The lynching of Muslims and other minorities must be stopped immediately, celebrities from various fields have said in an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi while also stressing that there is “no democracy without dissent”.

 

The letter, written by 49 eminent personalities including film-makers Shyam Benegal and Aparna Sen as well as vocalist Shubha Mudgal and historian Ramchandra Guha, also noted ‘Jai Shri Ram’ has been reduced to a “provocative war cry”.

 

“We, as peace-loving and proud Indians, are deeply concerned about a number of tragic events that have been happening in recent times in our beloved country”, the letter dated July 23 had said. ...

Mumbai, July 26 (PTI): Three days after a group of eminent citizens from various fields wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the lynching of minorities and hate crimes, 61 celebrities from various fields on Friday responded with a counter-statement against “select outrage and false narratives”.

 

The July 23 latter by 49 “self-styled guardians and conscience keepers” expressed concerns and demonstrated a “clear political bias and motive”, said the statement signed by actor Kangana Ranaut, lyricist Prasoon Joshi, dancer Sonal Mansingh and film-makers Madhur Bhandarkar and Vivek Agnihotri among others.

 

“It (the July 23 letter) is aimed at tarnishing India’s international standing and to portray negatively the Prime Minister’s untiring efforts to effectuate governance on the foundation of positive nationalism and humanism which is the core of Indianness”, the statement read.

 

The document of selective outrage, it said, comes across as an attempt to foist a false narrative with the intention of denigrating the democratic ethos and norms of our collective functioning as a nation and people”.

THERE is a reason to celebrate that a good number of celebrities have slammed a clutch of eminent citizens for mounting uncalled for criticism of Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi and his regime. That slamming indicates that any politically-driven and propagandist narrative by anybody would not be tolerated henceforth. This rebuke is a welcome development.

 

However, it is obvious that tendencies are still alive and active to denigrate Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi and his regime for non-reasons with a clear idea of painting the current situation in a negative light. Such tendencies were very active for full five years during the first tenure of Mr. Modi as Prime Minister. They returned their Padma and other awards, wrote propagandist material to serve certain political purpose, and kept making attempts to blast the Modi Government for non-existing reasons by blowing events out of proportion.

 

Now, right from the start of the second term of Mr. Modi as Prime Minister, the same tendencies seem to have become active once again most unfortunately. If this is any indication, there are reasons to suspect that a pseudo-intellectual propagandism would affect India’s public discourse in the coming five years as well, though much to the chagrin of common Indian people in the street.

 

It is, of course, obvious that the common people would not buy any of such attempts. It is obvious that those who would try to foist falsehood on the nation would be rejected outright by the people not only politically but also socially.

 

That they -- the political propagandists promoting the Opposition narrative -- would not see the writing on the wall, would be a matter of their own disadvantage. They would be damned and slammed by nationalist population and told in certain terms what kind of irresponsible behaviour they are indulging in.

 

The saddest part of such a propagandism is that these pseudo-intellectuals wish to deny the country’s social and political reality of 350-plus seats which Mr. Modi and his allies have won in the recent Lok Sabha election, indicating an unquestionable endorsement of the correct stance of the ruling alliance -- beyond politics, though expressed through the ballot.

 

However, the nation will not miss the fact that these propagandists have kept silent when the Naxals mounted violence on innocent tribals, or when goons massacred thousands of Sikhs in 1984 following the assassination of Mrs. Indira Gandhi, or when lakhs of members of the Kashmiri Pandit community were driven out of their homes under the horror of rape and murder and arson. These propagandists also did not raise a finger to resist the anti-national slogans on the campus of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

 

The nation will never miss such spells of silence loaded with political filth. The nation will not miss how many of these propagandists questioned the veracity of the terrific surgical strikes India’s Defence Forces achieved successfully. The nation will also not miss how many of these propagandists tried to tarnish the country’s image abroad on non-existent grounds.

 

But then, a second thought suggests that the propagandists should continue to talk utter nonsense like what they did in Prime Minister Mr. Modi’s first term. For, such filthy propagandism gave Mr. Modi 350-plus seats in the Lok Sabha in 2019. Five years later, the continued falsehood by them will give the Prime Minister another fifty seats minimum. Who knows, these propagandists are secretly siding with the Prime Minister, conspiring to create a political advantage for him!

 

Let alone all that, the nation’s common man will keep punishing the filthy propagandism of these outrageous purveyors of falsehood.