I have been introduced to an email being sent out by Piyush Goyal, a minister of Indian Railways, to the Indians stating the relationship between the Sikhs and the current Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi. This email doesn’t look like email spoofing. The email might have been sent out to calm down the protests by the farmers in the Northern India.
People (the rightwing trolls) have been sending out the messages on the social media platforms that the protests are of farmers, not Sikhs, even when majority of the farmers are Sikhs in those protests. But somehow their fragile attempts to disseminate this information have drastically failed. They were left with only one option: to state the Sikhs’ relations are good with the ruling party.
Others might argue that this attempt might have been made for the upcoming elections in Punjab as the political alliance between the BJP and SAD isn’t there anymore. The timing of sending out this email isn’t right though. If the BJP is planning to lure the Sikhs under their fold during the protests, then it is the most stupid thing that a political party will ever do, knowing majority of the Sikhs are against them because of the new agriculture laws, and the world leaders have taken a strong notice of this, even the UN. Although when the similar protests happen in their own countries, they would look the other way, including the Indians. That’s not the topic of this discussion.
The ministry definitely has the Sikh records. Was it sent out to all the Sikhs whose records they have? Or only few of them? They would definitely have sent it to few non-Sikhs as well, otherwise it would create a problem for them during cross-questioning, if the Indian media ask about it, which they never do anyway.
One thing that should be crystal clear to the BJP leadership is that they can’t win the hearts of the Sikhs with propaganda. Trolls are good for them, paid and brainwashed both. That doesn’t change the fact that they can’t affect the protesters and the protests. Secondly, the Hindu-Muslim or the Hindu-Sikh propaganda won’t work out in Punjab. This is the very first time when the BJP will be contesting the election in all the assembly constituencies of Punjab, unless they have an alliance in future. The things that worked out for them in the past in other Indian states won’t work in Punjab. Punjab’s politics is different. And they shouldn’t even consider that if they somehow take back the laws, they have the Sikh majority on their side for voting. No. Like I said, the Punjab politics is way more complex/different than what BJP knows. Nationalism, patriotism, Hindu-Muslim, Kashmir, Ram Mandir, etc., these are irrelevant topics for the Sikhs during elections. Although the BJP has won the elections on these points in the past in other non-Punjabi states.
I am sure the Sikhs are not going to make the same mistakes that they made in the past. The large groups of protesters will learn a thing or two out of this, and that may be helpful to understand the politics. They sure aren’t going to vote for the Congress and SAD. BJP has no chance without alliance. The one mistake that they’re going to make is to vote for the AAP.
Anyway, let me know if you are living in India and get this email and what you think of this mass-emailing to the Indians.
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