16 April 2014, 05:00 PM IST
Over the past few months a spate of articles has appeared in the Western media bitterly critical of Narendra Modi. It would appear that a plague were about to visit India on May 16.
Roger Boyes wrote in the London Times: "It looks as if India is embarking on a sea change. We can and must respect their democratic choice. We can also warn our Indian friends, in case they haven't worked it out for themselves, Mr. Modi is potentially big trouble."
Amol Rajan, The Independent's Indian-origin editor, wrote: "The charge sheet against Narendra Damodardas Modi is familiar and well-founded: the stench of Hindu nationalism covers him."
The Economist's infamous cover story on Modi two weeks ago advised Indians: "We do not find the prospect of a government led by Congress under Mr. (Rahul) Gandhi an inspiring one. But we have to recommend it to Indians as the less disturbing option."
What drives such journalism, much of it drivel? Why does Modi provoke such intolerance in the "liberal" Western media?
It can't be the 2002 riots. There have been a dozen serious ones since 2002 outside Gujarat to which the Western media has paid scarce attention.
It can't be piety for the suffering of the Gujarati victims 12 years ago. The suffering of more recent victims of the Muzaffarnagar riots too has drawn minimal interest from the Western media.
It can't even be ideological. A business-friendly Modi government is on the wishlist of the corporate groups that control most media companies in the West – from Rupert Murdoch downwards.
The answer is largely cultural – Modi doesn't fit in. He's neither a clubby sort whose mind Western journalists can pick over Darjeeling tea nor a jokey regional leader who craves Western attention and can be mocked behind his back.
Modi regards the Western media – not all of it but some of it – with the same contempt it reserves for him. He gives them minimal access. He does them no favours. He asks for no editorial favours in return.
The contrast with the Western media's coverage of the Congress is stark. Its 10-year tenure, laced with serial UPA scams, is lightly treated. Robert Mugabe and Hugo Chavez have been excoriated for years but the Gandhi dynasty – including the suddenly wealthy Robert Vadra – is treated with kid gloves.
No hard questions are asked by the Western media about Vadra's land deals. No probing stories are written on Sonia or Rahul's secretive trips abroad. Ten years of the UPA and not one serious investigative story on the corruption, nepotism and feudal politics of the Congress has sprung from the West's otherwise combative print and TV media.
That's absentee journalism.
Why might this be so? The Western media is disproportionately influenced by India's "liberal" establishment comprising a left-leaning clutch of academics, journalists, NGOs and activists. This motley crew too rarely gets outraged over the UPA government's corruption or farmer suicides in Congress-governed states like Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. It reserves its anger – transmitted to sympathetic global ears – for the "danger" Modi poses to Indian democracy.
A recent letter in The Guardian, signed by a group that included Salman Rushdie, warned Indians that a Modi victory "would bode ill for India". On cue, a clutch of Bollywood B-listers issued a statement urging people to vote for a "secular government".
I was on a TimesNow TV panel debate in September 2012 with then Delhi bureau chief of The Washington Post, Simon Denyer. The anchor, Arnab Goswami, asked Denyer about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's silence on various UPA scams. Denyer had recently written about these in the The Washington Post. The article was basic. It "regurgitated" – as I remarked on the programme – "what we in India had been writing for over a year." Yet it rightly cast the spotlight on the damaging duality of power between the government and the Congress.
Denyer and the Post are exceptions to the rule among the flood of unbalanced articles on India that have appeared in the Western media. As Denyer said on TV that evening, his piece in the Post tried to be even-handed but it was, after all, catering to an audience with little knowledge of Indian politics.
One US news outlet, The Daily Caller, though got it dead right. In a recent article titled Is India About To Elect Its Reagan? David Cohen wrote:
"Like the US, India has cultural elitists who seem to desperately crave the approval of their former colonial masters in Europe. The Indian cultural elite despises Modi every bit as much as the American cultural elite despised (Ronald) Reagan. They look down their noses at Modi, cringing at the thought of being led by a common tea seller who can barely speak English. (Can you imagine Chinese or Russian citizens, proud of their own heritage, being ashamed that their leaders don't speak English?)
"Modi promises to take a tough stand against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. In this regard, Americans would do well to remember that the Islamists are not fighting against the 'West'. Islamists are fighting against all non-Islamic societies. India is very much on the front lines of what we used to call the War on Terror, before our leaders lost the nerve to name it. Modi with his assertive posture against Pakistan – reminiscent of Reagan's stance against the Soviet Union – should be a valuable natural ally."
Read the entire article here. It debunks several key issues of the 2014 Lok Sabha election, including communalism, secularism and the 2002 riots, while highlighting Modi's Reaganesque free market economic policy.
As we approach the electoral denouement on May 16, the West and its intellectually challenged cronies in India will need to replace the prism through which they view India. Their credibility – the only currency they possess – will otherwise stand greatly devalued.
Follow @minhazmerchant on twitter
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