Look at the headline of the editorial above published in the UK The Economist dt. July 30, 2022 … “Presidented” …
It is a patronising and condescending word. As if to suggest that in India a person gets “presidented” … not elected !
The word presidented (according to Merriam-Webster) is used generally to denote appointees to an office or to select someone to chair a meeting … not for duly elected person to the high position as head of state. The headline “Elected as President of India” would have been a proper headline.
The Brits have a monarchic head of state occupying the highest position in the country while India has a democratically elected Head of State in our republic . How would they feel if some national newspaper editorial-writer here were to headline a congratulatory editorial on the succession of Prince Charles to the throne as “ Installed”?
Of course some people even in India will not find “anything wrong” at all with the Economist editorial but that is because they do not know that an Englishman can pack a lot more innuendo between lines spoken and written than sardines can ever be stuffed into the refrigerated hold of a deep-sea fishing trawler.
The editorial insinuates that it was Prime Minister Modi’s “dominance”, the BJP’s “ruthless electoral juggernaut” and “a paramilitary movement that drew its inspiration from Europe’s pre-War fascists” — read the “RSS” (of course!) — alone that got Madam Droupadi Murmu somehow “presidented” to the position and then also suggestively characterizes her as a candidate of the “Hindu-majoritarianists” ….
This is all clearly intended to suggest that Murmu is just a “rubber-stamp” President… simply a puppet.
How would the Brits take it if I — through similar sly innuendoes, veiled hints, left-handed compliments — were to editorialize on, say, how Prince Charles, at some future date soon, became King of England after the demise of his mother due solely to his being a “blue-blooded white supremacist” candidate that the worldwide Anglo-Saxon Masonic secret cults all conspired to back to the hilt and crown him sovereign?
The editorial also insinuates that in 2024 , President Murmu “anointing Modi as 3rd time PM” …. would be, in effect, settling a debt of gratitude she’d be owing to him (“social inclusiveness”!!) What now?!! The Economist has some inside knowledge that 2024 elections are going to be rigged by Hindu fundamentalists? Is that what the Economist is suggesting through its innuendo? Suggesting some quid pro quo between President and Prime Minister of India?!
Finally, the editorial also casts also serious aspersions — in my opinion qualifying as “contempt of court”— of the most obnoxious kind on the Indian judiciary with these lines (quote) : “… the judiciary’s often outrageous willingness to back the government’s vendetta against its opponents”.
Our SC judges ought to file defamation charges against the Economist! That’s like an Indian newspaper carrying an editorial calling Old Bailey as Liz Truss’s co-conspirator in her vendetta against Sunak Rishi in the event he pips her to the post in the upcoming UK PM elections!
All in all, the tenor and intent of the Economist’s editorial is clear: portray India as a “banana-republic” ruled by a “tin-pot dictator” and the Supreme Court being his subservient “kangaroo court” ! It is one hundred percent drivel, full of not so much anti-RSS propaganda as anti-India propaganda.
The Economist is the most highly overrated , most over-respected magazine in Britain. Yet , it’s read with almost boot-licking awe and veneration by the Lutyens séance cult-members, the “intellectuals” in Anglophile India .
Now some people might ask me: Why does it bother you so much?! After all, how many people in India read The Economist? What difference does it make? What impact does an editorial in the UK have when it is hardly read by the masses?
My answer is: It does matter. The Economist is read by many in the UK, USA and the EU nations. It’s editorials are meant to serve as opinion-maker amongst policy-shapers in governments, tilters and tipping-points in decision-making by heads of state and as posh propaganda-material for NGOs and media-outlets worldwide.
In India, the Amit Shah-s and Mohan Bhagawat-s may not care to read the UK Economist but make no mistake about it…. for the Amartya Sen-s, Raghuram Rajan-s and the Karan Thapar-s, it is scripture to be quoted.
Sudarshan Madabushi