NDA's shame: Narendra Modi's Feku rhetoric on faujis

Every dark cloud has a silver lining. That aphorism holds true for the six years of the BJP-led NDA government at centre. Even as the party was thrown out by the people in 2004, its stint offers a record that can help nail the lies and myths being perpetuated by BJP leaders and their vocal online supporters. In the Economic Times, for instance, Abheek Burman ripped apart Yashwant Sinha’s claims about FDI coming into India during the NDA regime. In the NDA’s six years in power, a total of $23.8 billion entered India as FDI. And 2012, described by the BJP-led propagandists as the year when the world stopped trusting India, has alone seen $26 billion of FDI enter India. [caption id=“attachment_1114119” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Modi with former army chief VK Singh at his Haryana rally: PTI[/caption] If Yashwant Sinha peddles his myths only about the economy, the BJP’s recently declared Prime Ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi is less selective. He has publicly claimed that China spends 20 percent of its GDP on education and lambasted India for not following suit. The facts that have since emerged – that China barely spends 3.93 percent of GDP on education while India, under the UPA, now spends 4.04 percent – doesn’t elicit an apology from him. Perhaps Mr Modi was thinking instead of the BJP-led NDA which spent only 1.6 percent of GDP on education. But such fact-checks do not deter Mr Modi from myth-making about BJP’s love for fauj in his speech last Sunday. Mr Modi perhaps has a short memory—after all, he doesn’t remember much about the 2002 Gujarat riots—but there are others who can remind him of the harsh truth about BJP’s false love for fauj and faujis. BJP loves the fauj so much that its then national president and Gujarat Rajya Sabha MP, Bangaru Laxman was caught on camera accepting cash for a fake defence deal. Of course, by trying to push for inferior military equipment for a bribe, BJP’s national president was demonstrating how much the party valued the lives of faujis who would have used that equipment. Thank God, it was only a sting operation and our brave soldiers didn’t have to pay with their blood for Laxman’s greed for money. Unfortunately, the BJP-led government didn’t stop even when it came to disrespecting our dead soldiers. Who can forget the coffin scam (about 500 caskets were bought for 2,500 dollars each, which CAG believed to be thirteen times higher than the actual price) during that government, whose record Mr Modi so loudly boasted about on Sunday? Nothing demonstrates the abject ineptitude of the BJP’s handling of national security during its tenure than the statement of the then army chief, General VP Malik. Such was the neglect of Indian army under the BJP rule that the General forced to say “we shall fight with whatever we have”. In his book, ‘Kargil: From Surprise to Victory’, General Malik writes: “When the Kargil war began, it was not the vintage but the deficiencies of weapons, equipment, ammunition and spares that worried us more. Even infantry weapons such as medium machine-guns, rocket launchers and mortars, apart from signal equipment, bullet-proof jackets and snow clothing for high-altitude warfare, were in short supply. Besides weapons and equipment, the ammunition reserves for many important weapons were low.” We had to turn to Israel to help us out at that critical time. As Mark Sofer, Israel’s ambassador to India admitted in 2008 to Outlook magazine, “during Kargil, when Israel came to India’s assistance when India was in great need and brought about the turnaround in the situation on the ground”. The BJP exploited the unparalleled bravery of our soldiers at Kargil for its electoral gains. It created resentment among the faujis by offering different rates of compensation for Kargil martyrs. It made the faujis bitter that the families of soldiers killed or disabled in other areas of action- –such as while fighting terrorists in the Kashmir Valley— got far lower benefits compared to the soldiers at Kargil. The situation was eventually corrected. But can the faujis trust the party which initiated such duplicitous measures to divide our brave soldiers for political gains? Having used them for electoral gains, the BJP then quickly forgot the families of Kargil martyrs. Mr Modi would surely remember the Independence Day of 2001, when Professor SK Nayyar, father of a Kargil martyr and Mahavir Chakra winner Capt Anuj Nayyar, said to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, “I gave my son to the country in its war against Pakistan but now I am fighting a war against your bureaucracy.” Mr Modi totally ignoring the actual facts also compared the ‘strong BJP-led government’ with the ‘weak UPA government’ on the matter of national security. He forgets that a top BJP minister escorted six dreaded terrorists to Kandahar during the ‘strong’ NDA regime, while this ‘weak’ UPA government has already brought back some of India’s most wanted terrorists. When it comes to fighting terror, actions of the BJP and the Congress when in government speak louder than any words uttered by Mr Modi. BJP leader, Venkaiah Naidu says that Modi is 3D. I completely agree. Mr Modi is Divisive, Delusional and Desperate. And he is entitled to his 3D politics. But he is not entitled to his facts, especially when it comes to India’s national security. Editors note: Priyanka is a blogger, columnist and is on the panel of spokespersons of the All India Congress Committee. The views expressed in this column are personal.