Powerful people do have extremely motivated enemies, but what happens when a powerful person becomes the centre of political rhetoric by an entitled political class that will burn the nation if they cannot grab power? The Congress party and allied elements have been indulging in high pitch rhetoric against industrialists such as Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani. While we absolutely cannot say that any attack against the industrialists is a direct result of the rhetoric, one has to wonder if it played a part in fuelling the hate against them.
Only yesterday, a car laden with explosives was discovered outside Antilla, the residence of Mukesh Ambani and his family. According to the police, the act was “well planned” and committed by seasoned criminals. Further investigation into the matter is currently underway.
Mumbai Police stated on Friday, “The suspect who parked the car near Mukesh Ambani’s house was seen in CCTV footage but has not been identified as he was wearing a face mask and his head was covered by a hoodie.” “The car was stolen from Mumbai’s Vikhroli area sometime back, its chassis number was damaged a bit but police managed to identify its real owner,” it said.
“Some amount of gelatin was found in the vehicle. The vehicle was seized by police. The offence has been registered under relevant sections of the IPC and Explosive Substances Act. A letter was found in the vehicle but as an investigation is in the preliminary stage, we can’t share contents,” the Police added.
An individual would have to be extremely motivated, either by money or sheer hate, owing to ideology or political reasons, to actually steal a car and plant a bomb in front of the house of someone as connected and powerful as Mukesh Ambani. The interesting element here that needs to be kept in mind that Industrialists mostly are on good terms with political parties beyond the ideological spectrum. As a businessman, one might have their leanings but industrialists, especially on that scale, would need to work with every government that comes to power in a nation. Democracy is a revolving door and ideological leanings, if at all, does not form the basis of which government the industrialists work with.
That basic principle, however, was breached by the Congress party, especially, Rahul Gandhi. As it became evident that the Congress party had summarily lost its footing in India and the Gandhi surname no-longer had political premium attached to it, the desperation to re-invent their image, tainted with scams and loot, became overpowering. One way the Congress chose to wash its corruption image was to go after big industrialists like Mukesh Ambani, insinuating that Congress was a party for the poor, while the Modi government hobnobbed with industrialists and made policies to benefit them at the expense of the poor (and the country). This rhetoric had not a grain of truth to it – but lies sell. Lies against self made industrialists sell more and lies against Modi is almost a cottage industry that has flourished since he became the Chief Minister of Gujarat.
Mukesh Ambani has been at the receiving end of negative propaganda for quite a few years now. The propaganda reached a frenzied peak with the onset of the ‘farmer protests’. Opposition parties and farmer leaders alleged that the farm laws were passed so that ‘Ambani-Adani’ could benefit from it. Regardless of the fact that there was no obvious way that the Ambani family could have anything to do with the passage of the law and there was no ostensible benefit for them in the laws in and of themselves, the propaganda against them continued unabated.
Not too long after, mobs began attacking Jio mobile towers in Punjab and managed to damage a great many of them. According to media reports, 1500 Jio towers were vandalised as protesting ‘farmers’, if one would like to call them that, went on a violent rampage and vented their ire against Mukesh Ambani and Reliance. There was no particular reason for this rampage, if one were to look at it closely. Reliance was not involved in passing the legislature, obviously. So why did they happen? Well, firstly, Congress had made up its mind that it had to oppose the farm laws. Since such lies sell and they had nothing concrete against the laws that actually benefited farmers, they chose to up the pitch against ‘Ambani-Adani’, it appeared.
Then, one fine evening, Greta Thunberg inadvertently revealed the toolkit that exposed the Khalistani hands behind the global campaign against India.
The document, titled, ‘Global Farmer Strike First Wave’, implores individuals across the world to be a part of the ‘largest protest’ in human history. The objective was, apparently, to protest against the ‘unregulated corporatisation’ of the farming sector.
The document registered actions people can take to undermine the democratic will of the Indian population. The proposed measures included, “Call/Email any of your govt representatives and ask them to take action, Sign online Petitions and take action to Divest from monopolists and oligopolists like Adani-Ambani” and “Organise an on-ground action near the closest Indian Embassy, Media House or your local Govt. office on 13th February, 2020.”
Let us say that again. One of the proposed measures in the toolkit included “Sign online Petitions and take action to Divest from monopolists and oligopolists like Adani-Ambani”.
One point in the list of “prior actions” said, “Physical Actions – Near Indian Embassies, Govt. offices, Media houses (or even Adani-Ambani offices) globally – 26th January”. Thus, we see a clear pattern of attempts to damage the business empire of Mukesh Ambani.
And now, we have a car laden with explosives planted near the residence of the Ambani family. One is forced to wonder at this point if the attempt was merely the next step in the increasingly sinister attempts to target the business tycoon.
There have been grave attempts by political parties in recent times to revive their fortunes by demonizing Indian capitalists. The Congress party stands out among them. Rahul Gandhi’s entire political gambit at this point revolves around demonizing the Ambanis and the Adanis.
‘Hum do hamare do’ is a slogan that Rahul Gandhi has invented to insinuate that Prime Minister Modi is controlled by the business tycoons. Consequently, there has been a barrage of anti-Ambani and anti-Adani propaganda.
It would not be far-fetched to argue that the vandalism of the Jio towers was a direct consequence of the rhetoric adopted by the Congress party. A senior Youth Congress functionary was even celebrating the vandalism on social media.
There is, of course, no direct evidence as of now to link Congress’ rhetoric against Mukesh Ambani, the Khalistani involvement in the farmer protest, the vandalisation of 1500 Jio towers, the mention of Ambani in the Greta Toolkit and the explosives planted outside Mukesh Ambani’s home. The investigation is still underway and the motives of this act are still unclear. However, with everything that has happened over the past few months, one is forced to wonder if the rhetoric played a part in fanning the hate that culminated into this death threat.
We know for a fact that Khalistani elements have been involved in the protests against the farm laws and they have not made any effort to cloak their animosity towards Mukesh Ambani. While we ought to wait for the investigation to be completed, the danger that such rhetoric poses cannot be denied.
