PM plans Christmas party ‘drop-in’
New Delhi (Matters India): Narendra Modi, who campaigned in the Lok Sabha election on a plank for progress but has since been battered by the Bihar Assembly poll verdict and faces western disapproval of religious intolerance, is seeking to resurrect his image of 2014 as a consensus-seeker.
On December 25, the Prime Minister will meet a group of Christian representatives and community leaders at a tea party as part of this exercise.
The Christmas get-together will be formally hosted by finance minister Arun Jaitley at his residence: but Jaitley is organising the party at Modi’s request so that the Prime Minister can attempt to refurbish the NDA government’s dented image over its attitude to minorities, according to multiple sources who are putting together the event, The Telegraph reported.
If this month’s engagement of the Christian community produces the desired results, the exercise will be repeated with other minority groups, finally culminating in a similar get-together with Muslim representatives.
Although Jaitley will host the Christmas tea party, the details are being worked out by a BJP leader from Kerala who cut his ties with the Left Democratic Front, resigned his membership of the state Assembly and joined the BJP four years ago.
Alphons Kannanthanam, a former IAS officer who quit government service in 2006 to become an MLA from the Christian stronghold of Kanjirappally with Left support, enjoys the trust of Christian bishops and the church establishment despite joining the BJP.
Kannanthanam, who is said to have a strong personal rapport with Nitin Gadkari, the minister for road transport and highways, was named by Time magazine in 1994 as one of 100 young global leaders of the future.
Kannanthanam is being assisted in the nitty-gritty of the Christmas get-together by a Delhi-based journalist from Kerala who works for a daily that speaks for one of the big Christian denominations in the state.
Modi, according to present plans, will “drop in”, American presidential-style, once the party gets under way at Jaitley’s residence. This will deprive the event of any drama or sensationalism that may have got associated with the minority outreach if Modi had himself hosted the event.
This plan is similar to Modi’s new approach to Pakistan, which is shorn of fanfare and media spotlight that damaged previous efforts for a rapprochement with Islamabad.
As much as domestic compulsions, it is growing western disapproval of instances of religious, social and other forms of intolerance which has prompted the Prime Minister to resurrect his Lok Sabha campaign image which sought to put his early reputation as Gujarat chief minister firmly behind him.
Western media and civil society have largely turned against the NDA government on the issue of various bans and campaigns to discredit diversity in India. But that is something Modi could perhaps put up with and let radical elements in the Sangh parivar continue with their divisive activities.
A more serious threat is the attitude of western governments. The US administration recently sent a high-level envoy to India who discreetly warned that the spectre of intolerance would have consequences.
The US Congress-mandated Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has been baiting Modi for over a decade. He is used to it. But the new threat was that the state department’s own report on religious freedom worldwide might indict India unless the so-called fringe elements in the Sangh parivar were restrained.
Criticism by the state department in a formal report would have been damaging unlike the actions of the USCIRF. After the special envoy privately expressed concerns about treatment of Muslims by the NDA government, New Delhi had quickly clamped down on similar visits by other Obama envoys.
As a result, Susan Coppedge, Obama’s anti-people trafficking ambassador, and Randy Berry, the presidential envoy for gay rights, had to put off their visits to New Delhi last month.
