Narendra Modi । নরেন্দ্র মোদী

মোদিজি হয়তো এটা দেখে খানিকটা বিস্মিতই হয়েছেন যে, জানুয়ারি মাসে রামমন্দির নির্মাণকে কেন্দ্র করেই হোক, কিংবা এই এপ্রিলে রামনবমীকে ঘিরেই হোক, বাঙালিকে তেমনভাবে উৎসাহিত হতে দেখা গেল না। উত্তর ও পশ্চিম ভারতে এসব নিয়ে যেমন উৎসাহ-উদ্দীপনা দেখা গিয়েছে, পশ্চিমবঙ্গের ছবি তদ্বিপরীত। বঙ্গ-বিজেপি চেষ্টার খামতি রাখেনি। খোলা তলোয়ার প্রদর্শন থেকে শুরু করে আগ্রাসী শোভাযাত্রা, বাদ ছিল না কিছুই।

When Narendra Modi attacked Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav recently for violating the ‘strict norm’ of vegetarianism during the Ram Navami period, he was directly inciting voters in the northern Hindi belt, and of course, in adjunct areas like Gujarat.

Nothing could sum up better the transactional relationship between big capital and authoritarian rule than these words of William E. Scheuerman, Professor of Political Science at Indiana University in the ‘Boston Review’, under the catchy title Why Do Authoritarians Win?

In the last three years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has introduced and carried through, with lightning speed and his brute majority in parliament, a series of legislations that choke or restrict our freedom of expression, information, data and their transmission. We have reasons to believe that the apparatus of a surveillance state has been grafted, stealthily but surely,

When PM Narendra Modi sent out his closest bureaucrat, Nripendra Misra, from the PMO to Ayodhya to head the Shri Ram Mandir Construction Committee in February 2020, he was clearly signalling that Ram Mandir was his highest priority.

The unseemly haste and rough manner in which Prime Minister Modi and his Communications Ministry rushed through the Telecommunications Bill in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha not only reveals their muscular, majoritarian psyche but also the regime’s apathy towards (or fear of) debate.

It took everyone by surprise when Narendra Modi, who never spares a trick to ‘elevate’ his standing, decided to deliberately ‘downgrade’ his social status and assert forcefully and unambiguously that he belongs to a socioeconomically backward caste. After years of studied silence on his caste status, Modi decided to claim the OBC mantle and attacked the Congress mercilessly for “hating” him for it.

Some MPs say that a bulletin must have been issued but most of us seem to have missed it, if at all one was sent. Thus, till the afternoon before, no one knew for sure whether the entire apparatus of the parliament of India would shift, lock, stock and barrel, to the reportedly-swank new building next door on September 19.

There is no doubt that the increasing politicisation of the bureaucracy has been corroding, for quite some time, the pillars on which fair and efficient administration rest. The pains taken by the founding fathers of our constitution to protect and insulate the civil service from political interference had ensured a large degree of neutrality, for several decades — except perhaps during the Emergency. What is more important is that it created a culture of looking down at any suspiciously close liaison between politicians and bureaucrats (for mutual personal gain) to be illicit and adulterous.

As the Modi government’s much-hyped ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ ( immortal celebration of our independence) gathers momentum, one is likely to fall prey to two impressions that are sought to be conveyed. The first is that the present regime is more firmly wedded to the principles of nationalism than others and the second is the utter devotion with which it remembers the nation’s struggle for independence.

The suspension of Professor KS James, Director of the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) appears unwarranted, mischievous, and quite untenable. By shooting the messenger, the Narendra Modi government has also sent a message – the Centre does not want to face any reality.

পাঁচ মাস আগের ঘটনা। ১৬ জানুয়ারি একটি পত্রিকায় প্রকাশিত প্রতিবেদনের শিরোনাম ছিল ‘হাউ ইন ফার্স্ট এইট ইয়ার্স ওব মোদি গভর্নমেন্ট, নিয়ারলি রুপিজ ১২ লাখ ক্রোর ডিসঅ্যাপিয়ার্ড।’ কীভাবে মোদি সরকারের প্রথম আট বছরে প্রায় ১২ লক্ষ কোটি টাকা উধাও হয়ে গেল। এই বিপুল অঙ্কের ১২ লক্ষ কোটি টাকার হিসাবে পৌঁছনো গিয়েছিল সংসদে সরকার তার ‘আট বছর সময়কালে’র মধ্যে পাঁচ বছরের যে হিসাব দিয়েছিল তার ভিত্তিতে করা গাণিতিক অনুমান বা extrapolation-এর সাহায্যে।

