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Dec 08, 2021

Prime Minister Modi Should Not Attend Biden's Summit for Democracy

humour
We are particularly dismayed that our prime minister has been advised to take part in a massive talkathon in which civil society has been invited as an equal partner. This is curious and inexplicable when Ajit Doval has already identified them as the enemy.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi, December 2, 2021. Photo: pmindia.gov.in

We the proud denizens of New India are simply baffled by why our beloved prime minister, Honorable Narendra Modiji, has agreed to participate in US President Joe Biden’s so-called Summit for Democracy.

Who are these Americans to try to hold a tutorial for world leaders about democracy? 

It is well conceded that every country has a right – as also a national duty – to devise a political system best suited to its civilisational genius. In ancient India, we were practising evolved democracy much before the Americans were still learning how to kill off the natives. Modiji himself has frequently reminded the world that it is India, and not Greece, that is the mother of democracy.

It is a matter of great historical tragedy that India has been deprived of its civilisational glory and prosperity because an alien and imported leader like Jawaharlal Nehru insisted on foisting western concepts of democracy and civil liberties down our collective throat. This Nehruvian obsession with so-called democracy delayed our national rejuvenation by decades.

There is no blue-book on democracy that Biden can be allowed to wave at world leaders. Certainly not in a gathering that would include Modiji, who has been elected as the undisputed leader in the largest election in world history. 

What possibly can Modiji learn from this American exercise? And, if we go by their pretensions in the past,  the Americans will next presume to tell us what is wrong with our democracy. This summit’s agenda, ominously enough, is slated to be a focus on “internal reforms and international initiative”. 

This is a barely disguised ruse to meddle in the internal affairs of other countries like Bharat. 

Compared to the robust defence of Chinese democracy by Chinese intellectuals and editorial writers, it is embarrassing that no one in India has deemed it necessary to tell off the Americans. Perhaps the Chinese have good enough reason to suspect what the Americans are really up to: they want a mandate to wage war on authoritarianism. Has the world not already suffered enough because the Americans unilaterally decided to wage a war against terror?

We are particularly dismayed that our prime minister has been advised to take part in a massive talkathon in which civil society has been invited as an equal partner. This is curious. This is inexplicable. 

Only very recently, our wise National Security Adviser had warned the country about the underbelly of this so-called civil society. Hats off to Ajit Doval. He performed his professional dharma when he summoned all his vast experience as an intelligence case officer to dissect how forces inimical to India’s national interest penetrate, infiltrate and manipulate civil society. This kind of plain-talking was not all palatable to the Khan Market liberals. So be it.

Our agencies have gone to considerable lengths to choke off the civil society groups. But, now, the hon’ble prime minister’s participation in a grand conference where civil society gets equal billing is bound to embolden groups and individuals who do not wish “Naya Bharat” well. 

It gives us no pleasure to speculate that perhaps the Prime Minister’s Office was misguided and misrepresented by the Ministry of External Affairs, now presided over by a man known for his proximity to the American establishment. Our bitter experience is that this Washington Gang is no friend of India, and it is certainly unhappy that Hindutava groups and organisations are now playing such a robust role in reshaping Naya Bharat.

President Biden is no saint when it comes to observing the rules of the game. The whole world now acknowledges that India’s friend and well-wisher, Donald Trump, was cheated out of another four years in the White House. A country that does not even have an autonomous and independent Election Commission like ours deigns to play third umpire in other countries’ democratic elections. What hypocrisy!

We believe that by participating in the so-called Summit for Democracy, our prime minister is lending legitimacy to American global arrogance. Not only that, the cunning State Department has sought to enlist Modiji’s participation because the Democratic Party’s strategists know that as the world’s only global leader, he can not only mesmerise voters in India but can also swing votes in the US. It is no secret that President Biden’s party is going to face a very rough time in next year’s Congressional elections. 

We have nothing to learn from the Americans. We are the Vishwagurus.

Atmanirbhar is a pen-name for an aspiring satirist, who shall be irregularly contributing a column, From the Vishwaguru Archives, and believes that ridicule and humour are central to freedom to speech and expression.

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