THE CURSE OF THE VVIP SYSTEM (extract from my new book “Francois Gautier on India, Hindus & Narendra Modi”)

If you wish to reach someone of consequence in the Delhi @BJP4India Govt, you need connections. And in this land, the poor people, even the middle class, do not have this kind of reach. It is only the rich, the powerful, the elite, who know someone, who will put them in touch with the right person. @narendramodi when he was a Gujarat Chief Minister, made sure that in his government this type of string-pulling did not happen, which means that he ordered his ministers and his higher officials, not to recommend anybody even if it came from friends or family. This worked in Gujarat. Unfortunately, Delhi remains Delhi, as you still need to go through a ring of five to seven people, from the phone operator to the private secretary, to reach a minister. You might remember a few years ago, that a famous Delhi sports stadium was being emptied of sportspersons practicing (and God only knows how sportsmen and women in India, other than cricketers, have to slog, with little funding and Media interest), because a top bureaucrat and his wife wanted to walk their dog in the evening. Therefore, it is necessary to take a look at Indian VVIP culture, which is @INCIndia legacy.

As in Soviet Union, Nehru compensated the low salaries of politicians, bureaucrats, or police, by giving them disproportionate privileges. The tragic assassination of Indira Gandhi, and later of her son, Rajiv, worsened this VVIP culture by adding security cover as an extra symbol of power. We know how much discomfort this VVIP culture has caused to the common man everywhere and how it also triggered huge waves of corruption, as politicians, bureaucrats and police were not made accountable. When the BJP came to power, everyone had high hopes that this VVIP culture would be slowly dismantled, as many of the new rulers came from the rank of the @RSSorg , which picks up its cadres from the common people and makes sure they stay in touch with this vital strata of Indian society, that forms the BJP’s main electoral constituency. Indeed, in the first two years, the new PM tried to extricate himself from the straightjacket of VVIP culture, by attempting to minimizesecurity around him, drive to the airport without blocking all the roads and generally reach out to people, shake hands etc. He also instructed his ministers, as he had done in Gujarat, to have daily open durbars (public audience), where ordinary folks could meet the ministers.

But this welcome change was battered by Nehruvian bureaucracy: a minister has at least four or five private or personal secretaries (PA & PS), who themselves have undersecretaries, who themselves have lower bureaucrats at their beck and call, who themselves have peons, etc. These people would have, for the most, become irrelevant, if Mr Modi had succeeded in bypassing them. Therefore, they did not allow it – and today, as it was in the time of Congress, (bureaucracy has tripled in numbers since I was an active journalist), it is extremely difficult to get through to a Minister, even if you have genuine work. So only the old tool of access remains the same: connections. I have called this the ‘Curse of Delhi’.

I remember one time, a very high-level member of Mr Modi’s Govt, whom I will not name here, inaugurated in Delhi one of our Shivaraj Museum of Indian History exhibitions Though it was only a small event, his staff gave us a set of strict security guidelines (nobody to enter the room where he will freshen up for 24 hours, how to get up when he entered, how to greet him etc.). When the VVIP came, I asked him after the event, as I had met him before and I knew he came from RSS, why such obsolete rules? He answered that in terms of security and protocol, there is a ‘Blue Book’ made by the Congress on VVIP movement, security, protocol etc & that it would require new legislation and a sitting of parliament to change it. I met him again later at one of the World Hindu Conferences in Chicago and it seemed to me that he had well and happily settled in this VVIP straightjacket, as most of Mr Modi’s Government’s ministers have today.

Nowhere is the absurdity and the enormous cost on the Indian Exchequer and taxpayers evident, than in the offices of the @rashtrapatibhvn Vice-President, Governors, which are a leftover of the British Raj. The Vice President and the President as well as the Governors of each state, have practically NO power at all, but the staff they employ and the money that they spend on them, is staggering (for instance, A RTI dated back from 2018, stated that more than 500 people are employed by the Rashtrapati Bhavan (President’s Palace), including 28 cooks, 37 drivers, 184 gardeners and 57 cleaners!). It will need a constitutional reform so that India adapts a Parliamentary system, similar to the one in France, whereby you have a President and a Prime Minister who belongs to the majority and possesses a fair amount of power. This would automatically scrap the British system of the King, Viceroy etc, that was blindly adopted by India in 1947.

