The Article doesn't cover basics of Criminality of Indian Politicians.
These are just two example in last week from 1 south Indian state caught on camera (Because Local media would not cover since pretty much media in state supports ruling party):
Very rarely criminality of Indian politicians comes out because Media do not want to cover it. These showed up because someone could record. But in both cases, elected representatives and their goons are already out of trouble.
India is a land of lawlessness and that's a reality.
[1]A journalist being beaten by local representatives brother because he wrote on their corruption.
[2]Goons of local representative beating a women (1 eyed mind you) because she didn't agree for their illegal construction in front of her house.
> India is a land of lawlessness and that's a reality.
It's a little more subtle : well connected people to whatever they want and get away with no consequences. People who dare to oppose these powerful people discover the true meaning of hell. It's true practically everywhere in the world including the US.
IMO for all the shit that social networks receive (for good reasons), one of the side effects is that it's a lot easier to share such gross violations of law an example of which are the above videos. In a way social networks give people power.
>People who dare to oppose these powerful people discover the true meaning of hell. It's true practically everywhere in the world including the US.
It can be true in the US, but it definitely is not the norm. This statement rings false. For all the problems the US has, yes including corruption in some places, it is almost entirely unique in its freedom of speech and its allowance for political opposition without fear of retribution as a modus operandi.
> ...it is almost entirely unique in its freedom of speech and its allowance for political opposition without fear of retribution as a modus operandi.
This is a common misconception of Americans and is blatantly untrue. America is absolutely not the only free country in the world and, in some areas, it is less free.
Take press freedom, for instance: the US currently ranks 41st:
There are plenty of other fully democratic countries in the world, where freedom of speech is accepted, encouraged, and enshrined in well-respected laws.
It's because in the US, corruption is just legal thanks to lobbying.
Plus, you are in a country where you can go to war to satisfy your friends benefit. Lie blatantly about the motives. Spend billions of dollars for it in a country in massive debt. Get caught doing so. Yet ignore international instutiions, go kill thousands of people anyway and get away with it.
You are in a country bailing the banks that ruined themself.
You are in a country where it's legal to snatch somebody without a trial. Where you can get in secret prisons and be tortured. All that justified by events that killed less people than the flu.
Where massive surveillance is allowed by politicians for security, yet they ban all attempt of transparency on their own actions.
The only difference with India is that they are better at it :
- they don't make it obvious and chocking enough so that it leads to a strong reaction
- they use all the tricks in the book to divert attention
But in the end, the US is so corrupted it could be a case study for future historians.
France is pretty much the same, mind you. We have just less guns and more smug.
Lobbying is a good thing and as Indian citizen I wish it was legal in India. It helps small groups unite and openly and transparently seek legislative changes they want. In India you bribe secretly. The party wants all funds channeled to party supremo so they changes laws to make sure Individual legislators can not pass any bills of their own against party wishes. So that wont happen in India. We will always have to pay bribes secretly.
>Plus, you are in a country where you can go to war to satisfy your friends benefit.
India does not have financial muscle to start a war but Indian government starts projects to help friends all the time.
> You are in a country bailing the banks that ruined themself.
Almost all major Indian banks are owned by state heavily mismanaged and completely inefficient. They run as jobs program and are every year bailed out using taxpayer money.
>You are in a country where it's legal to snatch somebody without a trial. Where you can get in secret prisons and be tortured. All that justified by events that killed less people than the flu.
Indian government can put you in jail for years without trial. Even for a high profile celebrity case takes on an average 10 years to conclude.
>Where massive surveillance is allowed by politicians for security, yet they ban all attempt of transparency on their own actions.
There is no privacy in India. If the cop asks you to undress you better do.
I dont see a problem with that. Will you mind if Elon Musk convinces Trump to fast track alternative energy or Google convinces proper tests of self driving cars ?
It may not take exactly the same shape in the US, but a friend of a friend employed by some billionaires was injured on the job, and when the employee made a workplace injury claim, the company sued the employee. They play other psychological techniques to keep the other employees from speaking up or leaving. [Deliberately vague]
> its allowance for political opposition without fear of retribution as a modus operandi.
