Narendra Modi is about to visit Bihar. To prepare the ground, his government puts out full-page ads in local dailies saying that "Muslims in Gujarat enjoy better education, and employment opportunities, financial stability, health facilities and infrastructure."
Questions: Better than what? What about Hindus in Gujarat, do they enjoy the same better facilities? If so, is there such an ad too that refers to them? Why would a government issue an ad referring to one particular religion?
Questions apart. You can see the ad in the link above, but you can see it more clearly at the top of the report on this page. Note the three photographs (besides Modi's face) in the ad; note especially the top right one. You'd assume that since they appear in an ad saying Muslims enjoy better things in Gujarat, those photos were shot in Gujarat, right?
Wrong. As the same report indicates, that particular shot was shot in Azamgarh, UP. It was part of a report published last November (see last photo there).
Question: Why would the Gujarat government support a claim about how things are better for Muslims in Gujarat with a photo shot in UP?
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12 comments:
I think one answer may be that it is a reflection of the government's awareness of how it is perceived around the country. Regarding the fake photos(if I may call them) I think it was more of a mix up. After all, I don't think it would have been impossible for the govt of gujarat to get photos of muslim girls working at a PC.(unless you think that there are no muslim girls with access to PC's in gujarat).
unless you think that there are no muslim girls with access to PC's in gujarat).
It's not what I think. It's the Guj govt that appears to think there are no such muslim girls, because they chose instead to steal someone else's photo taken in an entirely different part of the country to make their point about what things are like in Gujarat.
"It's the Guj govt that appears to think there are no such muslim girls"
If indeed they thought that, I guess they could be called *dumb*. If not, it could be a case of mix up(not very uncommon anywhere in India).
I agree with you on the questions to be asked - why is there a special emphasis on 'muslims' being better off in Gujarat? What about 'hindus'? why should not there be an ad about an average gujarati being better off than an average indian?
Regarding the photographs itself, i think it may have been the result of someone not giving enough attention to detail. I dont think that is the big deal!
This is probably a message to
People who are aware about this "situation in UP" and can not stand the fact that Muslim women or Muslims in general are actually getting educated in UP and are scared that this might soon happen in Bihar, the great leader and his great party is trying to give them a message: This does not happen in Gujarat, vote for us and it won't happen in Bihar.
I am kidding. What I think really must have happened is the following:
The Tata endorsed and Bachhan approved Narendra Modi Saheb's PR agents i.e advertising executives must have carefully (and scientifically) studied the electorate in Bihar.
They must have identified the disenfrenchised disillusioned audience that will swing votes in sheer desperation.
This section of society is probably desperate to see Muslim girls/boys go to school - perhaps Muslim mothers (parents) worried about their children, looking at so many kids unemployed or being picked up by Police and locked up.
And ofcourse much like we don't really analyze or investigate if RUN literally gives you "SAFEDI ki chamkaaar" or if Close Up really gives you "Saanson mein Zinda dil taazgi" but the ads successfully play with our irrational impulses and persuade us to buy the products (thanks to Edward Bernays)
the hapless, unaware audience to whom this campaign is targetted will fall prey. I would, any normal human being would (unless there is a conscious and sedulous throughput rationalizing e.g Via Campesina)
Modisaab is probably organizing this desperate lot. The question is why aren't we?
Baby V
A few months back, (probably) Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare of India, because of skewed sex ratio in India, wanting to target Indians, had issued an ad on the lines of 'Even for giving birth to males, females are required'. In that ad, in a blue uniform, a Pakistani military officer had been show (because of ad makers' mistake). It never occurred to me that the Indian government was trying to tell me that India did not have any male military officer. My conclusion was that it was a sloppy ad work.
In the current occurrence, what I would consider shameful would be the cheap attitude of plagiarism.
Unlike what Vishnu, feels I don't think even ladies photographed needed to be Muslims or Gujaratis for that matter. On TV, I see many 'dentists' endorsing toothpastes, 'doctors' endorsing health drinks, 'doctors' shown in ads of NRHM, unemployed people in ads of NREGA, etc. I'd never paused to think if those people shown were indeed respectively dentist, doctor, doctor & unemployed! Honest!
The ads possibly imply that developmental indices of Muslims in Gujarat are better than Muslims' national average. There could be few statistical exaggerations, too in the ads.
