And now media loves Nitish Kumar too!

 

 

The following article was written for Niti Central long time back. Pasting it here for reference.

 

 

The theme of Mr. (Nitish) Kumar’s speech was that he was not in a personality clash with Mr. Modi but was fighting him for the survival of India.

Survival of India?! We now need a Nitish Kumar to fight for the "survival" of India?! The description of his speech above is not a statement by the JD(U), but is a statement in the editorial of The Hindu.

Suprirsed? Well, don't be. Nitish Kumar is now indeed the hero of the entire left-lib media establishment - so much that he is now being hailed as someone fighting for the "survival of India". What is the severe crisis that has engulfed India that it's "survival" is at threat? Narendra Modi has been appointed election committee chief of the BJP!

Why does a mere appointment to an internal posting in the party raise so many fears? Assuming that the people of this country, through a democratic process, elect the BJP and Mr. Narendra Modi as its leader, is the "survival of India" at stake? Why this contempt towards democracy and why this fear even before the results are out?

Speaking of democracy - the mandate of the Biharis in 2010 was for the alliance of JD(U) and the BJP. Nitish Kumar decided that the alliance should be broken. Once he decided so, what mandate does he have to run the state? Yet, he clung onto power, even taking on the support of the Congress party to enjoy the spoils of power. This open betrayal of the mandate of the people is now being hailed in the left-lib as a "fight for the survival of India".

Infact, in what is probably a first, The Hindu even printed excerpts of Nitish Kumar's speech in it's op-ed page, and titled it as "There can be only be one idea - the idea of India". It was a blatantly political speech, but then it suits the agenda of a lot of people and hence the coverage to it! 

Whilst there can be many ideas of India, us being a democratic polity will definitely rank amongst the top. Nitish Kumar has openly derided that democracy by aligning with the Congress - yet none of these folks have the gall to call out his fallacy.

The BJP released a video of Nitish Kumar praising Modi. The media took it's own time in telecasting it. Even after telecasting it, a cursory mention was made in some debates, and then they moved on to "secularism". If it had been the other way round, there is not an iota of doubt that the media itself would have dug out a similar video and played it in endless loop to "expose" the "hypocrisy" of the BJP leaders! But in this specific case, all that does not matter.

Infact they go a step further - "The Bihar Chief Minister has played his cards well." and "he had to take the discourse to loftier heights." Loftier heights? Exposing his double speak to show his opportunism now means reducing the level of discourse?

Lofty words and irrelevant rhetoric comes naturally to those who claim to represent the "idea of India". They sit and wait for Mr. Modi to say/do something/anything and pounce upon that idea as being detrimental to the "idea of India". So much so that they will refuse to debate something as exceptional as 24x7 power to the entire state, because they cannot bring in "secularism" into this debate.

The Nitish Kumar betrayal of democracy has again brought into focus the severe fall in public discourse that this media has perpetuated. Indeed a shame that the "idea of India" is being driven by such folks!