Extracts from an article titled*: 'A Victory for Democracy...' by Ruchir Ferror Sharma
[*external link]:
''the negative portrayal of Indian leaders is not a phenomenon which has magically appeared over the past five years with the arrival of the "divisive" Modi. The New York Times, The Economist, and TIME have written about every Indian Prime Minister with hostility, often reserving their most vitriol for Nehru and Indira Gandhi back in the 1960s and 1970s for not bowing down to the geopolitical interests of the US and UK.
Leave aside India, these publications do not have a kind word for any postcolonial or independent-minded country, which challenges the Washington consensus on neoliberal economics or the Blairite-Clintonite "Third Way" of social liberalism combined with economic conservatism.''
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''when western editors, journalists, or academics want to portray India a certain way, be it out of misplaced good intentions, outright malice, or simply laziness, they in turn get validation from our westernised elite, who are willing to write what makes the western establishment happy, acting as their interlocutors to a set of indigenous cultures and languages both sets of self-serving elites perceive as inferior.''
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''The results of the election have come out this week, and with them, those among the chattering classes and Twitterati who will now shame Indian voters for having voted the wrong way. And will now wring their hands about how they are ashamed to be Indian, and how their dreams of becoming US and UK citizens are dashed because over there, they will now be painted with the same brush as these hoi polloi because the voters have delivered a result that displeases the western masters.''