Are we talking of the country of COINTELPRO, that killed civil rights activists, or obliterated unions and the US socialist party by force and shady tactics? it's like, you can say what you want, as long as it has zero consequences -- otherwise, prepare to meet some serious shit.
> well connected people to whatever
> they want and get away with no
> consequences
> It's true practically everywhere
> in the world
With the occasional glaring exception (Jimmy Savile, for example) I simply don't believe that's true in most of Western Europe.
The press, the judiciary, the police, and the civil service are strong institutions. Reading up on "Plebgate" will give you a feel for the truly pedestrian nature of power abuse in the UK, and what happens when the police go rogue.
Don't underestimate how much you don't see. Millionaires fly without even seeing border security, meanwhile every other person spends hours waiting in line. It may not be beatings in the street but there are many laws that simply don't apply when you're rich enough.
> Millionaires fly without
> even seeing border security
For clarity, you're saying that it's possible to arrive in -- for example -- the UK without being subject to immigration or border controls?
If you're merely pointing out that it's possible to receive much speedier service with money, then yes, there are a wealth of commercially available options operated by airports, private and public alike. That's hardly evidence of corruption.
Organized crime have had a _tremendous_ influence in Europe, and most countries of the world, up to the very top of governments. In wartime, or when the government is in a weak position domestically, they don't hesitate to resort to the muscle of mafias, and of course this has long term consequences: once they have helped the "state", they have a free hand to do a lot of things -- a lot.
Could you provide some contemporary examples in Scandinavian or Western Europe of where organized crime has had a blind eye turned to it as a result of using mafia-sponsored "muscle"?
I think I was incorrectly using Western Europe to mean Western Europe minus Southern Europe. I don't believe this happens in France, Germany, Holland, the U.K., etc
Your inclusion of Sarkozy surprises me. Googling for Sarkozy and mafia is bringing me a bunch of antisemitic sites and a site called info-resistance — do you have any reliable sources?
Sarkozy is prosecuted for several charges regarding the funding of his electoral campaigns (who cost far more than what the law allows), and it is now extremely likely that Gaddafi is illegally involved. Prior to that, Chirac had strong ties with Charles Pasqua, whom he appointed Interior Minister -- Pasqua was clearly linked to the Corsican mafia and he later funded the infamous SAC -- muscle from the mafia to counter the OAS. As for Mitterand, he made it possible for Berlusconi to invest in France via Mediaset and "La Cinq", among others.
So there's a long history of shady ties at the very top of the French institution, pretty often in the form of what was deemed as a "necessary evil", but corruption nonetheless. That's pretty much summarizes the spirit of the French Fifth Republic, anyway: "we go to do what we got to do, and the public wouldn't understand".
I disagree, at least for more local issues. Social media or other attention platforms only help if there's a single action that needs to happen.
Case in point: a few neighbors had a shitbird stealing milk bottles delivered to our porches. The police obviously aren't sending in the detectives for 4-5 $2 bottles a week. But we captured the guy in camera, did a social media assault that attracted the news. A city fireman saw the guy on TV, recognized him from another petty theft, and called his cop friend who found the guy.
That's what social media does for individual or small group problems.
If you have a problem with a building project or city action, social media will attract sympathetic comments and crazy people. To get action, you need to round up people and show up at events and hearings.
I've helped people out fighting powerful interests.l at a local level. They always fight back, but in modern America you don't have people showing up to rape your wife or beat you. At the end of the day, powerful people need money, and its very possible to create the perception of risk that will slow down the funding stream. That tends to solve David v. Goliath issues.
"Because Local media would not cover since pretty much media in state supports ruling party)' --What's the arrangement there? Do the parties own/control the local press or is the press frightened of the parties?
