The leftist propaganda website, ‘The Wire’ is known for its yellow journalism, questionable editorial policies and outright vitriolic hatred for some and affection for others. “Jan-Man-ki-Baat” is one of the many tools employed by ‘The Wire’ in their quest for spreading propaganda. Vinod Dua, in his show, usually talks about current affairs and how terrible the incumbent government is, almost with an apocalyptic tone.
But this video was different. In Episode 253, it would almost seem like Vinod Dua had been ‘red pilled’ and had started campaigning for Narendra Modi. Titled “Here’s How to gauge the Government’s Performance’’, Dua shared his ‘pearls of wisdom’ so that the simple-minded general public, who are unable to form opinions or deduct the current political situation like me don’t feel stupid. It is a great resource for everyone who is not as aware or as politically learned.
After going through the entire video, it seems Dua has betrayed the larger ethos of Wire by asking people to vote for BJP in 2019, albeit unintentionally. We now will take a look at Dua’s pointers and elucidate how he has scored an own goal –
Politics of Partisanship
Dua starts this video by declaring or rather urging people not to vote for a party which has continuously divided people and thrived on politics of partisanship. According to him, if a party engages in or only talks about religion and not about issues that matter, we are hoping the ‘issue that matter’ would be economical and agricultural development although Dua never discloses that part, to the country then people should restrain from voting for them.
Dua was perhaps hinting at Congress’ glaring links to caste agitations across the country. The divide and rule tactics that were employed by Congress and Rahul Gandhi in Karnataka. Or that recently. senior Congress leader, Gulam Nabi Azaad had appealed to Muslims to not vote for BJP. That Congress had tried to demonise the majority by creating the Hindu Terror bogey. Congress leader Kamal Nath’s recent letter to Rahul Gandhi that used dead people for petty caste politics. Or maybe, he was hinting at Congress hobnobbing with radical Islamist outfit PFI. The list is, of course, endless.
So, he by default has asked the people to vote for BJP as the BJP’s agenda is to deliver development and if we look at the manifesto of BJP this claim stands true. On the other hand, be it the Congress or the utopian concept of a third front, the only argument from their side is to talk about religion without interruption with Church also getting involved in politics and several of the opposition leader expressing their support for the meddling of religion in matters of state. Dua has presented a good argument for BJP, as it is the only party in the country which is talking about development and not religiosity.
Congress does not have a Leader
Here, Dua somewhat diverts from the ‘fiercely independent journalist’ tag. He almost had his own fanboy moment when he talked about how Congress did great in Karnataka by playing second-fiddle to the regional JD(S). Although, he tactfully does not mention the uproar that ensued within the Karnataka Congress after that happened. We here at OpIndia did a report on it and how senior leaders were up in arms about the five-year term of Kumaraswamy, while interestingly, Rahul Gandhi has been absconding ever since.
Nevertheless, after praising the Congress he expounded his praise for Congress by stating it lacks any leaders who are from the street or able to lead. Here again, Dua has suggested that Congress lacks leaders who can connect to the people at the grass-root level. Thus, it would be unwise to vote for Congress in the upcoming leader. Now, about the party which has a leader and possesses a widespread acceptance, which is not bounded by the various social strata has not been mentioned by Dua but we assume the reader is well informed.
Availability of the elected representative
Another point mentioned in the video is one of how available the elected representative is to his or her constituents. How many times, the leader has connected with the masses after getting elected into office. We agree with Dua on this one. A representative, more so, a people’s representative must maintain contact with the general populous. By this metric presented by Dua, Rahul Gandhi who goes on holiday every time there is a crisis or another election that the Congress loses under his leadership, or refuses to give any interview or any communiqué can never be considered as a candidate. Rahul and Sonia Gandhi have hardly visited their respective constituencies since they were elected too. Perhaps Dua forgot how there were ‘Missing’ posters being put up in their constituencies by the people, who were waiting for the yuvraj and his mother to come to visit them after making tall promises during elections.
