oppn parties Corporate India Turns On The Heat: Not All Who Criticize Are "Anti-Nationals"

News Snippets

  • Supreme Court dismisses industry bodies' plea to stop the SBI from disclosing the numbers of the electoral bonds
  • NDA finalizes seat sharing in Bihar - BJP 17, JD(U) 16 aqnd LJP 5
  • Election Commission removes Home secretaries of Gujarat, UP, Bihar, HP, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand and the DGP of Bengal
  • Telangana governor Tamilsai Soundararajan resigned from his post and is likely to contest for the BJP from Chennai
  • ED claims K Kavitha of the BRS paid Kejriwal and Sisodia Rs 100cr in the alleged liquor scam in Delhi. AAP says this is a ploy to malign their names
  • Supreme Court tells SBI not to be selective and disclose full details of electoral bonds
  • With the US Department of Justice rpobing bribery charges against Adani group companies, Adani group shares and bonds are under pressure
  • Narayan Murthy gifts Infosys shares worth Rs 240cr to his 4-month-old grandson
  • Tata Sons to sell Rs 9362cr worth shares of TCS to pare debt
  • Stocks were positive on Monday - Sesex climbed 104 points to 72748 and Nifty 32 points to 22055
  • IOA dissolves the ad-hoc panel and gives full control of WFI to elected panel headed by Brij Bhushan aide Sanjay Singh
  • Controversy erupts after BJP leader Tathagata Roy prescribes the cicumcision test for those seeking citizenship under CAA. TMC calls it a 'vulgar jibe'
  • Rahul Gandhi concludes his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Mumbai, holds a mega rally at Shivaji Park and says the BJP does not have the courage to change the Constitution despite making a lot of noise in that regard
  • ED issues two fresh summons to Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal in the liqour excise case just a day after he got bail in the earlier cases of ignoring the summons
  • A 14-year-old girl killed herself after she was strip-searched at school in Bagalkot in Karnataka
Election Commission orders removal of home secretaries of 6 states and the DGP of Bengal
oppn parties
Corporate India Turns On The Heat: Not All Who Criticize Are "Anti-Nationals"

By Sunil Garodia

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.

The Modi government, which was called "suit-boot ki sarkar" by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in its first term for its alleged proximity to industrialists, has now been accused of keeping them at arms' length. Kiran Mazumder Shaw, the CMD of Biocon, tweeted that "India Inc. is a pariah and the government dislikes criticism". She also questioned why any criticism of the government was viewed as "anti-national" or even "anti-government".

Mazumder's outburst comes at a time when the government is still gasping for breath after veteran industrialist Rahul Bajaj's stinging criticism on Saturday. Bajaj told Home Minister, BJP president and the de facto number two in the government after PM Modi on his face that industrialists were afraid to speak out as the government took criticism on the chin. He said that a clean environment has to be created where people were not afraid to speak out against the government. Bajaj bluntly told Shah that "we don't have the confidence that if we criticize you, it will be appreciated." Apart from that, Bajaj also spoke about RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's remarks on lynchings, Pragya's remark on Godse, and the continued incarceration of former finance minister P Chidambaram.

Amit Shah, though taken aback by the stinging criticism from such a luminary, was very diplomatic in his answer. He said, "About fear, I only say that no one needs to fear. Papers have written a lot about Narendra Modi, people are still writing. We have been the most written against but still, as you are saying, an atmosphere has been created, we too will have to make an effort to improve it, but I want to say that no one needs to be afraid. People do speak, on affidavit and in Parliament. Nor does anyone want to scare." He also said that "nor have we done anything whose criticism the government needs to worry about. The government has been run most transparently, we are not afraid of any opposition and if anyone criticizes, then going by its merits, we will try to improve."

Although Shah was diplomatic, the same cannot be said for other Union ministers and the army of trolls who support the Modi government and are derisively dismissed as bhakts by a section of the media. The trolls were their usual abusive selves and tried to discredit Bajaj, something which is not really possible given his track record.  Nirmala Sitharaman, while being otherwise diplomatic, couldn't resist the temptation of raising "national interest" while saying that people were spreading one's own impressions. Hardeep Puri ranted against fake narratives. This again proved what Bajaj had said. This government is not open to criticism and considers anything spoken against it as being against national interest. If two ministers in the government consider what Bajaj said to be his own impression and compare it to fake narratives, it proves beyond doubt that it keeps its head buried in the sand like an ostrich. But the bird does it when it is scared. If, as Amit Shah said, the government is not afraid of any opposition, then why this complete intolerance of criticism? Is everyone else apart from the government, the party, the RSS and those who support them anti-national?