THE ROLE OF NRI AMERICAN INTELLECTUALS FORUM

IN MAKING NARENDRA MODI AS PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA

Mumbay, Sep. 25, 2014
M. Surendra Nathan

   In a couple of days, Hon. Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, will be arriving in America at the invitation of President Barack Obama.  In all probability, the first-ever visit of Modi is likely to be an epoch-making event for the people of Indian origin. It is particularly noteworthy that the visit is in the month of September.  The month of September has great historic significance in the relationship between India and America. It was in the month of September that Swami Vivekananda arrived at the American shore a century ago to address the Parliament of Religions, which paved the way for the people in the West to love India and its civilization;  It was in September that the “The City of Sparta” carrying Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda, the Yogi-Christ of modern India, arrived at the shore of Boston at the invitation of American Unitarian Association; it was in the month of September that the world-renowned newspaper “The New York Times”, which had extensively covered  both the events of Swami Vivekananda as well as Sri Sri Paramansa Yogananda, was born;  it was in the month of September that the concerted efforts of both the people of Indian origin and the American disciples of Martin Luther King, Jr. culminated in unveiling a statue of India’s Mahatma Gandhi at the capital city of Washington; it is again the 15th of September that was declared as international day of democracy, and the list goes on and on.

            Narendra Modi is representing the largest and most populous democratic country in the world.  The last parliamentary election in India was a mind-boggling democratic exercise which is very unique for India because of the huge population – almost one fifth of human race inhabiting the earth compared with the oldest democratic America wherein only about 4% of the world population inhabits. It is on account of this uniqueness that David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, who called up Modi on his winning the election and congratulated him by saying: “It’s great to be talking to someone who just got more votes than any other politician anywhere in the universe”.

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*  The writer is Mumbai-based Lawyer and Law Lecturer.

             The dominant citizens of India are those professing Sanatana-Dharma (the eternal path of duty, wisdom and spiritual growth), which came to be known as “Hinduism”, which is not a religion in the real sense of the term.  The Hindus are a peace-loving, God fearing people and the fundamental tenets of Hinduism is Lokah Samastah Sukhinobhavantu (May all the people of the world be Happy) and Vasudevaka Kutumbakam (the entire world is a single family).  However, at some point of time in the past these traits were degenerated into weakness and lack of self-respect on the part of those professing Hinduism as a consequence of which India was invaded by various evil forces from beyond its borders. It was the Nobel Laureate, V.S. Naipaul, who observed about this phenomena  as: “No civilization was so little equipped to cope with the outside aggression; no country was so easily raided and plundered and learned so little from its disasters.  Five hundred years after the Arab conquest of Sind, foreign Muslim rule was established in Delhi which lasted for over five hundred years and then the British rule, which lasted for the next 150 years, ending only in 1947”.

             It was at this juncture when India was ruled by the British, Swami Vivekananda, whose family name was also “Narendra”, arrived at Chicago in the month of September 1893 to address the Parliament of Religions.  Swami’s address at the Parliament and his subsequent speeches across America were instrumental in kindling the spirit of freedom and sowed the seed of awakening amongst the Indians against the foreign domination of their motherland.   It is generally believed that Mahatma Gandhi was highly inspired by the speeches and writings of the Swami.  Gandhi while living in South Africa came face to face the magnitude of slavery and racial discrimination.  As a Lawyer in that country, he took an overnight train ride from Durban to Pretoria and halfway to Pretoria a man stalked into his first-class compartment and ordered him into the baggage car.  Gandhi, who held a first-class ticket, refused and at the next halt the ticket examiner called policemen, who unceremoniously thrown off the train Gandhi along with his luggage in the middle of the night.  The incident was the turning point in Gandhi’s life and his iron determination to kick out the British from the Indian soil took a decisive shape in his mind which grew day by day and eventually culminating into the freedom movement in India and the country attaining independence from Britain.

 Why the Indian electorates defeated the Congress-led coalition government of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) headed by Sonia Gandhi may not have fully grasped by the natives of any Western countries.  The decade-long government of UPA was not in fact a true government representing the dominant citizens of India, viz. Hindus. 