On the other hand, The BJP and its various leaders have shown time and time again to be available for public service. Sushma Swaraj has proved to be a people’s minister in her various engagements in Twitter, Prime Minister Modi on whose monthly radio show “Maan Ki Baat” Dua’s programme is named after, engages directly with the masses through his radio show or his app.
Improvement in Quality of Life
Next, Dua asked the populous to question if their lives or rather the quality of life has improved in the last few years. Now, this question would spawn varied answer from person to person, as it is subjected to many variables such as location, educational qualification and so on. If we go by the Human Development Index which is produced by the United Nations, we can clearly see, India is doing better than it did in the era of the previous government. India’s human development Index is at 0.624 (2016) from 0.554(2012).
In fact, if we only look at MUDRA scheme of the government, there are various success stories that elucidate how such schemes have truly improved the quality of life of individuals.
So, to answer Dua’s very vague question, the quality of life has indeed improved under the incumbent government. Thus, if one goes by Dua’s logic, one should vote for the BJP.
Availability of Water, Electricity, Healthcare
Dua, throughout this entire video, has engaged in rhetoric, he has refrained from giving any numbers and focused solely on asking very generic questions without crosschecking. Let’s take healthcare, for example, Vinod Dua has attributed the bad behaviour of a Doctor with the policy decisions of the Government, this requires no response as this is utterly nonsensical. He also uses strange terms to define the state of healthcare, the terms he uses would only fit a mouth of an opposition leader doing a roadshow in a tier-2 city. Let’s look at the numbers – in February this year Government has approved the creation of 24 new universities under the national Ayushman Scheme. This would increase the existing number of seats in Government Medical colleges to the tune of 10,000 MBBS and 8,000 PG seats in the country. This is being done to reduce the disparity between seats available in Government and Private sector. The government is also ensuring that all private and medical colleges follow the strict academic standards. The Government has approved around 14,930 crores under this scheme.
As far as Water management is concerned the incumbent government has taken a pro-active role in it. Other than co-operating with Israel on water conservation, in the fiscal year of 2017-2018 55 % of the total outlay, which comes around 35,000 Crores has been spent on Water conservation. If we talk about electricity, the current government has been able to achieve what previous governments could not achieve. All villages now have access to electricity.
What makes it more interesting is that Vinod Dua had talked about it beforehand where he mentioned only mentioned the 10% rule but forgot to mention, the earlier definition considered a village electrified even if one power line reached the area. In fact, the Power Sector has gone through a rapid renaissance that Dua doesn’t seem to be aware of.
Thus, it is apparent that if one follows Dua’s suggestion, one must vote for the BJP in the upcoming Loksabha Elections in 2019.
Unemployment-
At the end of this 13-minute video, Dua asks the viewer to go around and search people who are unemployed and for how long they are unemployed and then illogically tells the viewer that their unemployment is directly related to Demonetization. So, if one is unemployed it is because of Demonetization and nothing else. There can never be any other factor for that person to be unemployed.
Enough with the rhetoric, let’s look at the numbers. A study by an IIM-B professor had comprehensively debunked the myth of growth of unemployment. According to Nikkei, job creation has continued an upward trajectory and has touched a 7 year high. In tune with the rise in business activities across sectors, the Nikkei India Composite PMI Output Index went up from 50.8 to a three month high of 51.9 in April, supported by increased booking of orders in both manufacturing and services sectors. The Index rose from 50.3 in March to 51.4 in April, signalling a faster expansion in output at Indian service firms than in the previous month.
In fact, the controversial Sterlite Copper Plant, the permission for which was given by the Congress government now stands to risk 30,000 jobs because of closure.
So, by every pointer presented by Vinod Dua in his video, people should vote for BJP in the upcoming 2019 Loksabha elections. We must thank him and ‘The Wire’ for taking the time to educate the simpletons of India like us to choose what is best for us. Without his pointers, who know how the general populous would have voted.
