What Do We Want? Details of The Rafale Deal. What Do We Get? A Propaganda Video Starring Pallavi Joshi And A Coffee Mug.

Pallavi Joshi

With corruption allegations mounting on a daily basis, one would expect that in any half-functional democracy, the Prime Minister or at least the Defence Minister would address the public and explain the Rafale deal.

But the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) does things differently. On Monday, the official Twitter handle of the ruling party posted a video, in which actress Pallavi Joshi is seen ‘simply explaining’ the Rafale deal in an attempt to whitewash the serious allegations of corruption levelled against the Modi government.

In classic propagandist fashion, Joshi discusses her residential society’s contract to buy good locks, as an analogy for the Rafale deal. The gist, is this – ex-secretary of the society agrees to buy locks at price x but sits on the contract for 10 years. New secretary Joshi buys more technologically advanced locks and also gets them at a cheaper rate for lesser money. She goes on to say that the BJP government has done the same with the Rafale jets and has saved Rs 12,000 crore in the process.

Interestingly, the video is produced by the I Am Buddha Foundation which is owned and run by Joshi and her husband Vivek Agnihotri. Agnihotri is a known BJP-RSS sympathiser, who often tweets islamophobic and misogynist remarks, fake news and pro-government propaganda.

The video concept is also unoriginal. It has been lifted from the controversial “The Woman Who Made Up Her Mind” video by the Better Together UK campaign, which aired before the Scottish referendum. The video features a common Scottish woman talking about the referendum in the context of her personal life, while holding a coffee mug. Joshi, in her video, is also casually sipping from a mug.

Allegations of corruption in the Rafale deal took centerstage when Congress President Rahul Gandhi asked the BJP government to disclose the price of the jets.

However, the government and its ministers refused to make public the said price of the jets and have also not provided explanations for other irregularities, such as the ones discussed in a press conference by ex-BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, journalist Arun Shourie and senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan.

The most notable irregularity is the fact that the NDA government’s deal benefits Anil Ambani’s newly formed company, which has zero experience in aircraft technology and manufacturing. This particular detail has amplified the allegations of crony capitalism since Ambani’s venture has been benefitted at the cost of the state-owned defence manufacturer HAL.

The half-thought analogy in Joshi’s video fails to understand that had Joshi refused to disclose the cost of the said ‘locks’ to the other residents, she would have been removed from the post of the secretary almost immediately. And if it was revealed that her own friends were benefiting from her ‘secret’ deal, a police investigation and criminal charges would be next.

Joshi and the BJP are fooling no-one. Twitteratis, as usual, are having a good laugh at this propaganda video. Many are asking if Joshi is the new Defence Minister of India since she is being made to answer questions that Nirmala Sitharaman should be answering in the first place.

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