‘No One is More Delighted With Modi Than Pakistan’: Aatish Taseer

Aatish Taseer is the author of the controversial TIME magazine essay, ‘India’s Divider In Chief.’

Aatish Taseer (R)is the author of the controversial TIME magazine essay, ‘India’s Divider In Chief’ (L).

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

The TIME Magazine article calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi ‘India’s Divider In Chief’ has created furore among the members of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Responding to the BJP’s jibe calling him a ‘Pakistani citizen’, Aatish Taseer – author of the essay – said that no one was “more delighted” to see the rise of Modi than Pakistan.

Speaking to Tiranga TV’s Barkha Dutt, Taseer said:

“I was recently in Pakistan, reporting for Vanity Fair. One of the things I noticed is that the Pakistanis are delighted with the idea of Modi. Nobody is a living validation of the two nation theory more than this man.”

Aatish Taseer, author of the essay in TIME Magazine

When they see India as “symmetrically Hindu”, Taseer said, they see it as “a country they couldn’t possibly live”.

“For them, it validates the project of Pakistan. This has harmed what used to be our enormous soft power in the world,” the journalist added.

Is India Mirroring Pakistan?

While Taseer denied that India has becoming a “mirror image” of Pakistan, he, however, said that “even contemplating that atmosphere” is dangerous.

“We are not Pakistan. But the fact that we are in that direction or even contemplating that kind of atmosphere is a very dangerous thing that has to be stopped,” Taseer said.

He also pointed that the other world of development, of moving among the other great nations or being part of the big game – a part of the promises that PM Modi made in 2014 cannot be possible if the BJP “unleashes this other atmosphere.”

“Like those two things will never go together. When one sees that the kind of economic promises has been abandoned and Hindu medieval theocracy is put forward,” said Taseer.

Unleashing The ‘Other’

However, Taseer also added that Modi was “unleashing the other” as he did not achieve the promises he made in 2014.

A Modi supporter in 2014, Taseer said that he was once hopeful that the prime minister will do “some economic good.”

“I was actually a hopeful. If this man can do some economic good... I took him on his word. I was wrong. I feel guilty about misjudging him,” said Taseer.

“Every time he stumbled on the economic front, Modi started resorting to Hindutva. He is openly unleashing it because he did not achieve what he set out for in the economic front,” he said.

Taseer added that he is apprehensive that Modi’s “desperation will increase” the lesser he delivers on the economic promises he made.

The author said that the elevation of Yogi Adityanath as the Uttar Pradesh chief minister and merging criminality and nationalism with the candidature of Pragya Thakur were the two low points of five-year Modi tenure.