Jason Jones from the Daily Show years ago did a piece about not "fake news" in India but "paid news" for politicians, pretty interesting:
As an Indian, there are two things I take for granted:
1. Politicians, by default, are corrupt. They are also not to be trifled with - if I accidentally bump into a small-time politician's car at a signal, I'm hightailing it out of there lest I get beaten up.
2. If I get into trouble (especially with a politician or a well-connected person), the last person I'll turn to for help are the cops.
Most occidental countries have corrupted politicians as well. They are just better at playing the system to never be convicted.
In France the elite is incredibly good at it. The best example of this is Charles Pasqua. He has been linked to many, many, manyyyyyyyy shady cases, but every time found innocent : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Pasqua
What's coming now is worst. The old generation was trying to cover their track. The new one doesn't even bother. They are exposed, play a little TV game, and then carry on like nothing happened. It works so why not ?
Rampant corruption has turned a lot of people into cynics in India. The phrase "Kuch nahi ho sakda India da. China dekh lo kithe pahunch gya" (Nothing will happen in India. See the development in China) gets thrown around a lot in a conversation.
It isn't a problem that affects a single party, both the ruling BJP and the Congress have the same issues. The problem with BJP being our Dear Leader being rather illiterate and surrounded by "Yes Men". The man behind the demonetization was found out to be an individual with a PhD in Yoga. And of course, there's 2002.
The Congress being the Congress mired itself with a series of scams in it's second term, and thus began what Bannon calls the "start of the right-wing revolt".
A personal anecdote about the Congress: A cousin of mine once decided to run for the Lok Sabha but quickly changed his mind because he found out the Congress guy was bribing the poor people (of which there were a lot in his village) with bottles of Johnie-Walker from the past two elections. And ofcourse, it was easy for the said Congress individual to do so because the then Chief Minister was close to Ponty Chadha, the liquor baron with a monopoly in the state of Punjab, for which the CM went to Dubai unannounced [1].
You could write a multi-volume encyclopedia on the tales of the corrupt Indian Politician.
This is what makes AAP's victory in Delhi not so surprising. Delhi is far richer than the rest of India; blatant bribery doesn't work quite as well here as it would be in another state
I have another theory. You don't get votes in India. You buy them. A wannabe politician needs a lot of money to win an election. Criminals who have made money through bootlegging or by beating up people have a leg up in this respect. Once they get to power, they indulge in corruption to pay off the people who helped them win and to save for the next election. The next election, they have more money to pay the average voter so his competitor needs to be an even bigger criminal.
Not saying that people don't try, and there is that odd politician who does come only from money. By and large most chief ministers victory can be explained not by money, but more by identity/group based politics.
This is pretty much also exactly the same to what happens in the US.
The answer is by distributing 2,000INR notes to people and transporting them to the polling station, relying on reciprocity and promising more to come if you get elected.
No its not rhetorical and your answer is naive at best.
People in India will take money if you give it to them, but they will vote on identity only. This is because there is no reciprocity - once the voting is done the politicians have no incentive to pay them again and they don't. The only reciprocity that exists, if at all, is along identity and everyone gets it.
Take a look at any CM in any state of India - their win is largely explained by identity and not money. The current PM who was two time CM of a state, doesnt even have a house to his name.
Thats because that published science is born of a prejudiced mind. I have spent my entire life in this country and been a part of the political process in many different ways. Pick any random person from the street in India and he will tell you as much.
Paid voters are given pre-filled ballots. They go inside polling station, drop the prefilled ballot in the box, and bring new blank ballot outside to paymaster to collect their cash.
I don't know about India, but in a large part of the rest of the world, money funds campaigns and buys influence, which is extremely correlated to winning elections.
Politicians don't dole out cash and go pray that the voters will honor their agreement. They have a way of making sure that their bought votes are delivered to them.
Buying votes happens mostly in slums and other non-affluent areas. These are the places where the concept of privacy hasn't yet formed and everybody knows what everybody else is doing. Also, a politician is not expected to work for them his whole term. It is natural to see your local representative only during the times of election. So politicians have the two key ingredients to enforce an implicit contract. But the biggest weapon these politicians have is intimidation. Since it's not hard to mostly figure out the faction that refused to vote for the money they took, they can be persecuted and intimidated.