The adulation that VVIPs still receive from their staff, has unfortunately not changed today. A minister does not have as much staff as the President or the Vice President, but nevertheless a Union Minister has at least a hundred people around him, both in his office and a special bungalow in New Delhi that is allotted to him or her. In fact, most of New Delhi is filled with these bungalows, not only for ministers but also for Supreme Court judges, Government secretaries, as well as flats for joint and under-secretaries. Recently I had gone to see a minister, that I would not name here – and as we were in the reception, his junior Minister (State Minister) came in, a lady for that matter, and everybody sprang to attention – security, junior staff, policemen, etc – as she walked in with her head high, like she was some kind of empress (I also knew her from before, fairly nice lady then)! It may seem funny but unless India comes out of this political worship which encourages corruption, it cannot move forward as a superpower. There, maybe, the BJP Government seems to have failed the 500 million ordinary people of India who voted for it in the hope that it would change the system… Today at least 60% of police work is VVIP security and this is a betrayal to the good Indian people who elected politicians to better their lot.

My conclusion: in spite of superb efforts on the part of India’s Prime Minister, the VVIP culture has endured and still plagues India. It would need a revolution, such as shifting the capital away from Delhi to a more central place like Bhopal, Ujain or Indore, to break the backbone of VVIP culture (all the top VIP’s are in Delhi), Media (which would have to relocate), politicians, (for whom Delhi is the Mecca), the diplomats (who would not know what to do with themselves in their fortified bunkers of Shanti path) and India’s bloated, arrogant and sometimes corrupt bureaucracy (half of whom would become irrelevant). #VVIPCurse @GarudaPrakashan Read my book to know more

https://garuda.us/india-hindus-narendra-modi-a-look-at-shri-narendra-modis-extraordinary-achievementsbut-also-where-he-may-have-faltered & https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0D1KH2XTZ?ref=myi_title_dp In the USA: https://garuda.us/india-hindus-narendra-modi-a-look-at-shri-narendra-modis-extraordinary-achievementsbut-also-where-he-may-have-faltered

IS DELHI THE RIGHT CAPITAL FOR INDIA?

(extract from my book ” Francois Gautier on On India, Hindu & @narendramodi “)

The British first established their capital in Kolkata, then shifted it to Delhi in 1912, though it was only completed by 1931. Delhi also had a strategic importance: all the invasions that wounded India throughout the ages, came from the North via the Khyber Pass, in today’s Pakistan. Delhi was the gate where they could be stopped. Indeed, it is said that there are seven cities below the present capital and that its history dates back to the Mahabharata, where it is mentioned under the name of Indraprastha, which means the “City of Indra”, capital of the Pandava Dynasty around 1400 BCE. The glory of Delhi continued for several centuries, notably through the Tomara dynasty in the 8th century of our era. Delhi has a particularly bloody history, precisely because of its strategic location, and it was often brutally assaulted, raped and butchered by various invaders coming from Turkmenistan, Iran, Afghanistan etc… Even today the Encyclopaedia Britannica remembers the killing of 100. 000 Hindus in a single day, by Timur (1336-1405). In 1947, the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, kept Delhi as the Capital of India, in the same way that he borrowed everything the British had left: the democratic, constitutional, legislative, educational systems.

No doubt, Delhi, both the new and the old cities, are unique and beautiful, but it remains a capital which was made by the English for the English. The “masters” lived there in royal luxury, in vast bungalows with beautiful lawns and many servants ; their wives were able to drive in horse carts – and later in cars – along large tree-shaded avenues ; their children played in beautiful parks, such as Lodhi garden or Nehru park ; and the rulers, from their palaces, renamed after independence (South Block, North Block, Rashtrapati Bhavan etc…) kept an iron hand on their Indian Dominion, surrounded by pomp and martial music…

In time, Delhi has shown that it is not a capital fit for modern India. There are many reasons for that. Firstly, it is a capital which is far away, not only from South India, but even from Central India. If for instance you fly from Madras to Delhi, you find that the climate is different, the language is not the same, and so is the food, the habits, and the customs ; secondly, Delhi lives in a closed circuit: the intelligentsia, the media, the diplomats and some of the politicians, mingle there together and often repeat the same clichés, the same prejudices – secularism, Hindu fanaticism etc… ; thirdly, after the tragic assassination of Indira Gandhi and then her son Rajiv Gandhi, security has become very tight in Delhi, not only for the Prime Minister, but also for many of his ministers, MPs, and even MLAs. This has became a kind of status and unless you have at least two or three heavily armed police around you, you are a nobody in Delhi. This security syndrome has also been embraced by the embassies, which have become fortresses: whoever is seeking a US, British, Canadian or French visa, has to cross several levels of heavy and unpleasant security, before he or she is able to enter the core of the embassy.

