The nation can’t brush aside a Prime Minister’s lament. A lament that is not personal. Imagine the anguish Narendra Modi must have felt seeing some people trying to destroy India’s pride! Those poignant words, “Ye log Bharat ki pratishtha ko hi mitti mein milaane par tule huye hain (These people are hell bent on ravaging India’s pride)”. Modi unbosomed his pain at a “global” summit organised by his tycoon friend Gautam Adani’s television channel on October 22.National pride resides in the majesty of constitutional democracy. The pride dissipates when the nation can’t protect citizens’ rights and freedoms; it flourishes in the salubrious environment of equality and justice, of harmony and accountability. What are the people the Prime Minister accused of ravaging the nation’s pride actually doing? They are demanding removal of the Chief Election Commissioner who has been caught manipulating the voters’ list and stealing elections. Just that – they are peacefully asking for the resignation of a bureaucrat against whom the evidence of wrongdoing is piling up. And who are these people so contemptuously portrayed as anti-national by the Prime Minister? These are law-abiding people including leaders of opposition parties, members of Parliament, intellectuals, students and conscientious citizens who believe free and fair elections necessary for survival of democracy in the country. Does it look like a national tragedy that the Prime Minister has identified such right-thinking people as the nation’s enemy? The Prime Minister quickly shifted from “some people” to the leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi, bitterly arguing that the voices of even genuine critics of his government were drowned in the anarchic noise created by the Congress leader.Let’s exclude Rahul Gandhi, Modi’s pet aversion, from the discourse for a moment. Let’s recall what others – perhaps the genuine critics in the eyes of the Prime Minister whose views could benefit the government – are saying: Rarely in the annals of Indian constitutional history have two key institutions, the Supreme Court and the Election Commission, acted in tandem with such shameless disregard for the constitutional purpose of their office, inflicting administrative cruelty on citizens and disenfranchising them: political scientist Pratap Bhanu MehtaThe Election Commission is opaque and unaccountable. It doesn’t work according to the Constitution. The commission has to be dissolved, disbanded: Parkala Prabhakar, economist and husband of Union finance minister Nirmala SitharamanThe common man, the heart of our Constitution and democracy, is at great peril today: Rohinton Nariman, retired Supreme Court judgeIf any process results in disenfranchising millions and millions of Indian citizens, making them second class citizens without voting rights, such a process is intrinsically arbitrary. No amount of whataboutery can justify it: Ujjal Bhuyan, sitting Supreme Court judgeSIR (special intensive revision) is a scam and the election commission should be criminally prosecuted: S.Y. Quraishi, former Chief Election Commissioner of IndiaEC has to act under the law. EC changing Form 6 is wholly illegal and unconstitutional: Dushyant Dave, senior lawyer and constitutional expert Dissent is not an interruption of patriotism but one of the ways citizens take part in the life of the Republic. The Republic was not founded on the proposition that citizens would surrender their judgment: Manoj Kumar Jha, professor and parliamentarian.We are not a democracy. We are a nation held captive by a bunch of fascist thugs: Mahua Moitra, MP and former investment banker.The Prime Minister said the Congress party’s multiple attempts to relaunch a failed leader had done tremendous harm to other critics whose voices could help the government. The nation knows an assorted group of people is speaking the same language that the Congress is speaking.Also read: Indian Govt Bonds Record Worst Losing Streak in Last Three DecadesCut the Congress out. But Modi must tell the nation when he is inviting those people to discuss issues central to the survival of constitutional democracy in India. After all, he also said the need of the hour, when the world order is changing, is conversation, not agitation.Ghuspaithiya hoaxHome minister Amit Shah has declared that the Congress will not be able to return to power in the next 30 years. Will he explain to the nation why the people should sustain the BJP government for 30 years more? For leaving social harmony in tatters, for the stunning administrative failure in Manipur, for isolating India in the global community, for breaking parties and hollowing out institutions? Or, for soaring prices and unemployment, for vindictive misuse of agencies, for crushing dissent, for protecting the minister with Epstein links and the shocking experience of loot in the Ram temple? When the Modi government has miserably failed