Letter to Modi from a Nationalist Youth

Dear Mr. Narendra Modi,

Though you’ve never been really dear to me since the time you took over as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, with each passing day you are giving me more and more reasons to continue to do so. The youth of this country today is really tired of empty promises made by politicians and throwing stories of growth which are nothing but a sham. And unfortunately you’re no different. I know that you have a brilliant PR team working 24x7 for you and being a mass media student myself, I’m well aware of the brownie points you’re gaining out of it. But no one can really hide the truth for a long time and let me tell you that the Indian youth is really smart and it can easily distinguish the lies which are otherwise disguised as truth.

Recently the city of Mumbai is flooded with hoardings of yours with lines such as ‘I am a Hindu Nationalist” and “I am a Patriot. I am a Nationalist. I am a born Hindu”. Let me tell you something. A nationalist is a nationalist. He or She can never be a Hindu Nationalist or a Muslim Nationalist or for that matter a Sikh or Christian Nationalist. You must be now wondering which community I belong to right? Trust me it doesn’t matter and so doesn’t your luring of the majority community. The youth of the city is disgusted with your politics of polarisation and policies which is so discriminatory and divisive.

If my memory serves me right, wasn’t your clarion call always about the so called development in Gujarat? If you are so development oriented, why are you back to the hardcore politics of Hindutva? Ah, you must have realized that today or tomorrow finally the truth will come out in open and then your only face saver would be the Hindutva card right? Sorry Mr. Modi not happening. By this you are giving more and more feed to your critics and a thousand reasons to the voters for not voting for you. Your aggressive election campaign would crumble just like your party’s campaign of Indian Shining in 2004.

I would suggest you to look after the state which has elected you for the third time and put your national ambitions to a halt. Still wondering what you need to work on in Gujarat? Don’t worry, I will put before you facts that is bound to make you very uncomfortable. Starting with the most talked about ‘Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit’ which boasts of turning the tide of the economy in the state and heavy investments which will bring the state out of penury, the truth is otherwise far from what is being projected.

The findings of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy suggests only a small percentage of projects announced in Vibrant Gujarat (VG) summits in 2009 and 2011 have actually moved on the ground. In VG held in January 2009, government claims that 3,574 Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) were signed for investments worth Rs 12 trillion. But CMIE could capture information and details of only 220 projects worth Rs 3,947 billion (Rs 3,94,700 crore).  “The number of projects captured…were drastically low when compared with the official numbers displayed on the event's website because of poor disclosure of basic information about the projects proposed. In most cases the website does not provide the details of a valid company name, location, product, and capacity,’’ says the CMIE report.

And an opinion piece in a national daily by noted author Ramachandra Guha only reaffirms the crumbling infrastructure of the state which you otherwise claim to be the most-developed in India. He said, "As a sociologist who treats the aggregate data of economists with scepticism, I myself do not believe that Gujarat is the best developed State in the country. Shortly after Mr. Modi was sworn in for his third full term, I travelled through Saurashtra, whose polluted and arid lands spoke of a hard grind for survival. In the towns, water, sewage, road and transport facilities were in a pathetic state; in the countryside, the scarcity of natural resources was apparent, as pastoralists walked miles and miles in search of stubble for their goats. Both hard numbers and on-the-ground soundings suggest that in terms of social and economic development, Gujarat is better than average, but not among the best. "

Also breaking the popular political rhetoric of development in Gujarat let me tell you Mr. Modi that between 2006-7 and 2010-11, Gujarat had a growth of 9.3 per cent, which was behind Naveen Patnaik’s Orissa at 9.4 per cent. Nitish Kumar’s Bihar topped with 10.9 per cent while Chhattisgarh (10 per cent), Haryana (9.7 per cent) and Maharashtra (9.6 per cent) followed. Your state is the worst performer in malnutrition with 69.7% of children upto the age of five, anaemic and 44.6% malnourished. The literacy rate in Gujarat is marginally above the national average but extremely low in the tribal areas; primary education in Gujarat is in the doldrums and the worst sufferers are the poor and the marginalized.

Female foeticide is high in Gujarat and today the Gujarat sex ratio has a skewed rate of 918 - making it one of the worst States in the country.  Unemployment is rampant in Gujarat and that the average daily wage for casual workers in Gujarat is just about Rs. 83 in the rural areas and Rs. 106 in the urban areas. Large sections of the minority communities are confined to ghettoes and cannot live in neighbourhood of their choice and the state instead has the most draconian ‘Freedom of Religion Law’ in the country which necessitates that the person has to seek the permission of the civil authority before they can convert to a religion of their choice.

So Mr. PM in waiting when you would be finally able to do away with all these problems in your state, maybe we can think of considering you for any role in the national politics. Remember growth and development should always be inclusive and wholesome. History bears testimony to the fact that rampant industrialization has always been followed by a revolution as it can alone not solve all the problems of a state. And its high time you learn some lessons from history.

Yours faithfully,

A Nationalsit Youth.