Delhi is also the capital of bureaucracy. Jawaharlal Nehru also embraced a Soviet-like socialist system, that relied heavily on bureaucrats to implement its policies. This bureaucracy has become tentacular to the extreme: in the 90’s, when I was a young journalist, Shastri Bhavan, where the Press Information Bureau was situated, was a relatively decent place, not too crowded. Today, the number of cars parked inside the Bhavan complex has tripled! Which means that in thirty years, the number of bureaucrats has also TRIP ! Now, this bureaucracy has a particular mindset: it was fashioned by the British to serve them, regardless of the fact that most “Babus” were of Indian origin, whereas their masters were “white”. Today nothing has changed: top bureaucrats may be hard working and sincere, but they will serve in the same way, any master, whether he or she belongs to the Congress, the BJP, the Shiv Sena or the Trinamool Party! As you descend along the bureaucratic ladder, it becomes more and more tamasic, often indifferent to the welfare of people – and sometimes downright corrupt!

It is practically impossible for a minister, or even a Prime Minister, to govern India without the help of this “Babus”. Mr Modi himself tried in the early days to bypass them and even to reform them – but their power of inertia was such that he had to temporize and rely almost totally on them to control his ministers and govern India.

Has this nexus of bureaucracy, the diplomatic bubble, the intelligentsia and the media arrogance, coupled with a faraway location of Delhi, made it an unsuitable capital for a 21st century India? A few people thought that Mr Modi, who himself comes from a central state, Gujarat, and is deeply affiliated to the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) which is located in Nagpur, Maharashtra, also a central state, would have opted for another capital. But surprisingly, Mr Modi, who disliked Delhi in his days as Chief Minister of Gujarat, and was a stranger to the complex and intricate political, parliamentary and bureaucratic machinery of Delhi, decided not only to keep Delhi as the capital but also to build upon it: a new Parliament and Secretariat had been erected on India Gate, which will reinforce the immutable status as capital of India.

Yet, Indore, Ujjain, Nagpur, Bhopal, or even Pune, would have made a much more central capital, easily reachable by all, either from the North or the South – and where the Prime Minister would have been able to listen better to the heartbeat of India, as he could in Gujarat. It would also have broken the backbone of the bureaucracy, the diplomatic corps, the intelligentsia and the media, who would have all been disoriented in a Delhi deserted by the Prime Minister and his entire Cabinet.

The PM has an office in South Block, the massive Secretariat compound on the right side of the Presidential Palace, which was also built by the British and which has huge offices and great architectural beauty. It is a seven minute’s drive from the official residence of the PM of India, which is in Race Course Road (renamed now Lok Kalyan Marg). All the higher officials of the @BJP4India Govt, like the Principal Secretary, all the different Secretaries of the @PMOIndia the National Security Advisor etc, have their offices in South Block. But for different reasons, one being of course the security problem, Mr Modi having to move with a number of police cars and traffic being frozen for at least half an hour, the Prime Minister chose to make Lok Kalyan Marg, both his residence and his office. It is of course heavily guarded and particularly during COVID times, Mr Modi hardly stepped out of it and did most of his work and interactions online, via Zoom or other means and having his officers come one by one to his residence.

The COVID-19 has frozen us in many patterns, although it has passed, and for practical reasons, Mr Modi continues to live and work in his official residence, only moving out when there is some very important project to be inaugurated or for campaigning. You could say that the PMO has moved to Race Course Road and that all his trusted officers, such as the Principal Secretary P.K. Mishra or his Press Secretary, Hiren Joshi, spend most of their time with the Prime Minister in his house. In the process, Mr Modi may have lost the ear on the ground that he had when he was CM of Gujarat and met a lot of people, not only being in the center of India, but also more accessible to the common folk and experts from all fields. Today the PM needs to rely on his PMO and a few trusted aides to get reliable feedback and information on what is happening in his country and how his reforms are faring.

