April 18, 2015.
As I’m sipping the hot tea from a roadside tea stall inside my campus, a news is flashing on the TV screen and catching all the attention of the nearby onlookers. The headline says,
“Don't get disillusioned, support Modi: Ratan Tata to India Inc”. The media person playing rhetoric statement the business giant gave while talking about the future developments which are supposed to happen soon according to our dearest Prime Minister. His exact words were something like,
“We're all hopeful that the country will move forward in the manner that Modi predicted. We really need to support it if we need to have a new country and outlook both internationally as well as domestically.” Of course not to forget that various analysts trying to make out the meaning out of his statement, analyzing its long term repercussions on the Indian businesses and the so called “image” of India in the outside world. By the way, I forgot to mention that we Indians don’t give a damn to whatever happens inside our country, but what we care for is showcasing a strong “image” of a developing country to the investors sitting in US and other developed countries; who’d probably right now be deciding from which part of the world do their next set of profits come from!
Coming back to the topic, I almost laughed at the statement! I mean literally, on the face of it. Because as long as I could remember, Mr. Ratan Tata was the one who told the country to show their faith in our previous Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, just 2 years ago. Mr. Tata was the one who asked Indians to follow their leader blindly when he was going to take some “strong decisions” for the development. Because he believed that it is important to give such a message to the world. Mr. Tata's exact statement, which of course I checked later, when I logged into my system was,
"He (PM) deserves the support of the people of India at this critical time... He will need to act boldly, to be courageous and to do the right thing." I figured out that Mr. Tata didn’t stop at this, but he went on to lash the opposition (BJP at that time) and said,
“We should also recognize the enormous damage done by political infighting; the single-minded goal of the Opposition to topple the government... the allegations and accusations of corruption and illegal acts have brought almost all government action to stand still."
After going through both these articles on the same screen, same web browser, I felt confused, bemused and was struck by the fact that, why do a person of such a stature needs to be a hypocrite, a true diplomat in a sense, and is ready to go miles
to praise the men in power. The answers are clear, I suppose. We know in our minds, don’t we? If only we are ready to look beyond what the person is saying, and try to find out why exactly is he saying so? The context is important, and so is the timeframe. The not so obvious motive behind the statements is not hidden behind some secret door, but behind the character of the person who makes such statements.
We Indians do understand that as one of the most important corporate leaders of the country, you’re only loyal to the chair of the Prime Minister, and the ruling party; because we’ve now witnessed enough about the corporate nexus every now and then. But the most you could’ve done is, keep your politically motivated opinions to yourself, because
there are people in the country who look up to you and form their opinions based on it. They get influenced, they don’t necessarily reason out things, but they trust people like you, and you better respect that (the least we could expect from you).
I feel sorry to say that Mr. Tata, you already lost half your respect in the Radia-tape incident; and the other half you just did now, by proving that you’d be
selectively appreciating the people only in power, because you know they’re going to be your benefactors in the near future. Next time, I won’t be surprised if you share the stage with some other leader, of some other party, in some other circumstances, only to validate my claim of you being a hypocrite who certainly knows how to keep up his business in the changing times; while ethics, morals and values are just imaginary terms anyway!
Author's note:
I’d no intention to malign someone in the first place and by no means I’ve anything personal against the aforementioned person or entity. My perspective has been drawn only by looking at the various facts over a time period and it can be scrutinized further by the fellow readers.