Hindustan Times (Patiala)

Ujjal Dosanjh appeals to Modi: ‘Be PM of all Indians, not just RSS’

- Nirupama Dutt letterschd@hindustant­imes.com

CHANDIGARH: Ujjal Dosanjh, a Liberal Party parliament­arian in Canada and former premier of British Columbia province, has entreated Prime Minister Narendra Modi to be “the Prime Minister that India deserves” on his new website commentind­ia.com on Wednesday. He has appealed to Modi to be “the PM of all Indians” and “not (of) just the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamseva­k Sangh)”

Dosanjh, 70, born in Dosanjh Kalan village in Jalandhar with a socialist freedom fighter for grandfathe­r, said when contacted, “I have deep ties with India and I am pained by the trolling, harassing and lynching of the past few years and complete silence by India’s PM and government.”

Dosanjh’s angst is visible as he writes: “In Karnataka, Dhanyashre­e, a young woman barely twenty years old, has taken her life; I say she was cruelly driven to her death. She was harassed on social media and in person by the Hindutva vigilantes in their fight against the so-called Love Jihad. This heinous vigilantis­m has been unleashed, or rather uncorked, by the many fronts of the Hindutva brigade long nurtured by the RSS. It has become more virulent and pervasive under the almost complete and complicit silence of Narendra Modi and his entire regime.”

He blogs further: “The BBC and the Indian media have described Dhanyashre­e’s death as a suicide; I say shame on them; it was anything but. Suicide has a ring of weakness, of cowardice. She was neither a coward nor guilty of anything any young man or woman shouldn’t do: Express themselves freely, without fear or favour; have respect for all peoples and faiths. All she is reported to have done is to proclaim on the Facebook that she liked Muslims; she hadn’t said she hated being a Hindu or whatever her faith may have been. Should India want or have its men and women hating its diversity?”

Seeking PM Modi’s apology to the family of the woman, he further wrote, “Mr Modi, shed your past of just being an RSS parcharak; India needs not an RSS parcharak.”

He said, “This is my second piece on commentind­ia.com and the first one was ‘Modi: The Dangerous Distortion­ist’. I will continue to comment in my blogs because it is time to speak out. I fear that political Hindutva is furthering the crises caused by political Islam in tearing apart the social fabric.”

In the first blog, Dosanjh had described Modi as the best orator on the Indian political scene today: the undisputed king of political one-liners, alliterati­on, rhyme, and distortion.

I will continue to comment because it is time to speak out. I fear that political Hindutva is furthering crises caused by political Islam in tearing apart the social fabric. UJJAL DOSANJH, Liberal MP in Canada and ex-premier of British Columbia province

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