প্রতিটি অনাদায়ী ঋণ অকার্যকর সম্পদ বা এনপিএ-তে পরিণত হয় না। এনপিএ কথাটি প্রযোজ্য সেইসব ব্যাঙ্ক ঋণের ক্ষেত্রে যেগুলি পরিশোধের সময় ৯০ দিনেরও বেশি পেরিয়ে গিয়েছে। এটা সত্য। কিন্তু বাস্তবে পরিশোধের নির্দিষ্ট সময়ের পর ৯০ দিন পেরিয়ে গেলেই অনাদায়ী ঋণকে অকার্যকর সম্পদ হিসেবে দেগে দেওয়া হয় না। ব্যাঙ্ক বছরের পর বছর ধরে সেই খাতটি পুনরুদ্ধারের চেষ্টা করে, সেই লক্ষ্যে নানা পদক্ষেপ করে, তারপর সেটাকে ‘ক্ষতি’ বলে চিহ্নিত করে। ওই অ্যাকাউন্ট ব্যাঙ্কের খাতা থেকে মুছে ফেলার আগে ব্যাঙ্ক চার বছর বা তারও বেশি সময় ধরে ঋণ কাঠামোর অদলবদল করে মূল টাকাটা এবং তার সঙ্গে যতটা পারা যায় সুদের পরিমাণ উদ্ধারের প্রয়াস চালায়।

Five months ago, on January 16, 2023, The Wire published an article on How in First Eight Years of Modi Government, Nearly Rs 12 Lakh Crore ‘Disappeared'. The humongous amount of Rs 12 lakh crore was calculated partly on the basis of actual numbers revealed by the government in parliament for five of the ‘eight-year period’ and on extrapolations and estimates where actual figures were not available.

Narendra Modi is in a hurry to tattoo his signature right across the chest of Delhi even after his costly gambit of redoing an already splendid Central Vista (Rajpath) flopped at the box-office. He had blocked the central artery of Delhi for almost three years, dug all around, pumped tonnes of pollutants into the city’s notoriously noxious air, sent traffic haywire, and blown up some 700 crore rupees. But when the new ‘Kartavya Path’ was inaugurated with orchestrated flourish, even the moles of the area yawned and went back to their burrows around the Boat Club.

The BBC’s telecast in January immediately triggered highly inflammable memories of communal riots in Gujarat in 2002, when Narendra Modi was the chief minister. These wounds were just too raw to be touched, even after Modi’s professionals had adroitly managed to cover them up, with the assistance of several legal eagles and the indulgence of judicial officials and those even higher up. Modi has been pronounced “not guilty” on certain specific narrow charges, for the present and to the extent possible, but many other questions continue to fly, all around, thick and fiery. This riot, in which over a thousand people – mainly Muslims – were slaughtered simply refuses to behave and lie still in its grave.

শোনা যাচ্ছে যে আগামী ২৮ মে মাননীয় প্রধানমন্ত্রী একটি চকচকে নতুন সংসদ (New Parliament) ভবন আমাদের উপহার দেবেন। অবশ্য, আমরা কখনও এটি চেয়েছি বলে কেউ মনে করতে পারছি না। তা সত্ত্বেও তিনি দেশবাসীর দেওয়া আয়কর আর জিএসটির ১২০০ কোটি টাকা খরচ করে এই ত্রিকোণ গৃহটির উদ্বোধন করার জন্যে ছটফট করছেন।

Having watched Narendra Modi for nine years, of which more than two were spent “in his government” – as head of a national organisation – I can state with certainty that every action of his has an ulterior motive of helping someone make huge profits. I guess these crony capitalists, in turn, look after Modi’s needs. But what is more important is how the state machinery is calibrated to suit the requirements of these beneficiaries

For a government that constantly measures the ‘productivity’ of parliament in terms of hours or minutes wasted in non legislative business, this Budget session that has just ended ‘sine die’ would normally have been really heart-breaking. Data just released shows that Lok Sabha’s productivity had fallen from 83.8% in the first part of the Budget session that ended in February to just 5.29% in the second part in March-April. Over 96 hours and 13 minutes were lost to disruptions in the Lok Sabha, while they claimed 103 hours and 30 minutes in the Rajya Sabha. Whatever Modi and his captive media may propagate, Houses of parliament are not some sort of industrial assembly lines of production where machines and numbers matter the most. What is not noticed is despite its apparent futility, this latter part of the Budget session has been extremely productive in bringing the Opposition together.

Seventy-three years may not be enough to pronounce a judgement on whether parliamentary democracy has worked in India or not. In a democracy, it is the lowest common denominator that prevails, and hence, it is futile to accept only Pericleses in the rough and tumble of the demos. But it is this same Indian parliament that has managed, without doubt, to bring together under one roof, into some sort of dialogue, the incredibly diverse peoples, ethnicities, and religious denominations. Issues are settled in Sansad through debate – sometimes, a bit too loudly. But let us not forget that some of today’s participants had once favoured the gun rather than talk. In just seven decades, governments and the parliament have, indeed, succeeded in cooling off numerous intractable sectarian and secessionist passions. The first election to the Lower House (Lok Sabha) will go down in history as one of those wonders that only Indians are capable of demonstrating – maybe once or twice in a century.