by MUKUL DUBE
Two major newspapers have seriously mauled a letter to the editor I wrote earlier this week. It was drastic rewriting which came nowhere near “editing for length and clarity”; and, worse, not just the newspapers’ own words but their ideas too were attributed to me.
The first one: Asian Age, 4 August 2010
Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s statement that the “Centre was behaving as if Gujarat was not a part of India but an enemy nation” is sad. His aim, of course, is to win over his voters by telling them that they have been insulted and by implying that he alone can defend them. This time Mr Modi is tossing up the bogey of an insult to Gujarat’s judiciary. Is he thinking that the Centre doesn’t want an end to the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case? Mr Modi’s imagination is too far fetched.
The second one: Telegraph, 6 August 2010:
Narendra Modi’s attack on the government at the Centre was a tirade that has now become usual by his standards. The chief minister has established the practice of using the ‘people of Gujarat’ to justify his actions. His aim, no doubt, is to win voters by telling them that they have been ‘insulted’ and that he is the only one who can defend them. This time, he has conjured up the bogey of an insult to Gujarat’s judiciary.
Modi claims that the Centre treats Gujarat like an outsider and an enemy. Assuming that this is true, why should he be surprised when, by laying stress on Hindutva, he has gone against the grain of the secular Indian State? He has claimed a separate and distinct identity for his state. At the same time, he has clung to the political power conferred on him by the Indian polity. It is this power that enables him to commit atrocities and still escape unscathed.
My original can be seen at Globeistan. It is not perfect and it is not brief: but the ideas and words are mine.
Friends say that I should write more books than I have so far written. Perhaps I should get these ghost writers who masquerade as editors to write the damn things for me. As raw material to devastate, I shall give them a 900-word essay on the water buffalo which will, inter alia, contain a fair account of their antics.