to present any credible model of good governance and demonstrated lack of interest in constitutional morality and the principle of accountability, what makes the home minister so confident about their uninterrupted rule? Does he understand the government’s stubborn refusal to answer specific questions relating to malfunctioning in the Election Commission destroys whatever credibility the incumbent leadership enjoys? His answer to every question related to the Election Commission and fair elections is – ghuspaithiya! His latest comment is, “Rahul ji, vote-chori vote-chori kar ke aap ghuspaithiyon ka vote bachana chahte ho (Rahul Gandhi wants to protect the vote of infiltrators by harping on vote-theft).Can the home minister confirm all others whose names were struck off except the dead and duplicate voters were ghuspiathiya? Why did the Election Commission not release a specific number of infiltrators after the completion of SIR? There are countless disturbing questions about the whole process, including objections by the Supreme Court and the two election commissioners, but the home minister wants to dismiss every query by singing the ghuspaithiya tune. Also read: ‘Arbitrary, Unjustified Deletion of Eligible Voters’: More Than 70 Scientists Call For the Scrapping of SIRThis posturing is not only a brazen example of intellectual dishonesty; Shah is itching to declare himself unfit for the home minister’s post by resorting to such illogic and sophistry. Even the Election Commission headed by the disgraced Gyanesh Kumar has thankfully not adopted that spurious ghuspaithiya canard. It is responding to specific complaints and taking corrective measures. Even the tribunals in Bengal found most of the voters were unfairly removed from the list. The disconcerting revelations in Uttar Pradesh rolls have deeply embarrassed everybody in the government and the commission, except perhaps those who are singing the ghuspaithiya song. While names of hundreds of voters were changed after publication of the draft list, such names appeared on the rolls like ‘Ram nein Yadav ko mara’, ‘Ali ne Kaha’, ‘Takkar Mara’… Shah must be wondering why nobody was named Ghuspaithiya? Chinese scareThe Prime Minister obviously hates to listen to Rahul Gandhi. He would love to manufacture a leader of opposition of his own liking. But he must not listen to his cabinet colleagues either as they are not telling him the truth. The ghuspaithiya narrative is a load of rubbish and it won’t help him focus on real issues. Instead, Modi should pay heed to what his defence officials are saying. How can he ignore what the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) director-general Shatrujeet Kapur has said?Revealing the turmoil on the Arunachal border, the ITBP chief said China had invested heavily in military advancement and surged far ahead of India. He confessed that combating the Chinese forces on traditional patterns was difficult now. There is no point in brushing aside this grim reality as India’s territorial integrity has come under new threats from China both in the northern and eastern frontiers. Apart from the grave charge levelled by the Congress that India doesn’t confront China and the United States forcefully because of Modi’s personal vulnerabilities – an unsubstantiated allegation the nation would prefer to reject, what’s deeply worrying is the government’s tendency to waste time and energy on frivolous matters instead of concentrating on real challenges.To deny that India’s foreign policy has failed to achieve the desired objectives over the last decade is self-defeatism. While India is far more vulnerable in the neighbourhood, Operation Sindoor against Pakistan clearly pointed to our diminishing global clout. There is a drastic need to reimagine our diplomatic outlook and bolster our military capabilities. The government needs to stop wasting time on religiosity and sundry political stunts; performing rituals at temples, inaugurating trains and distributing appointment letters can be done by lower authorities. The Prime Minister can utilise his time on bigger international and economic challenges. While the Agniveer scheme definitely weakened the Army, India could have drawn up a credible drone manufacturing plan in the last decade and purchased more fighter aircraft to bolster the capabilities of the Air Force. The Prime Minister spending a single minute on bogus issues like Sengol and abusing Jawaharlal Nehru is certainly less virtuous than exploring solutions to growing trade deficit with China, building cutting-edge technology and creating employment opportunities in India. The least Modi has to understand is that a Prime Minister’s time is precious and every second is meant for the country, not for the self or the BJP’s political consolidation.Sanjay K. Jha is a political commentator.For our full coverage on the SIR and the issues it has brought to citizens, click here.