Submitted by narendramodifacts on Wed, 05/07/2014 - 04:30
Modi talking to a Muslim journalist: "Your mouths are watering these days at the prospect of creating a Muslim-majority nation in the name of Akhand Bharat. And getting all Muslims together, with the Indian Muslims at their head, to create strife. Isn't this a dream of yours?" http://www.firstpost.com/blogs/reading-narendra-modi-pity-a-pm-candidate...
This blog recently commented that what makes Narendra Modi stand out amongst right-wing demagogues is a particular confluence of factors: his history, his governance style, and above all the mass movement which holds him aloft, with its vast membership and its portfolio of political, religious, vigilante, and terrorist activity. These, combined with some successful image management, have brought him to the brink of national power.
Comparisons have been drawn in national and international media between Narendra Modi and Berlusconi, Putin, Abe, and a long list of other right-wing demagogues. The need for such comparisons is understandable (especially in articles in the foreign media trying to explain the significance of the Indian elections to a non-Indian audience).
"The manifest ideology and the oral tradition communicated through speeches delivered by him and the word of mouth propaganda by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) are more important than the manifesto. Mr. Modi might avoid the Hindutva language for which he is known, but through signals, expressions, and symbols he has kept intact his image as the mascot of the Hindu right... The BJP’s campaign in Uttar Pradesh unmistakably exposes the doublespeak... Mr. Modi talks about development but allows other leaders of his party and the Sangh to raise communal issues..."
"Kolhapur police in Maharashtra have discovered a bomb making factory in the Lakshmi Hill near the MIDC area of the Kagal town. Kolhapur police also arrested four suspected Hindutva terrorists, who are in their 20s..."
"...I was particularly struck by the manner in which Modi has talked about Prof Keshavram Kashiram Shastry or Keka Shastri... who had been State president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad for quite sometime... He emphatically mentions that ‘he was as a father to me’...
"...Recent reports describe Adityanath - a Hindutva hardliner, and prime accused in Gorakhpur's 2007 communal riots - as a key coordinator of the BJP's election strategy for Uttar Pradesh, the state with the most Lok Sabha seats. He first won the Gorakhpur seat when 26-years-old; now 42, he has fashioned himself as the BJP's most recognised face in east Uttar Pradesh... In 1999, Yogi Adityanath won Gorakhpur by the slimmest of margins - 7,339 votes; 10 years later in 2009, he romped home with a winning margin of 2,20,000 votes.
"INDIAN film industry, very rarely and only occasionally produces socially relevant cinema. PK is one such film. The film has once again proved that fundamentalists have no religion. What else will explain the opposition to the film, bringing together the RSS, VHP, Hindu Mahasabha, Baba Ramdev, Swami Swaroopanand Shankracharya, Maulana Firangi Mahal and the Jamat-e-Islami Hind? Surprisingly, it took nearly a week after the film was released for the protesters to express their displeasure.
"February 1992. In the midst of a political storm stirred by the Ram Mandir movement, Mahant Lal Das, the then chief priest of the Ram Janmabhoomi temple inside the Babri Masjid complex in Ayodhya was murdered. The search began for a new mahant, one with a clean reputation and free of any criminal charges or political motives. It was after much difficulty that Satyendra Das was appointed the new mahant.
"An ever-growing online community of pro-Hindu, pro-BJP, pro-Narendra Modi, right-wing tweeters has taken over political discourse on the Internet... A mark of their overwhelming online supremacy can be found in the India Today Group's e-lection poll, a mock online General Election in which users were asked to vote in Lok Sabha constituencies across India. The ballot worked through one-time passwords sent to mobile phones, ensuring only one vote for every cell number to prevent rigging.