As part of the initiative, intellectuals have been told to post on social media and publish booklets and articles to present the “correct” perspective of history and Indian culture.
New Delhi: The NDA government is pitching it as an Olympics for writers and journalists. The challenge is to debunk what they consider to be “fallacies” in the established historical and contemporary narratives. The eligibility criterion is a “love for Bharat”.
The BJP and the RSS are joining forces with writers and journalists to prepare a fresh line of defence for their ideology ahead of the 2019 general election.
As part of the initiative, intellectuals have been told to post on social media and publish booklets and articles to present the “correct” perspective of history and Indian culture, one that counters the narrative propounded by “Leftist historians”. Also on the radar are “untruths” peddled by the media.
To this end, a workshop was conducted last month at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA), a government-funded autonomous body that falls under the ministry of culture. It was organised under the ‘Bharat Vidya Prayojna’ – a project to provide scholarships to independent ideologues and artists and was attended by writers, union ministers as well as BJP leaders.
Brainstorming at the session, party sources said, threw up a host of ideas to peg the initiative on, including dispelling the “myth” that the BJP is “anti-Dalit”. In this regard, the plan of action is to “generate awareness about the fact that PM Narendra Modi believed in Ambedkar even before he became Gujarat chief minister”, and that it was no “political gimmick” as alleged by the opposition.
Other initiatives will include booklets on Indology as well as the changed work culture in the government under the NDA.
The speakers at the session included veteran journalist and IGNCA chairman Ram Bahadur Rai and union minister of state for information & broadcasting, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore. The 30-40 guests who attended included Rumi Malik, associate editor at Sahitya Akademi Delhi; blogger Harshvardhan Tripathi; Anil Pandey of the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation; and Shefali Vaidya, a columnist for Swarajya magazine.
‘Pre-Modi, Post-Modi’
Addressing the audience, Rai cited the example of the ‘Great Old Man of India’ Dadabhai Naoroji, who used to bring out booklets for the masses with content that was crisp and to the point. Other freedom fighters, too, issued similar booklets to mobilise the masses against the British, he added.
Providing ideas, he said, “PM Modi wants the country to be on the lines of the Sanatan temple that can accommodate Ram, Ambedkar, Gandhi, Deen Dayal Upadhyay. We should start something on the PM’s views on Gandhi. Issues like one-nation-one-election will be relevant for years to come.”
Rathore spoke on the government’s achievements and success stories, and told the participants that the current situation offered them “massive opportunities”.
“You are sitting on a launch pad. You are challenging those who are established. It’s the Olympics for you. I once told a group of journalists not to follow the organisation and to follow individual journalists doing classy work,” he said.
For future generations, history, Rathore added, would be split into two parts: “The pre-Modi era and the post-Modi era.”
“The PM is a tough taskmaster who is performing. The bureaucracy may not be happy, but we should not forget that even the political class is not happy, as he has attacked them as well by banning the red beacon, mantri quotas etc,” he said.
“There are amazing success stories in the government, which we need to see how to put across to people,” Rathore added.
Sources at the IGNCA said more such events were likely to take place.