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In a cosmopolitan society, with many strata's and layers of people you don't want such a 'simplification merchant' of his type.
Better to stick to hard facts, and sober quiet rational assessments of going forward nationally, rather than rabid grandiose personality cult/communal based development.
Disadvantaged, discriminated people at the bottom of the pile, who exercise little or no power, do not hold the country back, but people at the top with the power of the STATE, who are corrupt and ineffective.
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Confronting a Hindu fascist
and Information Clearing House.Despite his atrocious human rights record, Modi’s political stock is on the rise.
Corporate-owned media in India and increasingly in the West have showered praise on Modi and talked about Gujarat as a “model” and even a “miracle” in terms of economic development. Of course, it helps to have the Washington-based lobbyist firm APCO dedicated to the project of sanitizing Modi’s image and covering up his government’s complicity in the massacre–at a cost of $25,000 per month.
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Modi’s defenders try to deflect his critics by changing the subject to Gujarat’s torrid economic growth and claiming Modi’s right to “free speech,” but a figure who incites murder should face protests wherever he shows his face. And “strong economic growth” cannot be allowed to bury Modi’s complicity in this campaign of ethnic cleansing.
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MODI’S RIGHT-wing boosters today talk about Gujarat’s rapid economic growth, its efficient administration and the amount of investment generated. The elite of Indian capitalism have credited Modi with creating a “business-friendly environment,” which has made it easier for them to set up exploitative and environmentally destructive enterprises.
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The Economist magazine joined the chorus. Perhaps this line is all that’s necessary to summarize its attitude: “So many things work properly in Gujarat that it hardly feels like India.”
(Hmmm..the trains run on time? Shiny new autobahns? Big businesses queuing to meet and greet the fuhrer?...sounds familiar)
Modi is not shy about expressing hyperbolic admiration for his own “accomplishments,” calling Gujarat a “ray of hope in this period of gloom and darkness” in India.
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Judged by its own standards, however, Gujarat’s economic performance falls short of anything resembling a miracle. Contrary to the hype, other states have actually outperformed Gujarat in terms of growth rate. The Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy has exposed the disconnect between official claims of major investments attracted through vibrant Gujarat investors’ summits and the lack of actual projects moving forward on the ground.
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Additionally, Gujarat’s debt burden has tripled since Modi came to power in 2001, an increase that is definitely not a result of much-needed social welfare spending. Income-tax investigations revealed large amounts of undisclosed and unaccounted income from real-estate developers and other entities, with the average amount uncovered per search much higher than the national average.
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The Comptroller and Auditor General of India has called attention to “undue” favors provided to corporations by the Gujarat state government and $3.1 billion in losses as a result of irregularities and corruption.
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More importantly, Gujarat does not fare well according to many measures of social progress. According to the 2011 Indian Human Development, “Among the industrial high per capita income states, Gujarat fares the worst in terms of overall hunger and malnutrition.”
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In areas like child malnutrition, anemia among women and children and the hunger index, the state’s performance is worse than some that are much poorer. Also, Gujarat is among the lowest spenders on education as a percentage of state domestic product and is one of four states in which more than 40 per cent of Muslim females between 6 and 17 years of age are out of school.
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Additionally, Muslims in Gujarat experience lower workforce participation, are being left behind in education, and have much higher urban and rural poverty levels compared to Hindus across caste, according to a study by Abusaleh Shariff, an economist with the National Council for Applied Economic Research.
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Modi’s unfiltered explanation for the malnutrition and anemia levels suggests that even APCO’s carefully coordinated p.r. efforts can fall short at times. From his standpoint, the prevalence of vegetarianism in Gujarat–along with a middle-class orientation that makes women more “beauty conscious than health conscious”–explains the high levels of malnutrition.
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However, the successful opposition to Modi’s scheduled speech at the University of Pennsylvania points to voices of resistance in South Asian communities and beyond that reject the Hindu nationalist agenda and its commitment to religious domination. Forces on the left need to challenge globalized right-wing movements like Hindu nationalism with a politics of internationalism and real transnational linkages.
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