Having lived a long time in India, and having witnessed how Government officials, Ministers, peons and even devotees of Gurus, behave with their masters, it could be that Mr Modi does not get the accurate, sincere, and correct feedback that he should receive. The Bhakti (Yoga of Devotion) element in Indians, as well as a certain respect and fear of whoever is hierarchically above themselves, make these people tell their masters ONLY what they think he or she wants to hear. Does anybody tell Mr Modi that his Swachh Bharat program, though it did dramatically improve things, failed in many places? He should be also warned that his brilliant demonetization move has too stumbled: corruption is still rampant in India – it has become a habit rather than a need and the amount of black money is still tremendous after ten years of Mr Modi’s reign: if you want to buy any flat or land, you can be sure that at least 40 to 70% of the transaction will be in cash, and the amount of 500 rupees notes that people keep in their houses or offices, is staggering and frightening. In conclusion, Delhi is the WRONG Capital for Bharat @GarudaPrakashan

https://garuda.us/india-hindus-narendra-modi-a-look-at-shri-narendra-modis-extraordinary-achievementsbut-also-where-he-may-have-faltered

EXTRACT OF MY NEW BOOK ON SHRI NARENDRA MODI

CONCLUSION : THE HOUR OF GOD

Sri Aurobindo penned a small booklet called The Hour Of God. In this extremely inspired writing, he explains that there are moments when the Breath of God is upon humanity and immense progress is made in a few years ; and there are others, where for centuries, little happens and humanity seems to stagnate. This “Breath of God” needs instruments to manifest itself – and it also descends when the very future of humanity is threatened and direct actions are needed. We remember during the second World War, as an asuric Hitler was about to conquer the world, most of Europe was invaded, but England stood alone as the rampart. Churchill was the instrument of this resistance to the Nazi menace and Sri Aurobindo himself, though he had fought the British for Indian independence, said that in an invisible and occult manner, he guided Churchill – and indeed eventually Hitler was defeated.

There are many in India who feel that Narendra Damodardas Modi, born on 17th September 1950, in Vadnagar, Gujarat, is the man chosen to guide Bharat to greatness and success in the 21st century. His four terms as Gujarat Chief Minister were exemplary : not only he was perceived as a strong national leader, efficient, non-corrupt, hard driving himself and his ministers, but he also made Gujarat a prosperous State, and whittled down all the bureaucratic hurdles, so that investment became easy. Thus Gujarat turned out to be the wealthiest State in India, where all the big companies wanted to invest. Mr Modi was also an ardent ecologist, and he introduced solar power, wind turbines, and a vast irrigation system thanks to the Naramada dam, which brought plentiful harvest to the farmers.

His campaigning for becoming the Prime Minister of India in 2014, also attracted worldwide attention: he was the first Indian leader to successfully use Social Media to propagate his image and his message; he tirelessly toured the whole of India, delivering fiery and passionate speeches, that called a spade a spade, and promised all the things that Hindus had been deprived of for decades, since Nehru and his family imposed their secular, socialist, and often anti-Hindu policies. He also side-lined those leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party that could be a competition to him: Lal, Krishna, Advani, and Murli Manohar Joshi (Atal Bihari Vajpayee was already very sick and in bed). But this was forgiven to him, because they were already of an advanced age, and had their chances in the previous BJP government, which lost power to the Congress in 2004. Therefore, the entire Hindu population of India, from the Dalits to the Brahmins, voted for Mr Modi and he was twice elected by a landslide.

Some of us who love India deeply and passionately, felt that he was indeed this instrument of the Hour Of God, because the land of Bharat needs so badly a politician of great vision leadership and strength: corruption still reigns supreme, poverty had not been eradicated; India is surrounded by enemies, the Chinese being the most dangerous of them; and Hindus, a marvellous people, holders of the last living spirituality on this Earth, have been undermined, made fun of, attacked and sometimes killed in the last seventy years. This is why an entire nation held its breath and waited for the Miracle Modi to happen.

This book examined whether – and in what measure he succeeded – and where we feel he faltered. It is therefore important to remember that Sri Aurobindo added: “In the hour of God, cleanse thy soul of all self-deceit and hypocrisy and vain self-flattering that thou mayst look straight into thy spirit and hear that which summons it. All insincerity of nature, once thy defence against the eye of the Master and the light of the ideal, becomes now a gap in thy armour and invites the blow. Even if thou conquer for the moment, it is the worse for thee, for the blow shall come afterwards and cast thee down in the midst of thy triumph”.

What is then the assessment of Mr Modi’s ten years in power, as he is about to enter his third mandate? Once again, there is absolutely no doubt that he is the BEST Prime Minister India ever had. He is non corrupt, very hard working, and his entire focus is the welfare and betterment of his country, Barath. His vision and actions speak for themselves: demonetization, Swacch Bharat, removal of Article 370, which was a must, cancellation of Talaq divorce, Ayodhya, G-20, putting India on the world’s map, ect… It is also not his fault that the people of India did not collaborate fully with him and that in terms of honesty, cleanliness, corruption, black money, indiscipline, they partly failed him.

