Sujata Anandan wrote on ‘The Oped Page’ of The Hindustan Times, Mumbai on May 02, 2007 something like below…excerpts:

“how bloody could patriotism get?”

“Modi’s popularity proves that Gujaratis think differently from the rest of India. Let us hope that the fake killings will shame them enough to boot out the likes of Modi and Vanjara”

“…..at some point of time the people of Gujarat will be shamed enough to boot out the likes of Modi and Vanjara and dump them into the Arabian Sea…..”

“…..This man, even worse than either Hitler or the Nazis, knows, then, that even if the people of Gujarat vote differently compared to the rest of us Indians…..”

Mark her words, ‘us Indians’ – aren’t Gujaratis ‘us Indians’. I was shocked to read such an irresponsible article from such a regular columnist of the HT. You can’t possibly tell the whole of Gujarat to feel ashamed of themselves because they voted for Modi. Hell! All Biharis this way should feel ashamed for choosing first Lalu and now his illiterate wife! Below is the email I sent to her:

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Dear Sujataji,

This is regarding your column on HT dated today (Wednesday, May 02, 2007) titled ‘How bloody could ‘patriotism’ get?’ I completely disagree with you, just like millions of other Gujaratis and others may have been.

It is not because Vanjara might be dumped or because of the fake killing of that Sheikh who was an extortionist. It is because you feel that all Gujaratis should feel ashamed of themselves for voting Narendra Modi as their Chief Minister. Frankly, your way of shooting at the whole community for this reason is a stupid write-up.

And, first of all Sheikh was an extortionist and a criminal. Are you telling us that all those encounters Mumbai police undertook post 93 bomb blasts – many of them were fake also? Please don’t show any kind of humanity for these criminals – they are to be shot dead and they will.

But, if we discuss the other way around, let me also think the way you thought while penning down that article.

This way all biharis should feel ashamed of themselves first for voting Lalu Prasad Yadav and now his spouse, who’s neither got any real knowledge of political science nor about patriotism or social science or whatever you name it.

All Marathis should feel ashamed of them for continuously voting for the likes of Bal Thakerey and his Shiv Sena who pop up whenever there is an issue for Marathis and just try to drive away all others who live in Mumbai. Beating up innocent couples during valentine’s day and mobbing up those who try to support them, hitting biharis and those from UP who came here
to give an entrance exam – there are lot of such nonsense reasons.

All those from UP should feel ashamed for choosing corrupt politicians like Mulayam Singh and Mayavati and all year on year and thus making UP one of the worst states in terms of crime-rate and economy in India.

All Kashmiris should feel guilty of themselves for demanding a separate state from last 60 years or more and thus ‘thinking’ of a divided India and not a united one.

Moreover, all of us Indians should feel very ashamed for voting Congress in the center who believe that ‘muslims have the first right over any issue in India’ and who feel that bullsh*t issues like reservations and all are solutions towards a better India! I think you should write more such larger issues which affect a lot of young and aspirant Indians rather than penning some stupid articles over why Gujaratis should feel ashamed.

Madam, this way all of us should feel ashamed of ourselves for voting for almost all the political leaders we have so far. Tell me which state you originally belong to and I will tell you a reason why you should also feel ashamed of yourself.

Why Gujaratis vote for Modi? Because, Gujarat is the mother soil who has given birth to Mahatma Gandhi – who tried to make
peace between Hindus and Muslims but eventually failed. Gujarat gave birth to Sardar Patel who united today’s India – but today still we talk of dividing it in false grounds of reserved castes and general castes, state communities, Punjabis, Marathi, Gujaratis, south Indians, Bengalis, north Indians – all seem divided. Gujarat gave birth to Dhirubhai Ambani, who achieved which nobody else could have done provided those corrupt atmosphere where building even a small factory was a stupid thinking. He used that ‘corruption’ as his weapon and made it big. Gujarat also gave birth to Modi, who thinks different than Gandhiji, I believe.

Now, Modi is not a corrupt politician like thousands of those others in our country – I believe you would agree. Look at Gujarat’s economical statistics of past 4 years and see how the state has advanced. Gujarat doesn’t have any kind of natural resources like other states – they don’t even have good agricultural land and where they do have it, it doesn’t rain and
there are no rivers. They wanted to support this cause and use the river of Narmada to support water, one Medha Patkar pops in with a social cause of fighting for those few thousand villagers who might be affected. She didn’t seem to give a thought what would happen if this water of Narmada doesn’t reach where it should – Gujaratis will be in a danger shortage of drinking water and farmers will left with no other options but to suicide – like their counterparts do in the state of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. No Gujarati farmer ever attempted suicide for such reasons. Recently almost 4 lac crore of MoU’s were signed in a land which has no natural resources whatsoever.

Perhaps Gujaratis do not like Muslims much and this is the reason they support Modi and they will continue to. Why and how – it will lead to another debate. I believe no Hindu likes Muslims for very certain reasons of which you are also aware.

“..some point of time the people of Gujarat will be shamed enough to boot out the likes of Modi and Vanjara and dump them
into the Arabian Sea…” Why? If, somehow, I try hard to believe your way of thinking, I will have to first dump the likes of Lalu Prasad Yadav, Mulayam Singh, Amar Singh (who does nothing good but to stand by Bachhan all the time), Bal Thakerey (for allegedly dividing Indian communities and abusing all those but marathi’s), Mayavati, Jaya Lalitha, Karunanidhi, Arun Gavli (please!) and even S M Krishna and Chandrababu Naidu (because you guys only wrote that they did nothing good but IT and only IT) and thousands of those other corrupt politicians and then dump Modi for what he did – as you just wrote – support people like Vanjara and kill Muslims.

This is not at all personal with you – but frankly your article doesn’t really make sense. I really enjoy some of your other articles but when you talk about Gujaratis this way – you know it really doesn’t make sense. Gujaratis have contributed to the growth and union of India more than any other community so please be very careful when you feel like writing something against them – and that too over such issue which is major media hype and doesn’t really affect the larger audience. Where were you when this idiot Arjun Singh implemented some more reservations for this so-called backward class – ST, SC, OBC and what not! Please!!! If they couldn’t get themselves on line with the general class in 60 years, they will surely won’t now.

Thanks for your time.