Of course there's no official source to cite this. My driver is very chatty and quite insightful about the politics in India.
Vote is secret in India. There is no way for politician to find out where your vote went except some guess work, but still people vote for the politiician who paid the money which is strange. There have been no news report about politicians taking revenge because people did not vote for him. If such news had come election commission would do something and media would not be silent.
The article fails to differentiate between charges and conviction. In India anyone can get charged for a crime no one ever gets conviction.
As an Indian I think Criminality of Indian Politicians is a non issue. Very few of the politicians are actual hard criminals. Most face charges that anyone in important position is likely to face.
Nearly all my politician friends have been in jail and have criminal records but I can vouch they are pretty good people.
India does not uniform laws and far too many laws to deal with the exactly same crime.
Examples:
1. One of my friend has been fighting in court for last 7 years over a case registered on him by his political opponent. My friend called him "asshole". However as per Indian law it is a crime to abuse a person if the person belongs to specific caste (SC/ST) not just that, the police are required to register the case even if they think the charges are frivolous or unsubstantiated. This gentleman has been visiting court every few months. The charges will be dropped some day as a political bargaining chip.
2. I barely escaped having a criminal record when I participated in a political movement. The cops basically filed any random charges against the protestors including molestation, attempt to murder and what not. I escaped because I had a fake ID card with fake name on it.
3. A lot of civil offenses are "crimes" in India.
For example you are CEO of a publishing company that publishes a scholarly book on world mythologies. Some person files a complain saying you (CEO) has hurt the sentiments of public which is a criminal offense. India Ebay CEO was arrested as a criminal becomes someone sold a CD on the website that had porn clip in it !
4. Courts that don't work.
Indian courts spend time only on cases that make the judges popular. Such as cases that involve celebrities or cricket. That is why conviction rates are next to nothing. One Indian celebrity recently got acquited from tow major crimes after around 12 years of fight.
5. Drinking wine or beer might be a crime in some states and in one state they want to give capital punishment for the same.
In case anyone wants to see more specific data, there is a site (http://netafilter.in/) that displays all constituencies, their MPs and the number of cases filed against them on a map.
The information icon at the top says the database is from http://www.myneta.info/, another decent site for Indian political data.
Myneta.info looks like it is maintained by a group called The Association for Democratic Reforms (http://adrindia.org/about-adr/who-we-are), and based on affidavits submitted by the candidates themselves (apparently a Supreme Court declaration that makes it mandatory). This means the actual number of cases could be different from those declared.
There are some comments in this thread bringing out examples of corruption in the West. While Western societies are by no means perfect and have their own warts, they are much better than India when it comes to corruption, effective judiciary, free press or tolerance for scandals.
People typically vote with their feet. If you have any doubts about which society treats its citizens better, just look at how many Indians are clamoring to get out of India and immigrate to USA/Europe and the numbers of Americans/Europeans wanting to immigrate to India.
Indians want to immigrate because of the much higher pay and savings in the western economies compared to the pay for the same job locally.
I am sure a lot of people are motivated by the much more modern western culture as well but I can assure you that money is the motivation for the majority, as condescending as that sounds.
But why is it that its possible to make more money in western economies than in India? I asked this question to myself (and I am sure many others did too) and at least for me, the principle factor came out to be pervasive corruption. In case you are familiar with both India and western economies, can you think of any other bigger factor?
Yes, there is a bigger factor. Western economies are stronger than India's. The average pay is higher and the standard of living is higher (this also means that the cost of living is higher but that gets compensated by the fact that the conversion rates from eg USD to INR are so high that even a little money makes a huge amount of difference).
When I did Google Summer of Code in my freshman year in college I got paid $5500 for three months' work, which when converted to INR was more than my father was making in a whole year working fulltime.
Rs 1 million (ballpark figure) is considered to be a good salary for an average software engineer in India. By PPP conversion this is only equivalent to $57k, which is less than half of what some freshers make in the Bay Area or NYC.
