The force and fury with which Union ministers and BJP functionaries tore into Rahul Bajaj and targeted him reinforces the truth of every word he spoke.
Fear is the key that keeps people, especially the rich and the respected, from speaking truth to power. Yet, cometh the hour, cometh the man who shuns discretion as the better part of valour and rises to speak a truth known to all but rarely voiced publicly.
The one to stand up and brave the fire that followed was industrialist Rahul Bajaj.
In a community that the first non-Congress government바카라s Minister of Industry George Fernandes described as 바카라rats바카라 바카라 for its abject surrender to power during the Emergency in 1975-76 바카라 Bajaj shone as the exception.
At the event on November 30, where three Union ministers, including the formidable Amit Shah, was present, the Bajaj Group Chairman spoke about an atmosphere of fear in the country. 바카라But this atmosphere, this is definitely on our mind, but nobody will say it, none of my industrialist friends바카라In UPA-II we could give gaalis to anyone. You바카라re doing good work but even then if we were to criticise you openly, we don바카라t have the confidence that you바카라ll appreciate that바카라.
The event was the Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence where the crème de la crème of business was out in its best, suited and booted, smiling and fawning, and hardly expecting anyone to talk of BJP바카라s enfant terrible Pragya Thakur, lynching or fear of criticising the government. Bajaj chose to drop his bricks in this rarefied atmosphere, where money talks silently in a language that flatters power, and power understands and accepts the tribute as its due.
On Thakur, Bajaj said, 바카라Nowadays anybody can be called a desh bhakt 바카라even those who shot Gandhiji. She바카라s been saying that for a while, she still got a ticket. Pradhan Mantri had said 바카라it바카라ll be difficult for me to forgive someone like that바카라, but you got her back in the (parliamentary defence) committee바카라.
Nothing could have been more galling to the ruling BJP and its ministers there. Retaliation was swift, sharp and vicious. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri were the first to train their guns on Bajaj and shoot from the lip.
Sitharaman said it is 바카라always a better way to seek an answer than spreading one바카라s own impressions which, on gaining traction, can hurt national interest바카라. In other words, though she didn바카라t call Bajaj anti-national, she was telling him not to spread his own impressions but accept Amit Shah바카라s answers.
Among Shah바카라s answers was that 바카라no one needs to fear anything바카라. Shah also said, 바카라Still, if you say there is an atmosphere, we will also have to work on improving the atmosphere바카라. Puri, a former high-ranking diplomat, obliquely accused Bajaj of 바카라indiscipline바카라, weaving 바카라fake narratives바카라 and hurling 바카라invectives바카라. Obviously, in rising to defend the realm, he wanted to show that he had taken personal offence at Shah having to hear Bajaj바카라s posers.
Those lower down the food chain in BJP unleashed a barrage of crude and personalised attacks on Bajaj 바카라 perhaps, to catch Shah바카라s attention. In sharp contrast, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal did not target Bajaj personally. He merely quoted what Shah had said to underscore that Bajaj바카라s question itself proved people were not afraid.
The force and fury with which Union ministers and BJP functionaries tore into Bajaj and targeted him reinforces the truth of every word he spoke. It provides a foretaste of what anyone who criticises the BJP would have to face, besides the risk of being called 바카라anti-national바카라. Bajaj could not have made his point any more effectively than his critics have done unwittingly.
As he rightly pointed out, none of his industrialist friends 바카라 certainly, none of the men -- came out in support of him. In defence of Bajaj, Biocon chief Kiran Mazumdar Shaw alone tweeted that the government was treating India Inc as pariahs and did not want to hear any criticism of the economy.
With a crises-ridden media either indifferent or complicit, the intelligentsia silenced, academics browbeaten, activists tarred and persecuted, the opposition discredited and the judiciary straining under its burden, the ruling BJP바카라s writ runs unchallenged. Like during the Emergency, when required to bend, affluent and influential sections are willing to crawl, and lie supine in the service of the establishment.
(The author is Editorial Consultant, WION TV. Views expressed are personal)