By M K George

Rome: It is a borrowed title, from Thomas L. Friedman. He was writing about the U S as it went for elections soon. He feels that the country has been fed with lies and damned lies for four years and the nation has been so divided through hate speech and walls that today the country needs a truth-teller and a healer. Is this not true about many other countries, including our own?

I have a cousin of mine, a classmate too, who was brought up in the Catholic tradition and for quite some time active in parish activities. Presently, he is become a devotee of Ramdev and a fanatic Hindutvavadi. He blames the corruption in the Church for his ‘conversion’. (I cannot argue with him on this!) He thinks the present regime is the best India ever had and believes that India will reach newer heights.

In fact, he would send me forwards, yarned in the IT club of Hindutva, to prove how India is marching towards to the first position in the world. I would send him data from social scientists to show how India is going down in every measure of development. He would retort immediately with counter ‘data’. It is from his forwards that I confirmed that there is right now in India a very active ‘data production’ going on to justify the present regime.

The data they produce is at best debatable and most often downright falsehood. The latest from him was a forward with the picture of the Indian Prime Minister having been awarded the best PM award by the UNICEF. I pointed out to him that it is a fake news and he just replied, ‘fine’. And, added a prediction, ‘you watch the party will rule for another 25 years.’

The ruling party is building up a huge castle of lies in the name of data. Unfortunately, the mainstream media gobbles them up and reaches them to the nook and corner of the country and across the seas. One example, writing in Gulf News (13.09.2020) Makarand R. Paranjape wrote, ‘“…But today there is little doubt that despite being dogged by detractors and disputes, no Indian since Mahatma Gandhi has moved, inspired and transformed the nation as much as Narendra Modi.”

In contrast, look at the compilation of ‘Real India’ compiled by Sanket Yenagi and circulated recently by John Dayal, a much-respected journalist in the country. Listing about 30 indicators and supported by references to documents the author proves that India is far from what the official rosy reports claim it to be. For instance, according to NSSO Data, India is now suffering the highest unemployment rate in 45 years.

Twenty-two out of 30 most polluted cities in the world are now in India (WHO). Number of Indian soldiers martyred is highest in 30 years now. India now has the highest income inequality in 80 years. (Credit Suisse Report). India has become the world’s worst country for women. (Thomas Reuters Survey). There is 23 percent rise in poverty. India has the lowest GDP since 2000. Kashmiri youth joining militancy is highest in ten years. (Indian Army Data). Indian farmers suffered worst price crash in 18 years. (WPI data). India has slipped to 102nd rank out of 117 countries in Global hunger index (Global Hunger Report, 2019). The list goes on.

John Dayal concludes, “ these are some of the points, leave aside the effects of Demonetisation, GST, Cleaning Ganga, Rafael Scam aside. More importantly, the country’s harmony has been wrecked. If you speak anything against the PM or the government, you are either Pakistani or Anti-National. The worst governance, India has ever had in the last 70 years. Period.”

Look at the 16 odd Human Rights activists languishing in the jail arrested under of UAPA Act. Humanity has gone out the rulers. Age, illness, gender, none of these are concerns for the rulers. Advocate Sudha Bhardwaj, for instance is celebrating her third birthday in Jail for a case, for all that we know, is fabricated.

Father Stan is 83 years old and sick. Who doesn’t know, justice delayed is justice denied? Look at the thousands of innocent prisoners languishing in Indian jails, especially Dalits and tribals who are demanding their basic human and Constitutional rights.

The million-dollar question: who will tell the truth to the people? When there is a dedicated, financed and techno-savvy gang rolling out reels of lies on super highways, how do we counter with truth? The ordinary men and women should take up the task of telling the truth. We need boys and girls to yell out, ‘the emperor is naked.’

Writing recently in the New York Times, Mustafa Akyol and Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar wrote, “India is on a very wrong track. A country that does not treat its minorities as equal human beings will not be the world’s democracy, but rather a tyranny of the majority…The results may be social strife, radicalism, decline of economic progress, and the ruination of India’s image abroad…”

Are there any volunteers, to call out: ‘The Emperor is naked’!

(Father M K George is the Rome-based South Asia Regional Assistant to the Jesuit superior general. He was earlier the Jesuits’ Kerala province.)