 It was at the instance of the former Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, that after having imposed the widely-unpopular Emergency in India to cling on to power that The Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976 was passed whereby the term “Secular” was added to the Preamble of the Constitution, as though India were “communal” till then.  Ironically, however, the Congress headed by Indira Gandhi and her son, Rajiv Gandhi, practiced just the opposite, viz. “appeasement of the minority Muslims at the cost of majority Hindus”.  

 When the son of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, was assassinated, the Congress party elected his widow Sonia Gandhi, an uneducated Christian woman hailing from the fundamentalist Italy, as the President of the party.  During the next general parliamentary election in India in the year 2004, the Congress party did not get an absolute majority to form the government and it took the support of several regional, communal and Leftist political parties and thus formed a coalition government known as United Progressive Alliance (UPA).  Sonia Gandhi, who has had no proper education or any experience in running such a vast country as India inhabited by over one billion people, was made Chairperson of UPA.  She and her family followed Christian religion of the type practiced and preached world-over by the Vatican. Although pressure was mounted by the Congress workers upon Sonia for becoming the Prime Minister of India, scared of a probable assassination, coupled with the advice of her children against such an eventuality, she declined and instead made Dr. Manmohan Singh as the PM on the clear understanding that she would remain behind the “thrown” to control the PM. 

 Thus, it was for the first time in the post-independent history of India that a non-Hindu, who had stood for election but was defeated, was made the PM of India, remotely controlled by Sonia. The major constituents of the coalition UPA government were Islamic parties such as Indian Union Muslim League, All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen, Jammu & Kashmir National Congress, etc.  It is again for the first time in the history of free-India that dedicated communal parties have captured power at the Central level, India remaining “Secular” as per the aforesaid amendment to the Constitution. 

It is everybody’s general knowledge that the fundamental tenets of Islam are the concept of its “Superiority” over the rest of the religions whom Islam per force treats as “Infidels”.  Therefore these communal constituents of UPA demanded and ensured that all the important posts under the government – both political and non-political – were given in the hands of only Muslims.  Accordingly, Sonia Gandhi soon established a National Advisory Council headed by Ahmed Patel a fundamentalist Muslim who wielded enormous power within the government of India in the matter of appointment of ministers, evolving polities, conducting government business, charting out programs for the Union government, etc.

 It has already gone on record as vindicated by numerous authoritative books authored by those who were intimately connected with the UPA government that Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh was literally a puppet of Sonia, who remotely controlled each and every action of him as well as each and every word uttered by him.  Thus, at the commencement of the first term of UPA in 2004 Dr. Singh categorically declared that the Muslims shall get priority upon the national resources of India.

 With a view to keep the communal Muslim parties in the UPA coalition happy and dancing in tune with the demands of the Muslim Advisors and Ministers, Sonia ensured that all the important positions in the government both political and non-political, including the internal security portfolio, were given to Muslims.  Thus the External Affairs Ministry were headed by two Muslim Ministers of Cabinet Rank, viz. Salman Khurshid and A. Ahmed who was representing Muslim League of Kerala, [Ahmed was instrumental of creating a separate District for the Muslims of Kerala, viz. Malappuram]; the Attorney General of India was a Muslim (Mr. Goolam Hussain), the Chief Justice of India was a Muslim (Hon’ble Justice Altamas Kabir), the Chief Election Commissioner of India was a Muslim (Qureshi).  The records would reveal that the then Home Minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, who referred to the members of the dominant citizens, the Hindus, as “saffron terrorists”, worked solely for the welfare of Muslims in the country.   During the UPA regime the Islamic terrorism and Jehadi violence and bloodsheds in India were the highest.  And yet, the Home Minister, Shinde, wrote individual letters to all the State and Union Territories in India and the Police Commissioners across India instructing them: “not to harass innocent Muslims”, by which Shinde indirectly restrained the Investigating Agencies of India from carrying on their duties without fear or favour as it is the fundamental principle of jurisprudence that the “innocence” of an accused person can never be established by his/her outer look.   Shinde also spearheaded for the promulgation of a legislation known as “Communal Violence Bill” aimed at the majority citizens of India, viz. the Hindus, at the behest of several Islamic fundamentalist NGOs of the Western countries through their foot soldiers in India like Harsh Mandar who was reportedly paid a huge sum of over Indian Rupees 12 Crores by the American NGOs comprised of Muslims of Indian origin. In short, the UPA government was like any other despotic Mogul ruler under whom the majority Hindus had no voice. In other words, the UPA government was of the Muslims for the Muslims and by the Muslims.

