Only a foreigner can safely ask questions.

"Is the BJP still the party with a difference?" asked R Sardesai. "The image was telling: Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad effusively welcoming the newly-inducted BJP member, Mukul Roy with flowers at the party headquarters. A former Trinamool Congress leader, accused in the Saradha and Narada, scams, now being treated as a prize catch by no less a figure than the law minister." Not just Roy, the BJP has also allied with Narayan Rane, "whom the BJP once projected as one of the prime symbols of political corruption in the Congress", it has taken supporters of Shankarshinh Vagela, "whom the BJP leadership once scathingly described as integral to the Congress's corrupted culture", and it has inducted Anil Sharma, son of Sukh Ram, found guilty of corruption by a Delhi court. Sardesai is surprised that BJP under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is associating with corrupt. "After all, didn't the prime minister ride to power proclaiming, 'na khaoonga, na khane doonga'?" (Meaning, I will not take, nor let anyone take, bribes). In India, there is no concept of 'accessory to crimes', as there is in the US, so personal honesty is seen to wash away all criminal acts of colleagues. As previous Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh claimed. Modi masks failures of his policies by turning any question into an attack on himself and hardships he has endured, wrote G Sampath. That is why his reputation has taken a beating in recent times, wrote an editorial in The Economist. "Mr Modi's recent setbacks, however, stem in large part from his preoccupation with presentation over substance," it wrote. That is the English way of calling him a bombast. No journalist in India would dare criticise the Modi government. "Media firms are anxious not to offend it; journalists who take it on often lose their jobs." "Even comedians who imitate Mr Modi have mysteriously disappeared from the airwaves." A study by UM Rodrigues, from the safety of Australia, has found that Modi "used social media as a 'one-way communication' tool to inform his followers. That way he is able to bypass mainstream media and avoid uncomfortable questions. "Why can't Modi speak a little bit more to Indians journalists?" lamented K Thapar. He has cleverly built up a mythical past about being poor and selling tea at Vadnagar station in Gujarat as a six year old. The railway line definitely existed but was the station built in 1973, when Modi would have been 23 years old. If Modi wants the spotlight to be on him then let us help him by concentrating on him. He has never held a job in his life, so probably never paid income tax. he is a classical apparatchik, having always been in the RSS, and then the BJP. Who paid for his frequent trips to the US and China, before he suddenly became Chief Minister of Gujarat? Only foreigners can ask these questions. We would be eliminated.