After publishing a controversial cover photo and story called Prime Minister Narendra Modi ‘India’s Divider-in-Chief’ in its pre-election analysis, the TIME Magazine now has published a cover story that says ‘Modi has united India like no Prime Minister in decades.’ The article with this headline is indicative of a complete U-turn by the magazine on its stance.
In the editorial, the writer Manoj Ladwa, asked: ‘How has this supposedly divisive figure not only managed to keep power, but increase his levels of support?’ and answered: ‘A key factor is that Modi has managed to transcend India’s greatest fault line: the class divide’. Ladwa also credited Modi’s emergence as someone who has unified his origins in a backward caste – which the western media deliberately missed.
‘Narendra Modi was born into one of India’s most disadvantaged social groups,” he explained. “In reaching the very top, he personifies the aspirational working classes and can self-identify with his country’s poorest citizens in a way that the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty, who have led India for most of the 72 years since independence, simply cannot,’ Ladwa’s editorial mentions.
The writer also adds that Modi was criticised unfairly. ‘Yet despite the strong and often unfair criticisms leveled at Modi’s policies both throughout his first term and this marathon election, no Prime Minister has united the Indian electorate as much in close to five decades,” he said, referring to Indira Gandhi’s massive 1971 victory,’ he elaborates.
Earlier, the TIME Magazine’s cover story by Aatish Taseer, son of noted right-leaning journalist Tavleen Singh, wrote the story and indicted Modi as a ‘Divider’ of India. The cover story remained on all international editions, except the US edition. Going by its earlier pre and post-election editions, it looks like the media too will not be spared from scrutiny!
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