 In addition to being totally communal, the UPA government indulged in corruption of unprecedented magnitude and enormity.   Various skeletons of frightening proportion involving large scale scams and financial bungling were started falling down from the cupboard of UPA day by day - the latest being the payment of Rs.1 crore to the Lawyer-wife of former UPA Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram for receiving her fee for the alleged professional services rendered by her, from the crimes-and-fraudsters-ridden Sharada Chit-fund Company of Kolkata, whose promoters and directors are presently languishing in jails, which as per the Indian standard is at least one hundred times larger than the fee paid to any Lawyer for similar professional services.  The fee payment was over and above the lavish spending of money towards her flight journeys from her far-off Chennai home-town to numerous cities across India, stay at Five-Star Deluxe Hotels, etc.   During the decade-long rule of UPA Government, Sonia Gandhi became the Fourth Richest Politician in the world as per the survey conducted and reported by Forbes magazine of USA.  Aravind Kejriwal, the activist-turned-politician and founder President of Aam Aadmi Party openly asserted that Sonia Gandhi and her family members looted the resources of India which is much larger in magnitude and ramification than what was looted by the British colonial masters during their rule of the country.

 It was in the aforesaid unprecedented circumstances that a large number of nationalist Hindus considered it as their duty to overthrow the UPA government and regain independence for the Hindus.  The last parliamentary elections in India were therefore regarded as the second freedom struggle for the dominant Hindus. The tremors of these yearnings for freedom were high amongst the patriotic and nationalist people of Indian origin settled in America.  Various Non-Resident Indians (NRI) of America formed themselves into Associations so as to carry on the campaign of emancipation of the dominant Hindus by throwing out the UPA government for which they untiringly worked for the success of the Prime Ministerial candidate of Bharatiya Janata Party. Out of all these NRI organizations, the Indian American Intellectuals Forum (IAIF), under the dynamic leadership of New York based Narain Kataria  emerged as a major force to reckon with, which relentlessly worked for defeating the UPA government and ensuring the victory of Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party. 

 Kataria and his dedicated team have had excellent track records of carrying on the campaign against UPA Government headed by Sonia Gandhi right from the year 2005 – a year after UPA government came to power.  Thus, in the year 2008, the Indian National Overseas Congress of Sonia Gandhi (INOCSG) had filed three defamation cases in the amount of US$220 million against Kataria and his team members, viz. Arish Sahani and Satya Dosapati, in the New York and New Jersey Courts for publishing a full page advertisement regarding Sonia Gandhi in The New York Times.  However almost 90% of the Indian community in the USA supported Kataria and he won two cases as the courts finding them as false and frivolous lawsuits and the remaining one suit was unconditionally withdrawn by the INOCSG. 

  A year prior to the last general election date in India, Kataria started working round the clock to organize and sensitize the Indians of America as well as in India by his talk, T.V. interviews, articles, seminars, etc. by way of effectively utilizing the electronic/social media.  As a first step, Kataria sent out the essence of the Indian epic-story Mahabharata of defeating evil forces and establishing righteousness (Dharma) by E-mails to like-minded Indian citizens across the world, containing the following message: “Voice of India – Namo Namo!  The bugle for Mahabharata war has been blown. Entire India is waking up very fast. There is an utter confusion in the ranks and files of Kauravas.  Kauravas are on the run. Demoralization has already set in their ranks.  Will be completely wiped out during the fight in the next general election”.  [In this “Kauravas” represents the evil forces of UPA government, headed by Sonia Gandhi and NaMo stands for Narendra Modi]. I had received this message by E-mail from Kataria during the early part of the electioneering in India last year, which I had forwarded to my clients, including NRIs, students I taught in the past and their friends and relatives across the world.  It is indeed heartening that in the ultimate analysis, what Kataria wished for; what he untiringly worked for; what the ideology he stood for like a rock, have all indeed come to a reality with redounding success in India – BJP emerging victorious with absolute majority and Narendra Modi becoming PM of India.

