All questions and no answers.
Think and act before it is too late!
By Aravind Bhatikar
THE promise of Ram Rajya, like many other promises of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-Home Minister Amit Shah duo, are likely to be as hollow as the promises made the past nine-and-a-half years. Modi promised the people of India that he would bring back trillions of rupees illegally stashed by India’s super-rich people abroad and deposit Rs15 lakh in every bank account in India. Nothing has happened; we are still waiting.
Modi promised to create two crore jobs per year. Nothing has happened. On the contrary, the country is grappling with problems of unprecedented unemployment, highest ever since India’s independence. In the Ram Rajya of Lord Ram, King Dasharath had sent Ram to live in exile for 14 years because the king had earlier promised his wife Kaikayee that he would grant her two wishes. Kaikayee had asked Dasharath to banish Ram to exile for 14 years. Dasharath granted Kaikayee’s wish, to keep his promise.
Whether it is the promise of Rs15 lakh or creation of two crore jobs per year — promises in the Modi Raj are not the same as those made by King Dasharath or by Lord Ram.
Lord Ram declared a war against the demon king Ravana to free his wife Sita from captivity. The war has been described by many as an indication of respect for women in Ram Rajya – a far cry from the treatment meted out to Bilkis Bano in Gujarat when Modi was the chief minister in 2002 and to the women champion wrestlers in Jantar Mantar, Delhi in the present Modi Raj.
The murderers who murdered seven of Bilkis Bano’s relatives and her two children (one unborn) and gang-raped her were released from a Gujarat jail illegally by the Gujarat government on India’s Independence Day in 2022, precisely at a time when Prime Minister Modi in his Independence Day address to the Nation from the Red Fort Delhi was waxing eloquent on how India needs to elevate the status of our women.
Can public memory in India be so short as to believe Modi’s promise of a Ram Rajya from now on?