Sorry if I was unclear, but my question is why are western economies stronger than India's? Its been 70 years since independence. What is it that India is lacking at this stage?
The cut goes far deeper than corruption, we have had traitors running our country after Independence; leaders who put themselves and their petty desires before their country.
Other factors which contribute to holding back the country are: illiteracy, population explosion, blind faith, diversity used against the masses to incite hate and so on.
Maybe because nearly 50% of voting population actually preferred Bush/Trump over the alternative? Especially when federal government has vastly increased its power (defense, education, environment, taxes, social policies) and when president has the rare power of nominating supreme court justices who can then stay forever deciding crucial matters (corporations, abortion, gay marriages, affirmative action...). In such cases, its better to vote for a bad candidate on "my side" rather than a better candidate from "other side".
In fewer words - hyper-polarization. Once you win republican or democratic primary, you are guaranteed to win 45% of the vote.
>Mr Vaishnav dispels the conventional wisdom that crooks win because they can get voters to focus on caste or some other sectarian allegiance, thus overlooking their criminality. If anything, the more serious the charge, the bigger the electoral boost, as politicians well know.
Nothing in the article backs up this statement. I hope when the author publishes his book, somebody will point out why.
I believe caste and identity politics play a huge role in such elections. Thefts and crimes are ignored precisely because people think that XYZ crook(from their caste/community) has the courage to stand up to authority and will represent them properly.
Different communities promote up their own representatives and as the elections becomes dirtier, in the end only crooks from various communities stand up.
Kind of similar to how capitalism forces merchants to sacrifice most skills not relevant to 'reducing cost/making money', Indian politics does this to our MPs/constituencies. Money and muscle power become a pre-requisite for being considered as a possible electoral candidate.
Then again, the advent of social media and the internet has started changing things (I don't have stats to prove this though). Crimes committed by MPs (or their families) are being highlighted throughout the country and the guilty are being shamed. I use the word shamed because I am not too sure what happens once the media spotlight moves somewhere else. Possibly, they walk free...
Many US politicians and officials would easily be considered war criminals if there were any sort of binding international law. Even more would likely be jailed for activities that are well known if they weren't already powerful.
Once criminal organizations get powerful enough they can start doing extensive image management and PR, as well as building elaborate headquarters complete with fancy architecture, columns, etc.
Governments are simply the most successful criminal organizations. We the people are continually fooled by the grandeur of the columns and the silly dignity of the titles.
We're also overly grateful for the gifts of patronage they dole out to keep us at bay such as welfare, medals, etc.
The more pomp and circumstance, the more ritual and solemnity, the bigger the racket. It should be no surprise that both candidates in the recent US election still have numerous FBI investigations into their business dealings, and the majority of Americans considered both to be highly unfit for office.
Our presidential motorcade is a sham... The vehicles are tanks made to look like limousines, yet we'd look down upon a foreign leader who paraded around in a tank.
All tyrants attract sycophants, and in our case they make up most of the political and media elite. The most humiliating display in our nation is the exceedingly rare occasion when a president condescends to sit for a one-on-one interview. The softball questions are spoken with a humility (and a reassurance that there certainly won't be any sort of tough follow-up question) that should make us all gag.
In the US, there is a steady stream of news stories about corrupt or otherwise undesirable situations elsewhere in the world.
Indian villages are still tribal. The tribal cheiftains win the elections. As there is no legitimate methods to be chieftains, the way to be one is to show power or be a criminal. Now real power is with politician, and crininals become politicians. There is also corruption. The higher posts are occupied by castes in higher levels. There has to be a way to create a level playing field and that is not to stop corruption but force the bureaucrats to take bribes from all sections of the society. For that you need criminals as leaders. So OBC, other backward communities (official name) and communities in lower level elect leaders with criminal background. The communities in the top level have their members in bureaucracy and they are "influential".
