Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been in public life for over five decades now. Of these, for 24 years he has held two prominent positions — Gujarat Chief Minister for 12 years and Prime Minister of the country for 12 years — and continues to do so. He has maintained an impeccably spotless reputation, so much so that the opposition has not found anything worth the name to question his personal integrity.
So, how fair is it to tarnish the image of such a leader who has emerged as invincible and who has never been defeated so far? Irrespective of the political ideology or affiliation one may have, nobody can ignore the fact that Modi has continuously retained his popularity and approval ratings, which have repeatedly been endorsed by an overwhelming majority of the people of the country.
And then there are people like Subramanian Swamy and Madhu Kishwar, who are currently carrying out a malicious campaign against the Prime Minister, levelling baseless allegations against him that are clearly aimed at tarnishing his image.
As William Congreve wrote over 300 years ago in 1697 in his famous play The Mourning Bride, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” and the same holds true for both Swamy and Kishwar. It may not just be a coincidence that the two “scorned” persons have come out with their allegations, both similar, at the same time. They have not only tried to blemish the image of the Prime Minister but also that of his senior colleagues, without any iota of evidence.
Interestingly, both Swamy and Kishwar were, at one point in time, staunch supporters and great admirers of Prime Minister Modi. While Swamy claims an important role in getting Modi elected as Prime Minister, Kishwar has written a book, Modinama, in which she has sung multitudes of paeans in his praise.
While she has been levelling malicious and slanderous allegations against the Prime Minister, she conveniently forgets that the time she is talking about was the same period when she was writing the “eulogy” for him.
Kishwar, an academician now retired for about a decade, has changed sails according to the direction of the winds in a proverbial manner. Till the time there was the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre, she would cozy up to separatist leaders like the late Syed Ali Geelani and Yasin Malik. While Geelani was considered the architect of the Islamic extremist movement in Kashmir, Malik, on the other hand, was personally involved in the killing of several people, including four Indian Air Force officers, for which the trial is at an advanced stage, with eyewitnesses already having deposed against him.
Once the political atmosphere changed and Modi became Prime Minister in 2014, Kishwar adjusted her sails accordingly. From being a critic, she turned into an admirer and glorified his regime and governance. She compiled a book of her own articles and named it Modinama, appropriately titled in praise of someone whose favours one seeks.
As is now being revealed, she was nurturing ambitions of being nominated to the Rajya Sabha. She waited and waited and waited. Twelve years indeed is a long time, and when, in the twelfth year, there were 37 Rajya Sabha vacancies, she apparently expected herself to be rewarded. When that did not happen, she felt “scorned,” and hence her anger and fury, to the extent of levelling such allegations against the Prime Minister.
Swamy’s story is no different. He believes himself to be a “kingmaker” who had an unparalleled role in getting Modi elected as Prime Minister. He indeed led a malicious campaign against the Gandhi family, including personal allegations against Sonia Gandhi before the 2014 General Elections. He had also raised the issue of corruption during UPA-II, which became an important issue in those elections and saw Modi becoming Prime Minister.
Swamy, who considers himself a great economist, expected to be made Finance Minister in the Modi government. He had waited for this position for a long time, since the Vajpayee days. He fell apart from Vajpayee and actually made his government fall to come close to Sonia Gandhi. When the UPA formed the government, he was again ignored even for a ministerial berth, let alone the Finance Ministry. Meanwhile, he again tried to build bridges with the BJP and Modi in particular. But when Modi also ignored him for a ministerial berth, the “perennial rebel” in him got the better of him once again.
Both Swamy’s and Kishwar’s slander against the Prime Minister is out of sheer frustration over personal reasons — that they did not receive the favours they expected. Even though they may be too small and inconsequential for their slander to be taken seriously, in the age of social media, such statements, coming from rabble-rousers, get magnified and widely circulated. There is no restraint or restriction on social media. Everyone is free to broadcast whatever he or she wants. The tragedy is that the majority of people instantly believe what appears on their mobile screens.
The nature of the allegations Swamy and Kishwar have levelled against the Prime Minister is outrageously absurd. No serious reader will even give a thought to these. However, an overwhelming majority of people are not adequately equipped to sieve the information through multiple layers of screening and fact checks.
And then there are also political opponents of Prime Minister Modi who are trying to drag his name into the infamous “Epstein Files.” No less a leader like Rahul Gandhi has also referred to these files without producing any evidence. Even visual evidence, in the times of “deepfake”, cannot be taken at face value.
People like Swamy and Kishwar are having a free run in maligning and slandering the country’s Prime Minister. Yet there are people, both within and outside the country, who continue to raise concerns about threats to freedom of expression. Some international rating agencies even place India among the lowest-ranked countries on the press freedom index.
Be that as it may, people like Swamy and Kishwar need to be dealt with strictly according to the law. In Western democracies, there are strict laws against libel and slander. People are jailed and made to pay heavy compensation to victims.
Here in India, everyone gets away with it. That is why people like Swamy and Kishwar have the audacity to resort to such malicious abuse. The law must be invoked. If not jail, such people should be placed in mental asylums for their vicious and wilful madness. Freedom of expression does not guarantee the freedom to malign anyone, including the Prime Minister of the country.
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