'At least 100,000 people gathered Saturday in Hyderabad, India’s technology hub, to protest Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a new law they say will strip the country of its secular foundations, maintaining steady pressure on the government as demonstrations entered their fourth week. The protests have drawn massive crowds across India, with more than 200,000 people gathering in Kochi city, in the southern state of Kerala, on New Year’s Day.
Submitted by narendramodifacts on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 00:00
Surveillance is going be a major theme in 2020. The good news is that there will be lots of dissent and protest this year. But how will an authoritarian government without a concept of compromise - or even tactical retreat - deal with widespread protest? Especially if this protest involves a large number of Muslims?
First, protestors will be demonised mercilessly. A propaganda attack must be the first response according to their war manual. We have had six years to see how the violent, communal rhetoric of the "proud to be followed by PM Narendra Modi" twitter army sets the tone of more mainstream discourse. The protestors will be anti-national, extremist, illiterate, puncture-wallahs who can be identified by their clothes. The Sangh twitterati will find evidence of a foreign hand - where there are signs of intelligent life, they see a foreign hand. The importance of a foreign hand is that once there is a foreign hand, nothing is off-limits. The propaganda is to pave the way for a "law and order" response to the protests. Dissenters need to be monitored, controlled and punished. We have already seen this language in use.
'Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday extended New year greeting to top leaders of Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Maldives via telephonic conversation. PM Modi skipped Pakistan...'
'Jaggi Vasudev, also known as Sadhguru, released a nearly 22-minute long video on the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens. This was even shared by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who called it a “lucid explanation’ and said that Jaggi provides “provides historical context, brilliantly highlights our culture of brotherhood.
'...The NPR, and the planned NRC it is linked to, are enormous data-gathering exercises, and will give the government access to personal information about everyone living in this country. This information can then potentially be used as the government (and therefor ruling party) pleases – whether to deny people citizenship, as many are afraid will happen, or to target voters in different areas based on demographic analysis. This, clearly, is the kind of data the Modi government likes. But there is plenty of data the ruling regime does not like.
'How has Prime Minister Narendra Modi stayed popular, amid all that has happened in the country for the past five years? From demonetisation and job losses to a failing economy and an agrarian crisis — a large section of the Hindi TV media has played an immense role in watching out for the government. Anchors work as cogs of a well-oiled PR machinery whose sole aim is to praise the leader, while actively delegitimising any criticism that comes his way.
'“No leader probably anywhere in the world is as obsessed with social media as Modi is, he even gets a detailed list of which social influencer has tweeted what about him every evening,” claims a former government official. Every prime-ministerial tweet is vetted by more than one individual before being officially “cleared”, each tweet is aimed at shoring up Modi’s stature as the country’s tallest leader.
'The number of government assurances made in the Lok Sabha that have remained unfulfilled increased by 300% between the 15th and 16th Lok Sabhas, showed an analysis of Parliament data by IndiaSpend. These assurances include an array of subjects, ranging from the offer of information on custodial deaths to the impact of demonetisation and attacks on journalists.
'On December 22, PM Narendra Modi, addressing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) election rally in Delhi, outrightly rejected the existence of detention centres in India. This, as noted by many, is far from the truth and is a plain lie. Modi was addressing this rally in the national capital, which has been witnessing protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR). Modi declared that the “Congress and urban naxals have created this whole narrative of detention centres and it is a lie. Lie. Lie.
'The Jharkhand assembly elections results suggest that the aggressive and extensive campaigning done by senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party leaders Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath did not work in the party’s favour. According to media reports, in total the three leaders addressed as many as 32 election rallies in different parts of the state during the assembly election campaign. However, the BJP’s election performance suggests these rallies did not always serve their purpose...'
