allow Hindus to carry on their “worst practices”, like the dowry system and allowing only sons to inherit property while taking away the right of polygamy from Muslims.
Anyone with an iota of understanding of Indian laws will know that Hindus of the country are the only community who do not get any special rights to carry on with their existing social ills. All Hindu women are entitled to inherit property, by Indian law. The practice of dowry, which is not limited to Hindus alone, is a punishable crime under Article 498A which has been called ‘too strict’ and to some extent even ‘unfair’ because of the amount of power it gives to women. However, Hindus are prohibited from practicing polygamy, unlike Muslims, and unlike Muslims, Hindu families cannot deprive their daughters of property rights.
The columnist claims that the Ram Mandir is being built by the Modi government after ‘Hindu extremists’ tore down a 16th-century mosque, and the riots that followed, caused ‘mostly Muslims’ to die. The blatant lie has been told so smoothly that for clueless readers, who are obviously the target audience of the Bloomberg article, it would appear that the cruel Hindus of India demolished a holy Islamic site and forcibly are building a temple over it.
She does not bother to mention that the site was ‘Ram Janmabhoomi’, the birthplace of Lord Ram, where a temple existed for centuries before Islamic rulers demolished it. It does not mention that the Hindus, despite their population majority and political power, waited patiently and fought a legal battle for several decades to claim ownership of the site. It does not even mention the thousands of Hindus who were gunned down by state police of ‘secular governments’ for trying to protest against the desecration of their sacred land. It also does not mention that the Muslims were given an alternate site to build their mosque, which they accepted.
More coping and seething, because India is not being bullied by the US, Australia, and Japan
The next cycle of frustration of the author is displayed through a geopolitical point of view. She is angry at the USA, Japan, and Australia for not bullying India. She is also irritated at the fact that India, despite having the ‘Hindu’ Modi in power, is considered an important Quad ally by these nations for their desire to counter China.
Like many Left liberal columnists, Pollard forgets that the partners of the Indo-Pacific Quad are not doing a favor on India by ‘allowing’ to be in the Quad. India is the only nation in the Quad which has fought battles with China in recent years. India is the only nation among Quad partners that shares a land border with China, 3500 km of land border, no less. And the fact that the “Indo” in the Indo-Pacific is the Indian Ocean Region, where India has a massive coastline and is the dominant maritime power, not to mention one of the strongest naval forces in the world.
Someone should ask these columnists how exactly they plan to exclude India from the Indian Ocean Region. That ocean is called the “Indian” ocean for a reason after all.
The article concludes with some hard swallowed cope. It admits reluctantly that India is the fastest-growing economic power and investors are increasingly looking to put money in India rather than China. It acknowledges that Modi is set to win another term in office, and the sadness in tone is palpable when the author writes “Modi is a force to be reckoned with”, to finish her article. Well, she got that correct, at least.