Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are leading a relentless attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the controversy surrounding his academic degrees. The allegations have shifted from Modi making false statement on oath about his qualifications in the electoral affidavit to now forging of documents with the emergence of ‘fake’ degrees in a section of the media.
Modi’s election affidavit in 2014 claimed he received a BA degree from Delhi University in 1978 and an MA degree from Gujarat University in 1983. Even after a sheer public revelation of his degree by the senior party leaders themselves, Aam Admi Party's doubts about Modi's degree are refusing to die out. And now the latest play of the drama king Kejriwal on the Modi degrees has turned this ongoing comedy into a real travesty.
Just to make him believe i guess one should take Kejriwal aside to school him in the common law around names. It is quite legal and legitimate to use any names or aliases whatsoever unless one does so for an illegal purpose. If Modi’s name is spelt as Mody or Modi, written as Narendra Kumar Damodardas Modi or Narendra Damodardas Modi is of no consequence and some quite plausible explanations have been offered by Arun Jaitley and others.
And beyond that in the election of 2014 that resulted in him becoming the Prime Minister, Modi didn’t campaign on the basis of his degrees. While he and his supporters sloganeered about economic development a zillion times I don’t remember even one of them crowing about his academic prowess. If the degrees are genuine, and so far they appear to be, forget the names or the spellings Modi has used.
Now lets take a look at what Modi the political juggler or the conjuror, madari in the Indian parlance, has done recently. Campaigning in Kerala he publicly alluded to Sonia Gandhi’s Italian origin more than once. The thinly veiled references to her being born an Italian are the worst form of dog whistle politics to mine the imagined xenophobic impulses of Indians. That is far more sinister than the names he may have used in the past or on his degrees. It ill behoves the Prime Minister of India.
For the current predicament of the country and its people including the latest Augusta Westland revelations, the Congress has a lot of questions to answer but the Indian citizen Sonia Gandhi’s Italian origin isn’t one of them: an Indian citizen, in this case Sonia Gandhi, is an Indian like all others no matter where she was born. Why doesn’t Modi talk about his record on economic development or his plans for it rather than wallowing in the gutter of racism and xenophobia?
An irony of immense proportions is unfolding in India. There are water shortages. Under the weight of crippling debts and drought the brutally impoverished Indians are killing themselves. There is unrest in the country’s universities. There aren’t enough jobs being created for the millions of youth joining the job market every year. Corruption, poverty, violence and injustice are on a rampage in the country.
In the midst of all this misery all right thinking Indians need to be discussing, debating and engaged in the most urgent national challenge of building a prosperous, harmonious, just, egalitarian and compassionate — corruption free– India. For its past sins of allowing corruption, communalism and sycophancy to flourish the Congress is on life support and irrelevant, at least for the time being. The drama King Kejriwal is obsessing about Modi’s degrees and Modi the great orator about Sonia’s Italian origin. God help the country!
Modi’s election affidavit in 2014 claimed he received a BA degree from Delhi University in 1978 and an MA degree from Gujarat University in 1983. Even after a sheer public revelation of his degree by the senior party leaders themselves, Aam Admi Party's doubts about Modi's degree are refusing to die out. And now the latest play of the drama king Kejriwal on the Modi degrees has turned this ongoing comedy into a real travesty.
Just to make him believe i guess one should take Kejriwal aside to school him in the common law around names. It is quite legal and legitimate to use any names or aliases whatsoever unless one does so for an illegal purpose. If Modi’s name is spelt as Mody or Modi, written as Narendra Kumar Damodardas Modi or Narendra Damodardas Modi is of no consequence and some quite plausible explanations have been offered by Arun Jaitley and others.
And beyond that in the election of 2014 that resulted in him becoming the Prime Minister, Modi didn’t campaign on the basis of his degrees. While he and his supporters sloganeered about economic development a zillion times I don’t remember even one of them crowing about his academic prowess. If the degrees are genuine, and so far they appear to be, forget the names or the spellings Modi has used.
Now lets take a look at what Modi the political juggler or the conjuror, madari in the Indian parlance, has done recently. Campaigning in Kerala he publicly alluded to Sonia Gandhi’s Italian origin more than once. The thinly veiled references to her being born an Italian are the worst form of dog whistle politics to mine the imagined xenophobic impulses of Indians. That is far more sinister than the names he may have used in the past or on his degrees. It ill behoves the Prime Minister of India.
For the current predicament of the country and its people including the latest Augusta Westland revelations, the Congress has a lot of questions to answer but the Indian citizen Sonia Gandhi’s Italian origin isn’t one of them: an Indian citizen, in this case Sonia Gandhi, is an Indian like all others no matter where she was born. Why doesn’t Modi talk about his record on economic development or his plans for it rather than wallowing in the gutter of racism and xenophobia?
An irony of immense proportions is unfolding in India. There are water shortages. Under the weight of crippling debts and drought the brutally impoverished Indians are killing themselves. There is unrest in the country’s universities. There aren’t enough jobs being created for the millions of youth joining the job market every year. Corruption, poverty, violence and injustice are on a rampage in the country.
In the midst of all this misery all right thinking Indians need to be discussing, debating and engaged in the most urgent national challenge of building a prosperous, harmonious, just, egalitarian and compassionate — corruption free– India. For its past sins of allowing corruption, communalism and sycophancy to flourish the Congress is on life support and irrelevant, at least for the time being. The drama King Kejriwal is obsessing about Modi’s degrees and Modi the great orator about Sonia’s Italian origin. God help the country!
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