What is worrying though – and it may be only a temporary phenomenal – is that Mr Modi’s rule, along with Amith Shah’s, is beginning to take an autocratic tone: everybody is afraid of saying anything against him – from his ministers to his spokespersons; from the Indian media, who used to speak so much against him, but now does not utter a single word of criticism, to the book editors, who do not publish anything critical of him.  We all have our faults and dark sides. Definitely, Mr Modi’s weakness is a bit of arrogance and ego. For instance, he does not forgive anybody who says anything against him once, even if they might have praised him to heaven for twenty five years (for example Rajiv Malhotra who gave his wealth and health to defend Hindutva). We also see that his media team, headed by Hiren Joshi, goes to extraordinary lengths to make Mr Modi a near god – for example having crowds throw on him millions of petal roses in Karnataka, or Kerala – but to no avail, as the BJP lost badly there. The spitefulness of Mr Modi does not stop to ordinary people, but also extends to Gurus: the great guru Asaram Bapu is still in jail, and we were shocked when Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Swami Ramdev, extraordinary spiritual masters, who have millions of disciples, were kept behind steel barriers during the Ayodhya inauguration, as if they were a security risk! As we have said earlier, Mr Modi has been cut off – both by the VVIP security apparatus, the farness of Delhi, and his own aloofness – from the Hindus, who have elected him and he often has no idea of what is really happening in his own country. We see at the moment that he is making a genuine effort to woo again his Hindu electorate – the latest being his beautiful underwater puja in Dwarka (though an RTI showed that no maritime exploration of the remains of Lord Krishna’s city have happened in the last 10 years, as no funds were allotted…

It is absolutely true that there is nobody else in sight that could match his greatness and vision. And therefore he needs to be re-elected for a third term, so that he can continue his fantastic work. Will he surrender power to Mr Yogi or Mr Gadkari, both very capable potential Prime Ministers, after one year or so, as some have hinted? We do not know. But power has its own momentum, and he may rightly feel that HE is the ONLY one capable of guiding India to the super power status she deserves. This is how dictatorships begin, often with good intentions. But in the light of Sri Aurobindo, it would be a great misappropriation of this Hour of God, granted to Mr Modi and Bharat, if he would embark upon this path of a One Man show: considerable misfortune may rain on India and the BJP could again lose power. Therefore, it is hoped, that he, a meditator, who practices Hatha Yoga, will, in the spirit of Bhagavad Gita, rekindle in himself the humility and the impersonality in works, that all Indian scriptures have preached forever.

MR MODI NEEDS TO BE RE-ELECTED – BUT….

Dear friends, I am proud to share with you my latest book. Since the time I started covering Kashmir in the late 90’s and I saw first-hand the ethnic cleansing of the Hindus of Kashmir, I have been – and I remain – fiRst and foremost- a defender of Hindus. They are a wonderful people that have been cruelly persecuted throughout the centuries – and yet kept their faith, tolerance and knowledge: “Who am I, why am born again and again, what is Dharma, what is Karma, why does God, He or She, manifest throughout the ages, using different names and Scriptures… Therefore this book is dedicated to ALL the Hindus on this Planet.

I have also stood-up for Narendra Modi since 2002, when he was unfairly accused of having engineered the Godhra riots . I am probably the only western journalist who supported him since then – and it costs me, as many of my western journalist peers ( & French diplomats) shunned me and labelled me as a ‘right wing Hindu lover and islamophobe’. I nevertheless continue to be a fan of Mr Modi: he is the BEST Prime Minister India ever had, he has done wonderful deeds in 10 years and there is nobody in sight that can match his hard work and devotion to Mother India. Thus he NEEDS to be re-elected for a third term. Yet, I am bit worried about certain trends that are emerging, which may not be noticed by all, but could increase in the next five years and harm Bharat’s emergence not only as a superpower, but also, as Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and so many saints emphasized, as the spiritual leader of the world. As a journalist who always stood for truth, I have to state them. And this is also what this book is about

Namaste

François Gautier

IS MR MODI TURNING HIS BACK ON HIS FRIENDS ?

I am answering one of my friends on Facebook, who said in response to a picture that I reposted from Twitter,  that “PM Modi is single handedly responsible for reviving civilizational issues. The people of India know this, hence he keeps winning elections.” And he added: “You are behaving exactly like Arun Shourie, Swami and Jethmalani: turning against Modi because you can’t stand the fact that he doesn’t give you importance. I say this again, he owes you nothing. He is busy serving the people of India. Get over it ».

