Four questions for PM Modi that Times Now could have asked
The channel went into advance levels of orgasm while reporting on PM Modi’s speech. Could it have done better?
It’s a foregone conclusion. Anything and everything Prime Minister Narendra Modi says or does is bound to create news for days on end, with prime-time debates and op-eds dedicated to the said utterance or act. So it was that Modi’s speech in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on Wednesday became the focus of news programming.
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ContributeHere are some of the hashtags and phrases that accompanied debates on channels like India Today, NewsX, CNN-News18, Times Now and Republic TV: “PM declares war on Congress”, #PMSlamsCongress, “Fierce. Scathing. Unprecedented.”, “90-minute combative address”, “#ModiDeclaresWar”, “PM’s 2019 warcry in Parliament”, #ModiHitsBack, “#ModiDecimatesCong”, “Blistering attack, mega face-off”, “Stinging warcry, Battle 2019” and “Sounds poll bugle, puts Cong on mat”.
Needless to say, much of it was breathless coverage on how amazing Modi’s speech was — which mostly consisted of oodles of Congress and Nehru bashing. The most notable among the channels was Times Now that, let’s just say, went into level stages of orgasm while reporting on the speech.
But we feel the channel could have done better and simply addressed a few relevant questions to the PM on his speech.
1. Why blame Nehru?
“If Sardar Patel had become the prime minister, today a part of our beloved Kashmir would not have been under Pakistani occupation”
The Nehru versus Patel is a pet narrative for BJP and many of its followers. But history is rarely as simple as speeches designed to play to the gallery. While it is true that Patel took a tough stance on Kashmir and indeed played a decisive role in securing it, this is not the complete picture. For instance, AG Noorani in his article in Frontline published in June 2000 makes contrary claims. He wrote, that in November 1972 then Pakistani President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had said that “India’s first Home Minister and Minister for the States, Sardar Patel, had, at one stage, offered Kashmir to Pakistan in exchange for Junagadh and Hyderabad.” Bhutto had added that he “unfortunately” didn’t accept this offer.
He further quotes the memoirs of Chaudhary Mohammed Ali, The Emergence of Pakistan, where Patel asked Liaquat Ali Khan: “Why do you compare Junagadh with Kashmir? Talk of Hyderabad and Kashmir and we could reach an agreement.”
According to Noorani, Patel had extended this offer again at a meeting in Junagadh on November 11, 1947 – “Our reply was that one could agree to (sic.) Kashmir if they agreed to Hyderabad.”
A Twitter thread by historian Srinath Raghavan also elaborates why Modi may have been a little unfair to Nehru.
Whether Patel would have offered Kashmir to Pakistan or seized control over all of it if he was PM remains a matter of interpretation and an exercise in speculation, but accusing Nehru “for dividing” India seems far from an accurate understanding of history or perhaps a necessary distraction from acche din.
2. “The Simla Pact signed between Indira Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto”
PM Modi said the Simla Pact was signed between Indira Gandhi and Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto. Well, the pact was signed on July 2, 1972 – when Benazir Bhutto had turned 19. The pact was, in fact, signed between Gandhi and Benazir’s father and then Pakistan President ZA Bhutto after Pakistan’s humiliating defeat in the 1971 War. Surely, this trivia could have at least found a mention in all that praise?
3. “NT Rama Rao left his acting career and entered politics to avenge [then Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister] TM Anjiah’s insult by Rajiv Gandhi”
Was Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister (CM) and Congress Party leader TM Anjiah insulted by Rajiv Gandhi at the Hyderabad airport? Yes, it happened in 1982. Later in February, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asked him to step down from the CM’s post – after the Congress (Indira) faction’s defeat in the local polls. Did NT Rama Rao create his Telugu Desam Party because of this disrespect? Well, it seems the immediate reasons were more pertaining to Telugu pride and a corruption-free state. He was also impressed with the success of film-star MGR in Tamil Nadu politics.
India Today interviewed Rao right after the massive debut victory of his party in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly – and he did not mention a word on Anjiah. His popular plank against the Congress (I) was his promise to put an end to corruption in the government.
Importantly, several disgruntled Congress (I) leaders in AP had fiddled with the idea of joining the TDP but Anjiah. The former CM of AP had successfully contested the 1984 Lok Sabha Poll from Secunderabad constituency on the Congress (I) ticket.
4. “NPA rose from 36 per cent to 82 per cent under the UPA”
Times Now’s Navika Kumar told the panellists: “He says that he had not raised the issue about the way bank loans had been frittered away in the UPA regime because there would have been an entire collapse of the banking system and the economic system of the country — which is why he had left this till this moment. He talked about the banking NPAs going from Rs 18 lakh crores to Rs 52 lakh crores. Isn’t that something that this country deserves an answer for?”
These are the same numbers that a tweet from the BJP’s official Twitter handle attributed to the prime minister. The tweet was later deleted and added to much confusion.
However, the value quoted as the amount of non-performing assets (NPA), is, in reality, the value of the total advances made by PSU banks, as NDTV’s Sreenivasan Jain pointed out in a piece.
PM Modi also claimed an investigation was launched by his government into the issue — which in fact was ordered by former Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan.
During his speech PM Modi said the rise in advances or NPAs for that matter were result of “sins” committed by the Congress government. Rajan, who had initiated the Asset Quality Review in 2015, had himself said that it would wrong to see this bad loan crisis entirely as result of corruption. In 2016 at ASSOCHAM, Bengaluru, Rajan said, “I am not saying that there was no malfeasance – the country’s investigative agencies are looking into some cases such as those where undue influence was used in getting loans…I am saying that, typically, there were factors other than malfeasance at play, and a number of genuine committed entrepreneurs are in trouble, as are banks that made reasonable business decisions given what they knew then.”
The Hindustan Times has a useful piece on the issue but clearly the PM could shed more light on this with hard data. Or better yet Times Now could dig a little on this once it emerges from the shock of PM’s oh-so-wonderful speech.
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