Why does Western Media Hate Modi ?

ALL MAJOR WESTERN media pundits have been educated at elite universities like Harvard, Yale, UC Berkeley, Cambridge and Oxford. These institutes largely teach students that white man has carried the burden of civilizing the barbarian brown, yellow and black men. Image of India in their heads is that of a country that was ruled by invading Muslims, Mughals, British . Lord Macaulay, a British politician devised a formula in 1835 to train British people to rule India, and this is how Indian Civil Services-ICS was born and which was named IAS, Indian Administrative services after British left. But the IAS style of management is still based on colonial Macaulay values. This is what western media institutes teach their students. And this is what Western media pundits know and write about India. This is how image of India is built in the heads of common men in Europe and America.

 British rulers were replaced by Nehru era politicians. His party ruled India for next seven decades. Their challenge was winning elections by caste and religious divisions covered nice sounding and fancy by new era socialism, secularism and non-align movements. Those against Nehruvian thought were systematically cut off from common man’s memory like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Subhash Bose, Veer Savarkar. Nehruvian idealism suited well to the Western Media perception of India. It kept India subdued and suffocated. His socialism and permit raj further bred more poverty and kept India isolated from new world waves of prosperity after second world war.

Narendra Modi became new prime minister of India in 2014. Things started to change overnight.

This man is loved by common man for his earthy earnestness. There were no dynastic connections like Moti Lal-Jawahar-Indira-Rajiv- Sonia and many more families like this family.  These families owned Lutyens’s Delhi left by the British colonial masters but guarded the values installed by bygone colonial masters. PV Narsimha Rao started some reforms starting 1992 but grip of the families that controlled Lutyens’s Delhi still controlled India till 2014

Modi was elected by unprecedented mandate of Hindu people of India but was accused of genocide, called “merchant of death”, or in Hindi, “mot ka sodagar” after Godra Killing of 50 Hindu pilgrims in a train compartment in 2002.  This resulted in a mad revenge deaths of 2000 people, mostly Muslims by uncontrollable mob frenzy. Americans went to extremes from media stories of these killings, holding Modi responsible for theae deaths, judged him as killer and refused him permission to enter America even though he was an elected chief minister of Indian state of Gujarat and was declared innocent by a judicial commission.

Modi served Gujarat as an efficient and swift administrator. His personality was spotlessly clean. He was like a hermit as RSS or Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh Pracharak, messenger, a low level position . RSS is a nonpolitical, social organization. RSS principles talk about old glory of Vedic Indus civilization, Vedas, the puranas and social science. They selflessly serve all over India in times of fire, earthquakes, floods, epidemics. In some ways, Modi is like Jerry Brown, the four times California governor and was a former Jesuit priest. Jesuits are hermits and part of Catholicism and extremely disciplined. But he is also follower of Zen Buddhism, like Modi is a Jain (eventually Brown got married in his fiftees)

RSS also believes in a self-reliant and strong nation building effort, huge defense budget for national defense forces and a tough nationalistic attitude. Modi’s challenges also include refusal to accept Nehru’s socialism for India. Defense budget is expanding but is tiny as compared with America or with China. Modi’s personal life is spotlessly clean. No personal wealth gains in his entire public life for himself or for family.

All above things about Modi are so heavy and different from perception of India before 2014 when Modi was elected prime minister as absolute mandate. India of dynasty family rulings was history. It was not only Nehru family dynasty ruling India but it had become fashionable for many prominent leaders to push their children into politics as a profession and earning millions.

They were the new breed of old Maharaja. Western media has great difficulty comprehending changes Modi has brought to India since 2014. They live in the shadow of the belief that Modi is a totalitarian, nationalist leader with strong Hindu leaning.

So western media better get used to the new India. Western educational institutes like Harvard, Yale, Columbia, UC Berkeley, Cambridge, Oxford need to upgrade their curriculum on teaching about new India. They must not live in the dreams of Sie Edwin Lutyens colonial Delhi. Our advancement in science, technology, medicine, eradication of diseases, hunger and infant deaths improvements, IT industry accomplishments have made India the fifth biggest economy in the world. They should stop calling Mughal emperors great like Akbar who did all bad things that a tyrant ruler can do. Image of India during Nehru years suited western media well according to its old perception of India. Indira Gandhi was disliked by western media but not hated. But Modi’s case is different. And western media pundits better get used to this new India.