Roving Periscope: How is the anti-Modi global hate campaign fizzling out?

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: Coordinated, sponsored, and funded hate campaigns in India and overseas to somehow ‘discredit’ Prime Minister Narendra Modi before the next Lok Sabha elections in 2024 for a ‘regime change’ may be fizzling out.

But more such hate campaigns and ‘conspiracies’ may surface ahead of elections, and meet the same fate.

Remember the unemployed Kashmiri youth and adolescents who were funded to throw stones at the security forces until a few years ago? They hogged headlines for years and quickly disappeared after New Delhi subtly shut the funding pipelines of terrorist organizations led by the Hurriyat Conference. The cash-for-stone ‘rebellion’ against India fizzled out.

The BBC’s so-called two-part “documentary” against Modi, released in January, may head for a similar fate. The objective of the crackdown on its Mumbai and Delhi offices was to uncover the source of funding potentially used in the making of this controversial documentary. Forensic examination of the BBC’s Indian accounts and related evidence would expose the hoax.

How brave or unbiased is the BBC? Created in the 1920s by a Royal Charter and funded by the British government, it portrays itself as a lion overseas but behaves like a lamb at home. Over the years, it became a mouthpiece of the British Foreign Office, lionized indigenous demon Winston Churchill for killing another demon, Adolf Hitler, and was accused of attempting regime change in many countries.

Even celebrated Indian filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, well-known for his 1998 magnum opus Elizabeth, a biographical period drama, knows the real worth of the BBC.

In a January 22 tweet, soon after the BBC released its well-funded documentary against Modi, he said:

“I wonder if the BBC has ever had the courage, to tell the truth about one of Britain’s most cherished icons #winstonchurchill largely responsible for the Bengal famine, causing starvation and death of millions. The first person to drop chemical bombs on those ‘tribals’, the Kurds.”

Over three million people viewed this tweet–as many as those who died in the Bengal famine in the 1940s.

The BBC did not even make a documentary on Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, the “Butcher of Amritsar,” who killed hundreds and wounded thousands at Jallianwala Bagh in 1919, or his boss and main culprit Lt. Governor Michael O’ Dwyer. The brutish British let them off the hook, they were financially assisted and allowed to settle down peacefully. Even part of the British media supported these colonial demons. But, no, the BBC would not touch these sensitive and nationalist subjects. Like the Kashmiri youth and some anti-Modi politicians, it will just throw stones, skip evidence, and decamp.

Many governments have rightly ignored this anti-Modi campaign. Only this week, the White House spokesperson ignored a Pakistani journalist’s planted question on the BBC documentary.

Next came the Hindenburg Research report against the Adani Group. A stock market crash in 10 of the Group companies led to the loss of over USD 120 billion to investors. Despite the hue and cry in global financial markets and India’s anti-Modi political ecosystem, the investors’ confidence is returning. After initial knee-jerk reactions, the media reported that global investors realized that the Adani Group is only a part of the much larger ‘India Story’ which remains intact in the long run.

Besides, they are also aware that Hindenburg itself is under investigation in the US!

The latest to join the anti-Modi bandwagon is the nonagenarian American investor George Soros. He has been controversial, a darling of the Left-Liberal cabal globally, one who is said to have funded attempts for ‘regime change’ in his own and other countries.

India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar put it more succinctly.

At the Munich Security conference on Saturday, he said George Soros, 92, is “old, rich, opinionated, and dangerous and invests resources in shaping narratives.”

The hedge fund tycoon, who has been associated with supporting liberal causes, on Thursday claimed industrialist Gautam Adani and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s fates are entwined and alleged that Modi was not a “democrat.”

He also said the turmoil in Adani’s business empire might open the door to a “democratic revival” in India.

Responding to a question at a session at the Raisina@Sydney Dialogue, Dr. Jaishankar said Soros is an “old, rich, opinionated person sitting in New York, who still thinks that his views should determine how the entire world works.”

“Now, if I could only stop at old, rich, and opinionated, I would put it away but he is old, rich, opinionated, and dangerous,”, the EAM remarked.

A few years ago at the same conference, Soros had accused India of planning to strip millions of Muslims of their citizenship, Dr. Jaishankar reminded.

“We know the dangers of what happens when there’s outside interference if you do this kind of scaremongering, like millions of people will be deprived of citizenship, it actually does real damage to our societal fabric,” he said.

“There are other manifestations of this in different countries, where people like him think an election is good if the person we want to see wins. If the election throws up a different outcome, then we actually will say it’s a flawed democracy,” he said.

Dr. Jaishankar said globalization allows seamless opportunities but also allows narratives to be shaped, money to come in, and organizations to get about their agenda.

“All this is done under the pretense of advocacy of an open society of transparency.”