India has one of the largest below poverty line and uneducated population in the world. Isn't it obvious that you can just win them over giving them a little money as less as 500 or 1000 Rs which is gonna make their days.
I remember when the voting guys come to my town, the parties generally setup up a buffet system for lunch and if you had voted for the party you get free lunch. An then there is giving free gifts like TV's, Phone's and mixers if you vote for them. Tell me can you challenge a system like this??
Ironically, the photo in the article is of former CM Jayalalitha who passed away last month. She has pending corruption cases against her. But when she died, the outpouring of praise from most people, many who were even against her while she was alive, has been unbelievable.
India does have a high level of criminality and corruption in politics, but it is different from the U.S. in one aspect.
An Indian politician who brags about sexual assault and doesn't even deny video-taped evidence of the bragging .... would have no chance of being elected as Prime Minister. As we demonstrated in November, American voters have a much higher tolerance level when it comes to electing our president.
I beg to differ here. In India, you can be elected as a PM if you have large social media brigade. Our current PM has charges of rioting against him and he won by huge margin by using effective PR and his social media brigade.
Article sounds racist, but this is the economist after all.
Here is the thing - If you look at the past 5 Prime Ministers of India and compare them to the past 5 Presidents of the US, you will find that India more or less throws up much better candidates than the US for the top spot.
If Indian politicians had such a criminal record, this would be unlikely the case.
I cannot imagine why you'd think The Economist is generally a racist publication. Have you ever read it? Really? I do not get such an impression from TE at all and I read it often.
As to this article, The Economist is reviewing a book by a third-party. If the facts are correctly quoted from the book, the book's sources are correct and the item is newsworthy, I see no problem at all with such a book review.
There need be no racial motivation for pointing out institutional failings in any country. India is an important country in so many ways, and the readers of The Economist would surely want to know about politics there.
It is racist because the institutional failing it is pointing out is born from the publications/authors prejudice rather than any objective assessment of reality.
Thanks for trying to explain your position. I don't have the facts myself. Perhaps you could give a specific example of which data in the article were incorrect. Also, I would be pleased to know how you were able to discern the motivation behind the supposed mistake(s) made in the article.
Really? The article says something negative about Indian politics therefore it sounds racist? You realize this is a teaser for a book written by an Indian author, right? Indian politicians being more likely to have criminal allegations against them is an easily verifiable claim.
And why do you think The Economist is generally racist? Because they don't shy away from criticizing shitty behavior just because the people doing it happen to be non-White?
It's not exactly a phenomenon that's unique to India. Endemic political corruption on a local level are endemic to developing democracies around the world. Even the US had it at a certain stage of its development. Ties to organized crime were a defining characteristic of big city politics in the 19th century.
> Indian politicians being more likely to have criminal allegations against them is an easily verifiable claim.
Unlike America, India's court are more accessible to each and everyone. Cases are filed liberally in the political process - in some ways this is reminiscent of our freedom struggle where going to jail was considered a right of passage, and rightfully so.
If you use this to assert that Indian politicians are criminals, you are basically using means at your disposal to assert your prejudice.
I'm an Indian and can verify that. A lot of scumbags keep winning and hold onto power here usually by hook or crook. In fact even the prime Minister modi was on a mass murdering case of Gujarat 2002. He was the chief minister when the riots Happened!! That guy has still not even apologized or said sorry to the families whose people were killed. The current govt has the largest share of criminals in power. There are some honest players coming up. We'll see if they are really honest in a few years.
They are not the prime ministers now. The context that we are talking here is about the current govt. If the previous govts had lots of wrong doers then it doesnt mean the current govt doing the same is okay. Get your priorities straight.
Using the same argument - we shouldn't discredit those crimes and criminals just because they are not prime ministers or chief ministers now. Get your priorities right.
I dont know why such scumbags expect an apology from Modi. Supreme Court gave him clean chit. I am from Ahmedabad and whenever I see the reference of 2002 riots, I know its from ignorant people outside of Gujarat and who doesnt know anything about Godhara incident. He did what he could as a CM, only outsiders (non-gujjus) still find he is the one should be blamed. What a pitty!