             Living in Mumbai, I have had the thrill of watching on the YouTube various programs organized under the leadership of Kataria and his dedicated team across the USA.  Of all the programs arranged by him, the program which would linger on in my mind is the one sponsored by IAIF involving the speeches of Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev at New York along with Dr. Subramanian Swami in the month of September 2013.  The program held at a prominent Hotel in the heart of New York has had a telling effect upon all the Indians settled in the USA and the Western world.  Baba Ramdev’s “Vande Mataram” call reverberated the huge hall of the Hotel which was attended to its full capacity.  The enthusiasm generated amongst the participants was palpable even by watching the program on the YouTube which was reminiscent of Swami Vivekananda’s wakening call exactly at the same city of New York and in the same month of September in the year 1893.

            Yet another memorable event organized by IAIF was the one stemming from the   insulting remarks spat against Narendra Modi by Mani Shankar Aiyar, the senior-most Member of Parliament in the UPA government to the effect: “A place will be identified for the Gujarat Chief Minister to distribute tea wherever Congress meetings take pace. …… I throw up a challenge that in 21st century Narendra Modi will never become the Prime Minister of the country….But if at all he wishes to distribute tea to Congress leaders here, we shall find a pace for him”. 

             The aforesaid remarks was not only a personal attack against Modi but an unprecedented event in the history of civilized dealings amongst the political aspirants the world over and a mass-insults to the citizens of such a large State as Gujarat and its then Chief Minister.  No sooner the news of the insults appeared in the media, than Kataria woke up the members of his team and hurriedly adopted strategies to give a befitting reply to the insults.  Thus, the program called  “Chai-pe-Churcha” (Talks at Tea) was born.  The program was organized in groups in the entire length and breadth of such a vast country as the USA, which snowballed into a mass movement, akin to “Quit India”  movement started by India’s Mahatma Gandhi.  The idea was to discuss and sensitize the members of IAIF of the dangers that India would be facing in the event Congress under the leadership of this former Christian waitress of Italian origin, who has nothing but contempt towards Hindus and Sanatan Dharma, along with her slave-minded coteries like Shankar Aiyar, come to power.   Kataria and his dedicated team organized “Hawans” all over the USA to propitiate Gods and Goddesses and to invoke the blessings of Lord Ganesha to remove all the obstacles on the path of BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi coming to power.  In this regard the Lazer Show put up by the IAIF of Swami Vivekananda’s birth day celebrations in New York was indeed a spectacular event.

             Again at no point of time in the history of electioneering anywhere in the world India had witnessed such a massive flow of people of Indian origin into India during the last electioneering period – over 10,000 from many parts of USA – for cheering up the electorates by personal contacts in India.  It has now been transpired that the idea of setting up a tea stall at the city of Vadodara in Gujarat during the vote counting period serving cups of hot free “NaMo” tea at a tea-stall, named and styled as “Mani Shankar Aiyar Tea Stall” along with a life-size cut-out of Aiyar with a garland of slippers on it was originated from a group of visiting American NRIs.

             The members of the IAIF carried on what is now termed as “phone campaign”.  Each one of them took upon himself/herself as a duty to call up his/her relatives, friends and friends’ friends in India and implored them to vote only for BJP.  

            Ironically, however, while the India’s intellectuals living overseas worked for the unity and integrity of India by way of ensuring the success of Narendra Modi, the so-called intellectuals living in India worked round the clock for defeating Modi without rhyme or reasons and constantly worked against the welfare and progress of the country.  Thus, India’s first-rated “intellectual”, Amartya Sen, the Nobel Laureate, was living in India during the electioneering period.  He regularly attacked Modi and worked for promoting what he called “Third Front” – an amalgam of small regional political parties, communal parties, and splintered national parties.  He refused to recognize the mammoth mandate successively given to Modi by the citizens of Gujarat, his track records of developments and total freedom of riots, corruptions, etc. from his State, etc. Sen also behaved like a stooge of Western power and often seemed to carry with him a

hidden agenda to propitiate his Western Christian Masters for conferring upon him all the personal achievements and growth, including the Nobel prize, totally blind to the realities of the dire need of working for the unity and integrity of his country of birth as a whole. 

Yet another so-called intellect of India is Late U.R. Ananthamurthy, the “Jnanpitha” and “Padma Bhusan” Awardee.    Ananthamurthy posed an open challenge to Modi ever coming to power and declared that the moment Modi comes to power he would leave the country for good.  It is quite amusing that while the Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen left the country quietly in the night along with his Western Christian wife (Georgina Rothschild) at the vote-counting period itself when he realized about the spectacular victory of Modi, the poor Ananthamurthy could not instantly leave the country as declared by him, although various patriotic organizations in India had sent him and his wife (Esther, the Desi converted Christian) two one-way tickets to Pakistan.  He cited advancing age (85 years) and poor health and remained in India, presently having left for his “heavenly abode”.   

