on February 8, 2020

Jay Achnani

Brought up in Gujarat, I was always a Modi Fan. You always start loving a personality whom the people around you admire. Modi was to me what Singham is to Shivgadh, What Golmaal is to Tushar Kapoor, what Congress is to Rahul Gandhi. BJP was the ruling party in Gujarat ever since I gained my senses, or even before.

My views back then as a minor were majorly, or I should rather say completely, based on how people around me would present the CM of my state to me. Modi was cool. Modi had power. Modi’s intentions were to bring out the good in bad people. But at this point, I only agree with the first two statements I made. Before I start with why I don’t stick to the third, I’d like to put forward what made the people around me think so. My source of information were the people around me. But the information has to originate from somewhere. People followed the new channels and believed the anchors who claimed to show the news, Sabze Tez, Sabse Pehle. I wonder if they had emphasized more on Sabse Sach, Sabse Nishpaksh. Neither I would be writing this, nor our PM had been continuing his tenure as the PM.

Facts prove what’s true and thoughts work the way you make them work. Last year, the Global Press Freedom Index ranked India 140/180 which is nowhere near a decent rank. ‘This index reflects the degree of freedom that journalists, news organizations, and netizens (a user of the internet) have in each country, and the efforts made by authorities to respect this freedom’ – says Wikipedia. Well, how does that even matter? I am not a struggling journalist who has to worry about his safety before publishing his article. It doesn’t only work that way. Internet and Media being the 99% of the source of information we have. The majority of the facts are twisted, molded, fabricated to make them look favorable to the right-wing. Remember the scene from the hit film ‘Sanju’ where it was shown how media makes allegations ‘sutro k anusaar’ and ended the headline with a question mark? We don’t see the question mark these days, instead, the Godi media has leveled up to throw their own perspective instead of facts. They have to. Godi media is not only about manipulating the news in exchange for money. The greed of power that is with you when you are in favor of the one in power is something that craves the editors to a much higher extent than what money would. You know something is fishy when someone is banned from an airline just because he did what that journalist does to the opposition. The media was not the same since I was hearing the rise of BJP. In 2002, the Global Press Freedom Index gave India 80th rank. Not an ideal rank. Still a rank that seems impossible to regain with the current practice.
What we see is highly responsible for what we think.

Coming back to my disagreement with the third assumption I made. I feel that a leader can be a good speaker to whom the audience connects, like our honorable PM Shri Narendra Modi. But it is more important for someone to be a leader who hears out to the audience. We know for a fact that Modi is a busy man. He has a nation to govern. But only if he spent half of his ‘speech’ time to listen to what people want to say, the scenario could have been much better today. How long did it take you to realize that our PM has never addressed a press conference or the fact that he is avoiding a few media channels to raise questions? That isn’t what a man with ’56 ki chaati’ would do, right? Modi is also accused of having a question list with him that were asked by the Godi media. With ‘proofs’ supporting what’s said, it is really tough for me as a MODI fanboy to deny. What’s more disturbing is when someone still figures out a way to reach out to him with real questions and he disagrees with the problems that we as citizens face. He denied the fact that “Unemployment’ is a major issue in India. He stated the data presented is false and that the media team should do some research themselves to get data. Upon further clarification, Shri Narendra Modi said, ‘Would you not consider the guy who started his tea stall next to your media house and earned Rs. 200 per day as rozgaar?’ This made me think of it. Is this job really inspirational that someone among us would want it as their career goal? Maybe the one Modiji was talking about wants to be the PM 20 years later, but most of us don’t. Those are the last options that anyone would be forced to accept to manage a living. This is not Rozgaar Modiji, this is Guzara. And we didn’t vote for Guzara. We voted for a better future, for a better India and selling tea at tea stalls might work for someone, but that doesn’t mean the entire nation would get the same results.

The Bhakt in this article’s title is me. I lost the battle of defending the initial image of Modi I had when I encountered facts. If you already had an image of me as a Congressi, or a Kejriwal ka chamcha, or even Anti-national I pray that something tunes you back to reality. Even if that doesn’t happen, just remember that Gujaratis are known for their business skills. A major part of business covers management and their branding skills, and this Gujarati seems to be perfect in his job.

Jay is a B. Tech graduate, who is now trying to make his own place in the export business.
This Article is purely inspired by his personal experience of unemployment and the effect of the market crisis in every business so far.