Washington Post’s dissent results in BJP’s snub for Bezos investment offer

Even as US-retail giant Amazon’s chief Jeff Bezos was in India to commit $1 billion investment, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems to have cold-shouldered his offer as the company-owned Washington Post is critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his policies.

According to reports, Bezos, the second-wealthiest man in the world, was scheduled to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his two-day India visit. However, his visit went without any significant government engagement. A series of attacks by the ruling party against the e-commerce giant indicates the political intent behind the cold shouldering.

Firstly, Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said the company was doing no big favour by their investments. Later, Vijay Chauthaiwale, the chief BJP’s foreign affairs cell told Reuters that there was “a lot of problem” with the newspaper’s coverage of India.

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Soon after the BJP won with a landslide victory in the Lok Sabha elections, Washington Post in its editorial wrote that Modi’s win does not bode well for India’s democracy. Again, after the abrogation of Article 370, they said, “Modi was playing a dangerous game” by stoking the anger of Muslims. In another editorial, it referred to the longest internet shutdown in Kashmir a new low for a democracy. After the passage of Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAA), the publication said Modi was pushing back the world-largest democracy.

More recently the publication got journalist Rana Ayyub, a strong critique of the Prime Minister, on its editorial board. It also gave space to Barkha Dutt who often criticised the BJP and government’s policies.

In one of the opinion pieces, the writer describes Narendra Modi as India’s Donald Trump to describe how freedom in India eroded under the increasingly autocratic rule. Dutt noted that much like India, with economic growth slowing in the US, appeals to nationalism, xenophobia and racism were Trump’s best bet to win a second term. Several government functionaries have criticised the publication and termed their reports ‘mispresenting’.

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Even India’s foreign direct investment (FDI) slows down, the $1 billion investment offer hasn’t interested the government. Instead, the way in which the government has responded, shows the politics of silencing dissent took importance.

Though Bezos heaped praises on India and said the 21st century will be an Indian century, to indicate how important the market is for the company and for global trade, both Chauthaiwale and Goyal snubbed the company for its predatory pricing and deep discounting practices. Speaking at an event in New Delhi, the minister asked the e-commerce player to follow Indian rules in ‘letter and spirit’ and not find loopholes to do business in the country.

Meanwhile, Chauthaiwalke tweeted saying competition was undoubtedly good but it should be rule based and non-predatory. “Millions of people’s livelihood depends on small shops. We can’t kill them under the disguise of “efficiency”. There has to be synergistic model between small stores and making technology accessible,” he tweeted.

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