Dear Friends...
I received this mail about a personal experience author had with Mr Modi while she and her husband were residing in Gujarat in 2004-2006.
All their personal experiences about Gujarat, about Mr Modi are written in her article.
She is pleased to share all that they both witnessed, experienced, heard from people , even from Muslims and were pleasantly shocked.. Not residing in Gujarat now and in no way connected with politics or political party in any ways.
She is pleased to share all that they both witnessed, experienced, heard from people , even from Muslims and were pleasantly shocked.. Not residing in Gujarat now and in no way connected with politics or political party in any ways.
A Simple, educated, non political South Indian lady speaks a lot about her contrary experience to what is propagated by media and political parties. Her honest experience in Gujarat which she rightly thought must be conveyed to people of India when section of the media and political parties are painting Narendra Mod as Fascist, Divisive and communal for their own self serving agendas. There has been a deliberate campaign against Mr Modi and the common people are not told the truth and the reality by even the popular media.
These non political observations by individuals are unbiased and have much more credibility than the propaganda by the biased media which runs paid campaigns sponsored by political interests. I can assure you we are not paid to publish this.
Please feel free to write your comments at the end in comment box.
Ajay Angre : Author, Writer, Publisher
Personal Experience of Interaction with Modi
Author(s) : Dr Vathsala
Mani
I must mention in these days of caste-ridden mindsets – just survived the attack of the Emperor of Maladies, cancer that I have been suffering from for the past two years. I have no expectation from life for myself, even if Modi were to become the Prime Minister of the country.
But I want the teeming millions of my compatriots, especially the younger generation, to learn that there is another side of the Modi story than the one they get bombarded with from anti-Modi industry.
The announcement
of Mr. Narendrabhai Modi as BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate for the 2014
elections in fact took me back to my Gujarat days 2004-2007.
To begin with,
I recall a conversation I had with the late Kiritbhai Rawal, the then
Solicitor-General of India, whom I met in the company of my husband early in
January 2004. Kiritbhai was instrumental in getting my husband to
Gandhinagar, Gujarat, to set up GNLU.
I asked him why Modi was not replying
to the many public criticisms, Kiritbhai replied: Modi would not waste his
time replying them, as they would continue to crop up ad infinitude. But he
would rather focus his attention and energy in developing Gujarat as no
other state would, and that would be his way of answering the critics.
It’s a pity that Kiritbhai is not alive today to watch the way Gujarat has
developed.
Before my
husband’s formal appointment to GNLU, he told me that he would decide on the
offer only after meeting Modi (as he then had an opportunity to go abroad).
Kiritbhai had said, the appointment would be formalized only after a meeting
with Chief Minister Modi. He soon arranged a meeting between my
husband and Modi at Ahmedabad. Besides, Kiritbhai, Modi was
accompanied by two of his ministers. Towards the end of the meeting,
my husband brought to the attention of Modi of his JNU background, and the
fact that he had published a newspaper article on Gujarat (on the need for a
law on genocide in India, published in The Hindu). Modi’s reply was
that my husband could hold any opinion he wanted, but Modi would like him to
build the best law University for Gujarat. He wanted a
professional.
My husband said, if he faced any problems on job, he
would contact Modi’s office. Modi replied: “Not my office, but me
directly.” So much for the so-called intolerance of Modi towards
people who held views not agreeable to his.
My husband was
impressed by the way he was treated and accepted the GNLU offer
immediately. I was happy he did so, for this brought me closer to
Gujarat. I really wanted to find out on the ground about the events
leading to the 2002 riots, over which the media and political parties were
going overboard.
Also, I was earlier been snubbed badly by a senior teacher
from Sambalpur, Odisha when I expressed my sincere condolences to him over
the gruesome killings of Graham Steine and his children over religious
intolerance. He shouted at me: Madam, you sit in an ivory tower in
Delhi and pass judgments without knowing the ground realities. He said
he felt sad human life was lost. But what about joint families being
broken up by misguided conversions? His own family was one such victim
eventually leading to coercive partition of family property for which he
held the likes of Graham Steine responsible.
How come, no media reported
this side of the story?
In the initial
years Gujaratis working in our Government-allotted house and also at GNLU
were reluctant to open up. Later on as mutual confidence grew, they
found me friendly and helpful, and then they began to be more
informal. What they narrated to me showed that the media,
particularly, English language media were lapping up one-sided news
portraying Modi as the Demon and all his opponents angels.
They told us
about the earlier riots in which the Hindus were mostly at the receiving
end. There were several instances of stone-throwing on Hindus passing
through Muslim dominated areas of Ahmedabad. The governments of the
day kept a blind eye to all this. All the suppressed passions broke loose at
the Godhra carnage, and no government, Modi or no Modi, could have stopped
what followed – despicable and condemnable as both the Godhra and
post-Godhra killings were.
The Teen Darwaza
area is always abuzz with people jostling with one another, with mostly
Hindus customers of all classes visiting shops offering all kinds of wares,
mostly owned by Gujarati Muslims. I was a regular visitor and took my
friends and relatives for shopping for saris and gorgeous children’s
dresses.
A Muslim shop keeper told me once that Gujarati Muslims were
all peace-loving, but the Muslim immigrants from other parts of the country
often created trouble here. This was also confirmed to my husband by a
sociology professor of JNU origin, from Gujarat
University.
