Modi's eleven years- making of a brave new India

Time of India

11 hours ago

The breeze from Indus, a Shiva mantra at Kailas, a trek in Chushul and a chadar walk on frozen Zanskar. All this put together describes Tarun Vijay. He is a former BJP member of Rajya Sabha. The blog revolves around everything that is Mother India and her concerns. LESS ... MORE
Counting number of people benefitted materially and creating impressive graphs to showcase progress of the nation under the leader is not the right and proper way to judge him.
How many of us remember Shivaji for uplifting poor from severe poverty or making houses for the downtrodden? How many roads and water bodies did Maharaja Ranjit Singh create that made him great?
We all remember the great Indian heroes for trouncing the enemies of the nation and protecting Dharma.
Everything else follows naturally- prosperity, flowering of the arts and culture, beautiful landscapes and joy on the faces of the common people.
If nation remains in fear of the enemies and dharma is mocked at by the eliminators of the people and culture like Jihadis and Maoists, nothing good may happen to that land and people. America owes its progress to the leaders who led the people by their example, upheld the lofty ideals of a civilized society and built a new country. They were Lincolns, Jeffersons, Martin Luther Kings and innumerable men and women who recycled the time machine for a nascent country, set new standards and reversed everything that the savage British had left for them- including renaming places, changing voltage use (US 120 volt-UK 230 volt) , rephrasing popular usages like footpath to path ways, US plugs and sockets were made to have a different configuration than those in the UK, turned electric switches' functions reversed, discontinuing the British way-even if that meant initial problems for adaptation by the masses. If the brutal British had switches on- by turning the knob down, newly independent Americans decided to have it the opposite way-bottom to top- , road way commuting was turned right hand drive and language of the country was declared as American-English- changing spellings in such a strong way that today English- British and English -American are globally accepted ways of writing in two different ways. The pride and confidence in being American paved the way to a million flowers blooming in various sectors- making it a great nation.
Same happened to Israel.
The tiny Jewish nation, resurfaced after two thousand years of wait and prayers and struggles, is not great because it developed great technological prowess from the day one. No. It affirmed its true identity, it stuck to its roots, ancient language, it swore to protect nation's soul and core values that Pt Deendayal Upadhyaya in India called as Chiti- the innermost core of a people and the land. It produced true leaders like Ben Gurion and Golda Maier- like the Lincoln and King, showed courage to have Hebrew as their national language- a language that was not in vogue since last two millenniums and the rest followed in a natural way. It became strong and great.
India forgot to eliminate the remnants of British – Moghul colonialism and continued with the slave mindset.
Modi changed the way India was thinking before- it hit hard the colonial mindset- ignited a fire in the hearts of a billion people to march ahead- make progress, shed colonial hangover and be a true, proud, brave Indian. The making of a new parliament, built by Indians for India, is a landmark in our previous millenniums' old history of resistance. The new central vista will herald an Indian dream for Indians created by Indian engineers and labor- not a viceregal palace built by the foreigners as was the old structure. Decolonising armed forces, getting Indian navy a new insignia inspired by Shivaji, reminding the people about the brave heroes like Lachit Barphukan , Suheldev and Ahilya Bai Holkar, getting the courageous war between Arunachal Pradesh's indigenous faith tribes and the British like Anglo Khamti war presented though various channels of media- movies, plays and text books, changing text books and indigenization of the defense production , a spectacular network of roads, bridges, airports and seaports, are just a few initial baby steps of a nation whose march to superior heights of power and glory is now unstoppable.
All this has happened with one mantra- injecting courage in the veins of a nation . We can do the impossible, we will make India great again was the war cry to awaken the people. .
India can do- is the new mantra of the republic. If article 370 and 35 A needed to be removed, India removed it. The voices that ominously warned of 'rivers of blood' if 370 was touched remained conspicuously silent. If Muslim women needed to be unshackled from the curse of triple Talaq, it was done. If the mafia war lords of Mushtaq Ansari type and Maoists needed to be silenced , India did it.
India suffers from a severe memory loss, it forgot or believed that all its ancient past consisted of snake charmers, heathens and pagans and the western education, British colonization civilized us, turned us into a nation.
Modi punctured this colonial savagery in our system and shook our beliefs entering into a new era of regaining Bharat that was called by the foreigners as India. The resurgence of an unprecedented number of books on our hoary past, great achievements, scientific- spiritual innovations, the immense flow of devotees to our Dharmic institutions, festivals, Mahakumbh hasn't happened in a mechanical way. Temple going was never so normal, easy, part of a daily life and universally acceptable as it has been seen these days. It has a reason and a systematic growth in Bhakti and Shakti is comparable to only 1857's resurgence for war of independence.
The amazing rise of the Temple of Rama at Ayodhya is not just a new structure, but the greatest move in reviving our collective memory and rekindling a sense of valour and victory in our veins. Ayodhya has become India and India has merged its identity into Ayodhya.
Modi is made of a material that shines in storms. If a stupid and a lackadaisical opposition fails to create one, he creates one for himself-a new storm – in form of seemingly un- achievable goal and walks a winner. He has a knack to enter the lion's cave alone and count its teeth like Bharat. He remains unfazed in face of defeats and insults and emerges a better man passing through tests by fire. Having known him personally for the last more than three decades and being a witness to his most difficult times in Gujarat- I can say Narendra Bhai is a biggest eliminator of the nation's enemies so far who has shown a courage of a Swayamsevak in the centenary year of his mentor organization the RSS, to face worst storms of his life- storms that were predicted by his opponents as 'enough to end his public life' and he tamed them with a calmness so rarely found in world leaders.
His eleven years are not to be weighed against the material benefits that Indian people have accrued – but by the sense of being strong, powerful and full of 'Can Do' kinda confidence.
Creating a brave new India is his eleven years' gift to Bharat Mata.
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Views expressed above are the author's own.