The puppy-under-motor car analogy drawn by Gujarat chief minister and BJP’s national election committee chief Narendra Modi whose prospects of becoming prime minister following the 2014 General Election are improving by the day, reveals a dangerous mindset. Responding to a question by a Reuters correspondent on whether he experienced remorse over the massacre of 2,000 Muslims in a pogrom under his watch in Gujarat in 2002, this BJP strongman and alleged youth icon with patently faux sanctimony said he felt the same remorse as he would have if a puppy was crushed under the wheels of a motor car “driven by someone else”. Since Modi made that revealing analogy, BJP spokespersons have issued numerous clarifications and explanations. Yet the point that seems to have been missed in all media debates and commentaries, is of trivialisation of the worst communal pogrom in recent memory. In pathetically misgoverned contemporary India in which stray dogs roam streets freely, and vehicular traffic is chaotic in every urban agglomeration, the accidental death of puppies under rashly driven motor cars are commonplace. To equate this — let’s face it — routine occurrence with the deliberate, targeted murder of 2,000 sentient citizens of a particular religious community is a deep insult, which has rightly aroused widespread indignation within right-thinking members of society. Curiously this crude politician has emerged as the icon of youth countrywide. If so, it’s an indication of how poorly the nation’s youth are educated. Any student of history should be aware that what Modi — a former canteen contractor without any notable academic achievement — is unwittingly practicing is classic fascism, i.e, forging a big business-politician alliance contemptuous of civil liberties and labour. This was the politics that Adolf Hitler and Gen. Franco practiced to come to ruin, but not before inflicting huge damage and suffering upon their societies. Juvenis emptor (‘youth beware’). Last priority A defining feature of déclassé politicians who have scrambled their way to the top of Indian politics, is astonishing disregard of their obligation to create meaningful, well-paid jobs in the national interest, especially for youth of the country. This characteristic of the species politicus indicus was brought into sharp focus by Maharashtra home minister R.R. Patil when he peremptorily imposed an absolute ban on Mumbai’s once-famous dance bars in 2006. Quite obviously, this small-town simpleton’s imagination was pushed into overdrive by the prospect of nautch girls gyrating to Bollywood music in men’s bars, prompting him to order their shutdown in Mumbai, throwing 75,000 bar girls and 125,000 other people employed in these establishments — and reportedly earning a decent living — out of work. It took seven years of determined litigation by dance bar proprietors for Patil’s foolish diktat to be struck down by the Supreme Court, which held that the state government’s ban of dance bars was illegal and violative of the proprietors’ (and bar girls) fundamental right to carry on a business, trade or profession under Article 19 (1) (g) of the Constitution. During the past three…
