What is it about India that irks the leftist parties across the globe? After all, India is not borrowing money, as we were prone to do a few years ago, from the world bank! We now loan money to countries that need it. I think the answer lies in the previous statements. When a country goes from being the golden bird to a fledgling economy to a stagnant economy, it also meant the World Bank, and thro it the economic powers, were able to control the borrowing country and its growth. These countries dictated how, and where, the monies were to be spent. Now, look at an economy that’s thriving(the naysayers will WANT to talk about the economic slowdown but ask them if they want to go back to the 2005-2014 years and they shut up) and see how that economy dictates a changing attitude!
Photographs of naked kids dancing on the streets of Kolkata were plastered on the pages of National Geographic! The magazine didn’t care to show the middle class but chose the extreme poor, forgetting that poverty is not restricted to India alone! We have extreme poverty in the USA and the UK but that got swept under the rug while it got highlighted in India. Christian missionaries made a killing in donations received with these “lowlights”, and yet not one word was said by the government nor the people!
UK and the other European countries depicted India as a country filled with snake charmers and mystics, and yet never said a word about a very low-level economy like Italy! Why would they, given the migrant Italian population that exists in countries like the USA and Canada. This may sound harsh and racist, but the truth is countries like the US and UK have an inherent hatred for people who are non-Caucasian.
The fact that Ram Mandir was long overdue was forgotten by the esteemed members of the western elite! They still were going with, as my journalist friend Nitin Sawant says with tongue in cheek, Jai Sri Rome! When a country turns from a subservient people to an assertive people, the change in attitude can be misread as Hindutva. My question to these people is, would they say that Indonesia, a predominantly Muslim country, is run by the Mullahs or that Italy is run by the church and missionaries? They wouldn’t dare do so, and yet, when it comes to India they have an opinion!!
Hindutva just reminded me of something I read in today’s news! Apparently, the Hindutva that the Shiv Sena preaches is softer than the one preached by the RSS/VHP and, of course, the BJP. So say the intellectuals from the INC! I know, a lot of you think the word intellectuals and INC don’t go together, as you have the picture of Rahul Gandhi as INC! I didn’t know there was a soft version but whatever! The tragedy is that the Shiv Sena used to reflect the high ideological values of Balasaheb Thackeray and was held in high esteem by Hindus. Since his death, this party has gone in a different direction, power-hungry and greedy. Without wanting to get into the mess that is the Shiv Sena, all I can say is Balasaheb must have tears in his eyes with all the goings-on in Maharashtra! Shades of Dhritarashtra and the “putra-moha”! When we needed unity among Hindus, we found ourselves embroiled in an unnecessary fight for power. This really doesn’t bode well for those, among us, who are looking for leadership! Trying to make deals with parties that have hated your ideology from time immemorial is a mark of a power-hungry politician and that’s what Junior Thackeray has turned out to be.
All one can hope for, at this point in time, is that sanity returns and we have a stable government in Maharashtra. The state deserves it!