One must hand it to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This is a leader who knows how to do things ‘differently’ — and leave the people of the country gob-smacked by his startling moves. On Friday, 17 May, Mr Modi came out with one more zinger. He did a press conference without actually doing one.
What was touted as Modi’s first press conference in five years, turned out to be merely an address to the assembled media people — more Mann ki Baat than a question-and-answer session.
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He held forth on the greatness of the Indian democracy, the pleasure he had got out of the just-concluded election campaign, and said he was convinced that the BJP would return to power with a thumping majority.
Modi Decided to Cross the Rubicon – But Copped Out
Oh, yes, questions were taken. But they were taken by party president Amit Shah, while Modi sat quietly by his side with his hand on his chin. A few reporters tried to address their queries directly to the PM. But he smiled benignly and gestured to his trusted lieutenant, who, it has to be said, did a good job of fielding the questions. In truth, it was Amit Shah’s press conference, where Modi did the introduction, and dispensed some general small talk.
It could have been so much more, though. It could have been an occasion to demolish the criticism regularly levelled against Modi, that he only does scripted interviews with pliant journalists. Since he did decide to cross the Rubicon and face a roomful of media people in the final moments of this overlong election campaign, he could have shown us that he respects his accountability to the people of India, and does not shy away from answering questions from the press.
Did We really Expect Modi To Take Strict Action Against Pragya Thakur?
Crucially, it could have been an occasion to announce some definite disciplinary action against Pragya Singh Thakur, a terror-accused in the Malegaon blast case and the BJP’s candidate in the Bhopal Lok Sabha seat, who blithely declared on 16 May, that Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin, Nathuram Godse, “was, is, and would remain a deshbhakt — a patriot.”
But all one got on the subject of Pragya Thakur was Amit Shah’s unequivocal assertion that her candidature was the BJP’s ‘satyagraha’ against a fake case of ‘bhagwa terror’.
(Six people died in the Malegaon blast in 2008, all of them Muslims, and Thakur is out on bail for her alleged involvement in the case.)
The party had indeed sent a show cause notice to Pragya and two other BJP leaders for their comments extolling Godse, but they were required to respond to the notice within 10 days. By which time, of course, the elections would be over and the results would be out. But did we really expect Modi or his party to take stringent and summary action against Pragya Thakur — expelling her would have been appropriate — for her vile remark glorifying the killer of the father of the nation?
Modi Couldn’t Ignore Pragya’s Attack On Gandhi – So He Chose to Not ‘Forgive’ Her
In the last five years, the PM has made it a point not to react to any toxic statement or act of abomination by members of his flock. Men have been lynched, hate speech has been spewed, and communities sought to be divided and polarised. But Modi has mostly kept mum, and let matters take their course.
A known hate-monger like ‘Yogi’ Adityanath, was made chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. A Union minister garlanded those accused in a case of lynching. He too wasn’t asked to resign.
This time, though, Modi did break his silence and reacted to Pragya Thakur’s noxious statement. After all, it is harder to ignore a slur on Mahatma Gandhi — especially when the final phase of the elections is yet to take place — than it is to turn a blind eye to some calibrated hate-mongering on the ground. “The statements made about Gandhiji and Godse are terrible and wrong,” Modi said to a news channel on Friday. “Though she has apologised, I will never forgive her.”
Does It Matter If Modi Forgives Pragya Thakur Or Not?
The question is, does it matter if Modi forgives Pragya Singh Thakur or not? What matters is what he is going to do with his alleged lack of forgiveness towards Thakur. What the people of India wanted to hear was how he would punish her for airing her repellent views, for praising a killer, for denigrating the Mahatma, and for standing the concept of nationalism on its head.
What the prime minister offered instead, was a tepid declaration that condemned Thakur’s statement, but stopped short of condemning the person who made it.
When Modi and the BJP’s other top minds had the brainwave of fielding Pragya Thakur as the party’s Lok Sabha candidate from Bhopal, their game plan was clear: Thakur, an accused in the Malegaon blast of 2008, would shore up the Hindu votes by her strident appeal to Hindutva sentiments.
It did not matter to the Modi-Shah combine that she was out on bail in a terror case, and was an utterly cynical choice for a candidate. Neither did it matter that rooting for her knocked the bottom out of the PM’s claim that he was tough on terror.
BJP Stands With Pragya Thakur – Modi’s ‘Presser’ Confirms It
Since the announcement of her candidature, Thakur has been free with her poisonous harvest of throwaway comments. Among other things, she said that anti-terror squad chief Hemant Karkare, who died leading his men during the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, had really perished because she had ‘cursed’ him. (Karkare was gathering evidence against Thakur in the Malegaon case.) That comment sparked widespread outrage as Karkare is a true martyr who died in the service of his country.
The BJP distanced itself from Thakur’s comment about Karkare, just as it has distanced itself from her declaration that Godse was a patriot. But it has stopped there.
There are elements within the Sangh Parivar who would second Thakur’s view of Godse as a hero. And to that extent, the BJP is clearly happy to let her fire away while keeping up a front of condemning her outrageous and evil statements in public.
Make no mistake: the BJP is sticking with its candidate of choice from Bhopal. The Modi press conference that wasn’t, was an affirmation of that.
(Shuma Raha is a journalist and author based in Delhi. She tweets at @ShumaRaha. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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