Yet another “intellectual” of India is Arundhati Roy, the Man Booker Prize winner.  This Christian woman worked for the disintegration of India by overtly and covertly espousing the cause of Kashmiri separatists.  Although married, she threw to the winds all that family/social values and decency by periodically visiting the Kashmiri separatist leaders like Geelani at their bungalows for cheering them up for what she termed “Freedom Struggle against India”.  Roy was found often supporting the Islamic terrorists in India.  She regularly framed Modi as a “mass murderer of Muslims”, “sponsored Genocide of Muslims in Gujarat”, etc. etc.  She characterized BJP as “a Hindu fascist organization who has been conducting an elaborate experiment in Gujarat”.  She compared Narendra Modi as “Hitler”, totally blind to the realities. At a T.V. interview which she gave in an Islamic country, Roy categorically stated that Mohd. Afzal was totally innocent even after his conviction by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India. Thus, when the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India convicted the terrorist Mohamad Afzal for attacking Indian parliament, Roy sympathized with his family and visited his house in Kashmir.  She described Afzal before his hanging by the Indian law enforcing authorities as “Prisoner of War”, and after his hanging as “Martyr”, etc. and whipped up the passion of Kashmiri separatists.  Incidentally, when Kashmir is being treated for all intends and purposes as an integral part of India for over six decades, such a conduct by a citizen of India would happen only in India.  Had this woman been a citizen of Saudi Arabia or any other Islamic country such a conduct would have instantly attracted the punishment of beheading.    

It is quite strange that when the highly researched book “Narendra Modi: A Political Biography” by Andy Marino, a Western scholar, containing incontrovertible documentary evidences, it was established that “Narendra Modi wanted to quit as C.M., saying: It was unfair on the people of the State”, and that “No court has come even close to establishing his complicity in the violence” was published, Arundhati Roy maintained a discreet silence when confronted by a Reporter of the Indian media.  However, on the contrary, when a book titled: “Hinduism- An Alternative History” by a Western Christian woman, containing false and fabricated material stemming from the figment of imagination of the author was recalled by its publisher, Penguin, Roy made a hue and cry and carried on scathing attacks at the publisher and characterized their decision to recall the book as “succumbing to the threats of Hindu fascist forces of India”. It is probably on account of this double standard of promoting Christianity in India that Roy was featured in the 2014 list of Time 100- as “the 100 most influential people in the world”.

             It is in the aforesaid realities prevailing in India where the so-called “Intellectuals” turning against India and relentlessly working towards anarchy and disintegration of the country that the selfless, sincere and outstanding works for the unity and integrity of the country carried on abroad by the patriotic members of the Indian American Intellectuals Forum are indeed to be commended, encouraged and rewarded.

 Thus, it can easily be concluded that the credit for the spectacular victory of Narendra Modi and his becoming the Prime Minister of India should largely go to these unsung heroes of USA who came together under the umbrella of Indian American Intellectuals Forum held by a dynamic Indian, called “Narain Kataria”.  He was able to awaken the sleeping slaves of India and was instrumental to give a befitting reply to the characters like Mani Shankar Aiyar by converting adversaries into victory.  Shankar lost his election deposit and had to bite dust, which were much more than a tempest in his teapot.  

 It is worthwhile to mention here that Kataria and his team worked exactly similar to that of Late Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, who had founded the Indian National Army (INA) to fight against the British regime and contributed to the achievement of independence for India from the British regime during his self-exiled life in Japan, while Kataria and his dedicated team at IAIF  living as NRIs in the US fought against the Italian regime in India and gained independence for the Hindus of India.  The differences in both the fighting instances are that while Netaji focused his entire attention upon India’s independence, Kataria and his team focused their attention to the equal progress and prosperity of both America and India as the contribution of Indians settled in America in this regard are indeed admirable.  In short Kataria treated both his Karmabhoomi (country of work) and Janmabhoomi (country of birth) on equal footing and dedicated his life to the cause and prosperity of both the countries.  My hats off to him.