There are two possible (& not mutually exclusive) reasons Gujarat government (headed by Narendra Modi) is trying to project the state as Muslim-friendly:
1. To counter the perception that Modi is anti-Muslim owing to his alleged complicity in 2002 riots.
2. He's playing vote bank politics, trying to woo Muslim votes.
I'd be alright with the former reason, not with the latter. But I'd still consider it a much more constitutional way of hunting for votes as compared to "Muslims, of all minorities, have the first claim over national resources."
It's also likely that developmental indices of Hindus in Gujarat might be better than Muslims', which could could be used to deduce the partisan attitude of Gujarat government, but I guess, the situation is probably similar in most states of India.
"Muslims, of all minorities, have the first claim over national resources."
But the above statement never caught Dcubed's eye, forget about criticizing it but this one did. The above statement was said by somebody who dcubed considers a man of integrity, or maybe Dcubed believes in the above statement.
But as we all know it is different strokes for different folks in his lexicon.
"Muslims, of all minorities, have the first claim over national resources."
But the above statement never caught Dcubed's eye, forget about criticizing it but this one did. The above statement was said by somebody who dcubed considers a man of integrity, or maybe Dcubed believes in the above statement.
But as we all know it is different strokes for different folks in his lexicon.
nikhil, where in dis post or d pages linked by d post is d phrase you mention?? cd not find it, pl advise in case i missed sthg.
Anon above,
I think Nikhil is referring to Ketan's comment June 13 12:09am
Happy to help,
Jai
Nikhil, Dilip & Jai,
You can find that statement here (click).
I had quoted it from memory while commenting. But even otherwise, I don't think the full statement is significantly more nuanced in the policy-attitude he seems to convey.
The reason I quoted it in the above comment was not to compare Modi with our PM or BJP with the Congress, but to try to explain, why despite finding such selective focus on a single religious community (Muslims, in given case) by the CM of a state a bit distasteful (& not much, given the anti-Muslim image of he was trying to counter), I wouldn't be worried like I would be reading Man Mohan Singh's statement. For, Gujarat-Muslim ads seek to draw attention to performance of the government, comparing its role in uplift of Muslims in with corresponding performance of other state governments. The ad does not stack one religion against another, which would go against the principle of secularism. It seeks to market the state by highlighting its good (which may, of course, be contested) performance in comparison to other states in a selected area.
Whereas Man Mohan Singh statement stacks one religion against the other. The message it conveys easily goes against the principle of secularism, irrespective of whether it's defined as 'equality of all religions' or 'independence of state from religion'.
On an emotional plane, the statement hurt me, because it means, "you are less of an Indian because you're not a Muslim". I'm not trying to be melodramatic here. That was my first response. But because I don't take politicians' talk very seriously, I didn't lose my sleep.
The other reason I'm scared of such policies is because they promote the culture of entitlement - "all you have to do to get unconstitutional favors from government is to manage to stay economically backward."
Even Jains & Parsis are minority, & latter are even culturally quite distinct from the majority Hindus. But, I've not heard of any significant 'institutionalized atrocities' against them. And both are arguably very prosperous communities.
If any of the governments/politicians are serious about the uplift of Muslims, they should try to counter the underlying cultural factors that are keeping Muslims backward, rather than assuming such unwisely partisan attitude....
...Thanks Jai for inadvertently drawing attention to Nikhil's comment.
To get off-mark, the above statement, along with Man Mohan Singh's another statement something akin to "caste-based reservations are necessary for nation's development" had fulfilled the 'despicable' part of Atanu Dey's 'despicably dishonest' for me. Because, the statement on caste-based reservation remark had got me thinking: is this the best an economist can think for our country? What use is his being an economist?. The statements clearly proved to me, he was not at all above petty politics, & his lackluster electoral performance was not because of integrity (as some tend to believe) but possibly because of lack of oratorial skill & alienating the Sikh community (I'd read somewhere, in his election campaign, he'd tried to fix the blame of '84 riots/massacre on the RSS!).
Prior to these two statements (not the RSS one), I used to have a slightly positive opinion about him because of his being an academic, & that too in economics - a subject I consider quite complicated & have awe-inspired respect for.
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