PM – Phirse Modi?
- Apurvah Sahay Aarzoo
- May 13, 2019
- 4 min read
सारे जहाँ से अच्छा
सारे जहाँ से अच्छा हिंदुस्तान हमारा हम बुलबुलें हैं उसकी वो गुलसिताँ हमारा।
परबत वो सबसे ऊँचा हमसाया आसमाँ का वो संतरी हमारा वो पासबाँ हमारा।
गोदी में खेलती हैं जिसकी हज़ारों नदियाँ गुलशन है जिनके दम से रश्क-ए-जिनाँ हमारा।
मज़हब नहीं सिखाता आपस में बैर रखना हिंदी हैं हम वतन है हिंदुस्तान हमारा।
- मुहम्मद इक़बाल
I would like to start with a plea to the Bhartiya Janta Party to atleast spare the sanctity of the abbreviation of Prime Minister (PM), if not India’s history.
On Saturday, 11 May 2019, AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi reminded Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, about the Gujarat riots, the horrendous genocide of the Muslims in 2002. And have we forgotten it? This incident is also known as the 2002 Gujarat pogrom, where the riots ended with 1,044 dead, 223 missing, and 2,500 injured. Reports estimate, that as many as 2,000 people may have been killed, or I rather say butchered over a burnt train of karsevaks, Hindu pilgrims, alledgely by Muslims. Brutal murders and rapes had engulfed western Indian state of Gujarat. By the end of the riots, 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were dead. Unsurprisingly, this incident took place under the Chief Minister of Gujarat at that time, Narendra Modi, who was accused of initiating and condoning the violence, as were police and government officials who allegedly directed the rioters and gave lists of Muslim-owned properties to them. This is a perfect example of politics played using religious sentiments by either of the side. Point being, this situation occurred during our present PM‘s rule as Chief Minister in the state and this division continues.
“The BJP government rectified the mistake made by Akbar!”
God-complex much? What a shame!
Our generation has grown up reading about our inclusive, rich cultural and religious diversity. Initially, I personally gave him the benefit of doubt that the books we read were “Congressi”, but on what grounds can one justify renaming 25 cities and towns? Allahabad to Prayagraj and Faizabad to Ayodhya, if voted to power, BJP might change the name of Hyderabad to Bhagyanagar.
"Earlier, Hyderabad was Bhagyanagar and in 1590 Quli Qutub Shah came to Hyderabad, he changed Bhagyanagar to Hyderabad. At that time many Hindus were attacked, many temples destroyed. We are planning to rename Hyderabad," said BJP Party MLA Raja Singh.
I, along with millions, were not born in Bhagyanagar because the ruling party is intolerant towards “Hyder”, a Muslim name in the name of the city. Next, we might stumble upon an era of changing the names of movies too. I wonder, are they going to rename the movie – Haider to Bhagya? One can try to distort, but one can never change the truth.
Some of the shocking, yet approved, name change proposals include Rajahmundry as Rajamahendravaram, Outer Wheeler as A P J Abdul Kalam Island, Arikkod as Areekode, Pindari as Pandu-Pindara and Samphur as Sanphure. No studies have been conducted till date to measure the impact of city names being changed but without a doubt the costs are beyond justifiable. Talk about Indian economy gaining stability under BJP. Re-branding cities, government and business stationery; traffic, railway and neighbouring city signages; all systems and paperwork across the country to be trashed and re-branded to make India, a little more Hindu, than it already is. A cost that the environment has to pay and identities (I was not born in Bhagyanagar!). The biggest cost may be in re-educating outsiders about the name change, an intangible line item whose true costs will never be known, due to obvious reasons.
I am often mockingly told to read the news about the economic growth under PM Modi’s rule ( to be honest, I am literally scared to omit PM from the name Modi, who knows, they come to arrest me for having Aarzoo in my name despite of being born into the Hindu religion). So from now, I will refer to him as, India’s Divider in Chief (The TIME magazine has featured India’s Divider in Chief on its international cover with this very headline, BRAVO!).
Let us go through the following, just to be fair, who managed Indian economy better - Modi or Manmohan? You will notice, we did fairly well and additionally were a much more tolerant country.
I do not have an alternative to offer to my readers against the BJP government and it pains me that we really do not have a worthy contender who can bring actual development and freedom to-just-be to our country. Alas, Phirse Modi Sarkar!
According to IndiaSpend, over the past few years, communal violence under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has taken the uphill by 28% and around 900 incidents have been “reported” in a year. For many it might be very difficult to remember where the citizens of our 'once an inclusive India' - have been so divided. In my opinion, Rahul Gandhi or most of the rest of them who might not even have an authentic school degree are eligible to become the Prime Minister of such a large country who already has such poor living conditions (especially for females, Muslims, backward classes, LGTBT community and I can obviously go on). Where our Prime Minister or India’s Divider-in-Chief, has been busy labelling the opposition and its ancestors as traitors, all those who oppose him as traitors, all those who do not align with him from Pakistan which he again means traitors or terrorists. Very sadly, he is an apt example of most people in India, “jo maa baap pe chala jata hai”. Toxic polarisation, debates based on religious intolerance and relentless tainting of reputations, this election campaigning, by far, has been the most disgraceful in the history Indian “POLITICS”.
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