Fair enough. Firstly, no doubt, the cartoon, which is not mine, is exaggerated: Narendra Modi is not Aurangzeb, and remains THE Prime Minister India needs. Yes, he has done wonderful things, and is still performing well when it is needed. Yes, there is NO alternative to Mr Modi at the moment ; and no doubt he is going to be reelected easily in 2024, as most people of India are grateful for the hard work he has done in 10 years.

Since he became PM, and particularly during his second mandate, Mr Modi has been reaching out to all those who have hated him: the Muslims, Bollywood, Dalits (who anyway mostly voted for him), Islamic States (such as Qatar or Turkey – to whom India has sent relief during the recent earthquake), Kashmiri Muslims, Christians… etc. This is good: Mr Modi, is the Prime Minister of All Indians, regardless of their castes, religions and ethnicities. But surprisingly, the PM seems to have turned his back to the Hindus who have mostly elected him (out of 450 millions voters, at least 97% were Hindus, and few Sikhs, Jains & Buddhists) ; he also seems to be shunning those individuals who 20, 30, 40 years ago, single handedly – and often against what was politically correct at that time –  fought for the advent of the BJP and Mr Modi, often at the cost of their reputation.

I am thinking for instance about Koenraad Elst, our guru to all, who started defending Hindus before anybody, wrote so many books that were published by Sitaram Goel, and was the first to talk about subjects that were considered then taboo, like Babri Masjid. When he nowdays comes to India for conferences, he is totally ignored by the BJP, and by Mr Modi himself. Yet, the man is broke and in bad health – does he need to die for the Prime Minister to give him some overdue recognition?

I am also thinking about Rajiv Malhotra, who has been defending Hindus, and warning the attempted breakup of India for 40 years, gave his wealth and health to it. Same thing, when he comes to India, though he has more leverage, contacts, and crowds than Koenraad Elst, For instance, recently to launch his book “Snakes in the Ganges”, his ignored by the PMO. Could not have Modi given him a little darshan, a little photo op for that wonderful book? Probably the Prime Minister holds some grudge against him, as Mr Malhotra can be sometimes a little militant and sharp. However, an avowed meditator and yoga practitioner like Narendra Modi, should forgive, and reach out.

We understand that the Prime Minister of India is an extremely busy person, sought out by too many, and that he needs to keep his private space and focus on the most important job : the welfare of India. But I do remember Mr LK Advani, when he was Home Minister as well as Deputy Prime Minister of India, a double job which kept him extremely busy: he had always some time, and for instance, inaugurated in Habitat Centre Delhi our Kashmiri Pandit exhibition, helped Visa problems of people of Auroville which we presented him, and received many times my wife Namrita and myself in his home or in his office.

I was probably the only western journalist who ardently defended Mr Modi at the time of Godhra, when he was accused of having encouraged Hindu mobs to kill Muslims in Gujarat, which is totally untrue. I did this at the expense of my reputation, once being thrown out by the then French Ambassador, Jérôme Bonnafont, after we had an argument about Mr Modi. I have NEVER asked anything for myself nor for my wife, neither to Mr Advani or Mr Murli Manohar Joshi, who remains a friend up to today.

Since a year, I have been trying to bring to Mr Modi a delegation of people from Auroville, which has been suffering greatly, because the Indian Government has nominated a Secretary – Dr Jayanti Ravi –  who is not only cutting the forests of Auroville – the only green haven in the plains of Tamil Nadu – but destroying also the very unique social, economic & political fabric of Auroville and its residents. She has as well been using visa blackmail against westerners who have opposed her. I have never received even an acknowledgement of Mr Modi, or his private secretary, or from the PMO.

Let me finally add that, since I was a young journalist covering India and witnessed the ethnic cleansing of the Pandits in the valley of Kashmir, I had been an ARDENT and a militant defender of Hindus. Not only they are wonderful people, but also the holders of the last spiritual knowledge in this world : « who am I, what happens when I die, what is an avatar, what is dharma, what is karma »… etc. As such, I can maybe accept that Mr Modi confers the Padma Vibhushan to Mulayam Singh, who killed a hundred or so Hindus in Ayodhya (& boasted about it), but I cannot understand why Mr Modi appears sometimes to have turned his back on Hindus themselves, who had been killed in great numbers since he came to power : whether in Kerala, in West Bengal, or Sadhus in Madhya Pradesh, and wants to keep a distance with those who fought for his advent in power of his party and ultimately himself. Gratitude is also a Divine quality.

François Gautier