Six ways Modi sarkar is dragging India back to the dark age
With passing days, it appears that BJP leaders are in a competition with each other as to who can come up with more ridiculous statements. BJP bhakts never cease to claim that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is taking India ahead globally, but there is ample evidence to suggest that the BJP is actually dragging India backward with its age-old fundas. Here are six ways in which it is doing so:
1. Yogic farming: In a recent gathering of agricultural scientists and farmers, Union minister for agriculture, Radha Mohan Singh said "With the help of Rajyog, the farmer's confidence level should be increased so that he is able to face today's challenges like global warming and climate change. The idea behind yogic farming is to empower the seeds with the help of positive thinking. We should enhance the potency of seeds by rays of parmatma shakti". While India suffers from acute rural distress with farmers committing suicide at an alarming rate, such a statement only insults the farmers and discards the plethora of issues faced by them - unseasonal rains, droughts, low income levels and healthcare - all of which are beyond the control of farmers and some of them a result of changes in global weather patterns. Instead of focusing on real time solutions, Singh's dark age ideas are ridiculous to say the least.
2. Patriarchal mindset: At a time when painstaking efforts and campaigns are being undertaken to fight patriarchy and ensure gender equality, a statement by Mahesh Sharma, the Union minister for culture, negates all of that. He said, "A 14-year-old girl wanting a night out maybe (is) alright elsewhere but not in India". This clearly implies that he wants all Indian parents to keep strict tabs on their daughters and not let them go out at night. Such patriarchal and sexist mindset by our country's ministers is appalling.
3. Prevention of FIRs against MLAs: Recently, the Maharashtra government amended the CrPC (156)(3), under which the police won't be able to file an FIR against an MLA or a bureaucrat, even if so directed by a court, without the sanction of the speaker of the Assembly in case of the former and of the chief secretary in case of the latter. The decision is also applicable to elected representatives of panchayats and municipalities. This move can be compared to the Magna Carta as this blog mentions. Magna Carta was a political agreement reached between the Barons, about 100 landed families, and the King of England in 1215. For the first time in English history, it brought the King under the Rule of Law, thus cementing the supremacy of law as a cornerstone for democratic constitutions across the world.
4. Intolerance to criticism: In the past few months, the ministry of information and broadcasting has issued several notices to TV channels which have featured programmes that criticised Modi either directly or have even dropped a slight hint of doing so. India, being the world's largest democracy, should ideally move towards more freedom for the press and journalists. India was ranked 136th out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index 2015, which is a marginal improvement from a rank of 140 in 2014, but such censoring of programmes is pushing India towards fascism. Recently, an article which was critical of Arun Jaitley was taken down. Rather than being a democracy, it appears that India is being ruled by a monarch, where any criticism against him or his government will not be tolerated at all.
5. Attempt to clamp down on minorities: There have been re-conversion programmes, anti-minority laws and rules (for instance, the meat ban in Maharashtra) and ethnic cleansing programmes (Hindu Mahasabha launched the Muslim-free India campaign). Unfortunately, the government hasn't done anything to either enforce a clampdown on such programmes or take strict action. Ironically, the recent renaming of the Aurangzeb Road to APJ Abdul Kalam Road was done on the grounds that Aurangzeb was a tyrant who destroyed Hindu temples and unleashed various atrocities on minorities. Though the activities mentioned above aren't the same as those Aurangzeb committed, they are definitely directed at the minorities and is immensely worrying.
6. Linking every scientific development to Vedas: "We worship Lord Ganesh. There must have been some plastic surgeon at that time who got an elephant's head on the body of a human being and began the practice of plastic surgery", "Lakhs of years ago, Sage Kanad had conducted a nuclear test. Our knowledge and science do not lack anything" and "Famous scientist Eisenberg's theory of uncertainty was based on Vedas". These are some of the outrageous statements made by BJP leaders. This comes at a time when Indian colleges and universities have hardly made into the list of the top 100-200 colleges (barring a few IITs, the Indian Institute of Science and Jawaharlal Nehru University) and India hasn't produced a Nobel laureate in science in many decades (who has done research within India). Prime Minister Modi, during his foreign trips, talks about taking India ahead and making it a superpower; back home, his party is doing exactly the opposite. If India has to technologically advance, such absurd thoughts and claims should not be promoted.