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godhra_train_burning
> The current govt has the largest share of criminals in power
Surely you jest? No mention of Congress who have literally destroyed our country by their rampant corruption and being in power for so long that it is proving to be a gargantuan task to get back on our feet?
Yeah the congress has to be gone for good. Also the current govt! They have the highest no of criminals in the parliament now. Its not even up for debate. They need to be weeded out.
> In fact even the prime Minister modi was on a mass murdering case of Gujarat 2002. He was the chief minister when the riots Happened!! That guy has still not even apologized or said sorry to the families whose people were killed.
I think you should stop whatever you are doing and get appointed as a judge in the Supreme Court of India. Obviously you know so much more than what they know or have deduced about criminals in India, much less the PM.
The commenter is deluded and does not care for facts. This case has been running in prime coverage for the last 10-12 years because almost everybody took an interest in it, because they wanted to "Get Modi". Many inquiries were setup, including special task forces, commissions, many US & European based NGO's in the guise of missionaries came to India searching for mass graves, he was banned from getting a Visa to enter the US, the supreme court in India held multiple hearings etc. After all that, he was deemed innocent. This shows that there is plausible evidence that the commenter was not serious, & in fact a troll or he was absolutely clueless, yet does not & cannot resist from accusing someone of being a "mass murderer". So there, that's the joke! You can't get more serious than that about this situation.
Thank you for providing the context that is helpful.
However a quick skim of content seems to suggest that a significant amount of people do not have confidence in the impartiality of the investigations, and that it remains a controversial issue.
>a significant amount of people do not have confidence in the impartiality of the investigations
Generally, you would be right in assuming that. But in this case, Modi was in quite a vulnerable situation, when the primary opposition party (Congress) was in power in the central government at that time; they even had CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) in their control, there were too many international parties out to dig up evidence and accuse him (which they did, sans evidence). But at the end, not one charge stood up. In other words, he was proven innocent multiple times against all odds. The Visa ban was also overturned without a whimper, in fact Modi & Obama became such good friends....
did you not read the word 'was' ? Im not saying he is a mass murderer. Im only saying he was on the case for long. Your insecurity about this only makes me even more suspicious.
If he said "Sorry" the scumbags would say "See, he said 'Sorry', obviously he's guilty", if he does not say "Sorry", the remaining scumbags say "He did not even say 'Sorry', he needs to take responsibility"!
If you think people can't see through such antics as you're playing, you are really deluded & grossly underestimate the general intelligence of humans!
WTF man! Just because people do not agree with you, they become "insecure"? Unless you have been living under a rock or deep inside a cave you should know that almost every political party in India as well as many international NGO's, including our very own Hillary Clinton were out to "Get Modi". There were at least two Special Task Forces (STFs) that said there is no evidence of Modi being involved in the killings. He was the CM at that time, that was his only fault. The Courts in India have given him a clean chit, this was when he was a mere CM, at a time when the Congress party was in power. I mean, you got be really dense...
And what's with the 'was'? Just because you claim someone "was" a mass murderer, you can absolve yourself when every known & serious inquiry against him proves otherwise? Please try to be objective & analytical. Look up facts. Just because you like things to be a certain way does not make it so. Try to understand the divisive politic people play, but their best hands couldn't prove what was false.
I meant it seriously - if anyone can prove that he is guilty, go and make your case. Stop being a keyboard warrior!!
These are just two example in last week from 1 south Indian state caught on camera (Because Local media would not cover since pretty much media in state supports ruling party):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOueUSVSuYk [1]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hG2fqW-tcM [2]
Very rarely criminality of Indian politicians comes out because Media do not want to cover it. These showed up because someone could record. But in both cases, elected representatives and their goons are already out of trouble.
India is a land of lawlessness and that's a reality.
[1]A journalist being beaten by local representatives brother because he wrote on their corruption.
[2]Goons of local representative beating a women (1 eyed mind you) because she didn't agree for their illegal construction in front of her house.