Since 2002,
there has been peace and progress in the State. This is probably due to
Modi’s policy of “justice for all and appeasement of none.”
Pampering
one community at the cost of another only leads to public resentment,
perpetuation of communal divide. On the ground, practices of religions
are not mutually exclusive. I was pleasantly surprised an array of
Muslim traders and hawkers selling flowers and other puja samagris near
Hindu temples in Ahmadabad – again the Bhadrakali temple near Teen Darwaza
stood out. The hundreds of boatmen ferrying Hindu pligrims from Dwarka to
Bed Dwarka and back are Muslims who earn their living by facilitating Hindu
pilgrimage.
The common
people were happy with Modi as he was accessible to them for a hearing.
Modern technology made it possible for Modi to personally reach out distant
villages – he even spoke to them, identified them by video-conferencing on a
regular basis. People could attend government functions without any security
hassles. My housemaid told me that in not so distant past, womenfolk
had to walk long distances to fetch water and return the same distances with
pitchers on the head one over the other, but after Modi came the Narmada
water reached their villages to their doorstep. In terms of the luxury
of getting uninterrupted electricity (I have a house in Gurgaon), Gujarat
was unrivaled.
After we arrived
in Gandhinagar, we were allotted a government house in Sector 22,
Gandhinagar.
Being an old construction, it needed some repairs and
electrical rewiring. The local works department office sent some
electricians for the job. When they finished the work fast and to my
satisfaction, I was pleased and gave them some money by way of tips.
They were most unwilling to accept it, yet I persuaded them. It was
just a token of my appreciation of their hard work. Finally they accepted it
reluctantly. In the afternoon, to my utter surprise, two senior
officers visited my house and asked me whether I paid any money to the
workers and why. I said, yes, as I was pleased with their work. It was
not a bribe and I really wanted to show my appreciation. The officers
said, Madam, you are getting us into trouble: “if Modi Saab came to
know of this, we would be taken to task.” They wanted to return the
money, but I refused to take back the money. They said, don’t do this
again and put them into trouble.
This was clean, bribery-free administration
for a housewife to experience.
As for the much criticized “Hindutwa” of Modi, here is food for thought.
After the
Bhoomipoojan of the GNLU campus in mid-2005 and installation of an Ashok
Pillar at the entrance of the future campus, my husband happened to be a
party to a discussion at the CM’s Chambers, Gandhinagar Secretariat.
The then Law Minister suggested that in the future GNLU campus there should
be a Saraswati temple, just across the Ashok Pillar. Modi killed the
proposal in the bud by instantly asserting that the university was a public
body to be constructed on government money. You can’t have a temple
there, as the State must be non-religious.
Further, if Modi
were a ‘kattar Hindu vadi,” why did he allow demolition of many Hindu
temples that stood in the way of expansion and modernization of roads by the
Gujarat Roads and Buildings Department? Some of these temples stood in
the middle of some main roads in Ahmadabad. I particularly remember a very
popular Shani Dev Mandir standing in the middle of a main road, and this had
to be removed.
It was my
feeling that L.K.Advani was not exactly popular in his constituency in
Gandhinagar. My husband narrated to me a conversation that took place
in a barber shop at the Sector 19 market on one fine morning. The shopkeeper
was sharing with someone his disenchantment with Advani. He recalled his enthusiasm to lend support for an Advani election meeting in
the small open space in front of his shop. Advani promised the
audience to return to the constituency after elections and inquire about
their welfare. This never happened until the next election. Two elections
on, the people in the constituency had no glimpse of Advani. Someone
asked the shopkeeper, why then did he continue to vote for Advani?
The
answer was “I was supporting Modi.” So, I don’t know who should be
grateful to whom – Modi to Advani, or Advani to Modi.
Once we were
returning from Junagarh after attending a function in a school. It was
around midnight by the time we reached Gandhinagar. To my utter disbelief (I
was so used to Delhi), I saw girls/women walking along the road in singles
or in groups, perhaps after a mid-night shift in the nearby factories. I
asked our driver about safety of girls and women in Gujarat.
The
driver announced proudly that they were safe and that they could move about
in the night in any part of Gujarat.
Modi also
ensured poor people’s access to justice, by streamlining the administration
in the Secretariat. I was told, during Keshubhai’s time and before,
the officers were not found on their seats even by 11 am, and they would
nowhere be found in Gandhinagar by 3 pm. After Modi took over, the
same officers were suddenly found on their seats 9 am to 5 pm, for fear of
being reported to Modi, by the people with grievances to
resolve.
Access to Modi
was facile to common people.
A student of GNLU told me once that she
wanted to complain against a Minister and she could walk straight into
Modi’s office and submit a petition. No wonder, an employee of GNLU –
a staunch Congress supporter – said without hesitation, she would vote for
Modi, if Modi were to contest from his constituency!
I have heard
instances of Modi putting down some of his relatives who tried to exploit
their relationship with Modi.
Till this day, no allegation of
corruption sticks on him.
The above
reminiscences bring out the multifaceted personality of Modi. He was
known to be blunt and straight mincing no words – quite ‘unIndian,’ would
you say? While he gave patient hearing to the needy, he had no time for sycophants, or for frivolous talk.
The
purpose of this write up, however, is to warn the younger generation against
being swayed by the biased and motivated anti-Modi reports.
To a
non-partisan like me, Modi has all the qualities to make him the Prime
Minister of India.
Author(s) : Dr Vathsala
Mani
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