Responding to the tweet from the historian Ramchandra Guha, the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asked the historian not to worry about the economy and said that the economy is in “safe hands”.
The debate sparked after Ramchandra Guha quoted the British writer Philip Soratt who compared Gujarat and West Bengal. Guha tweeted,
“Gujarat, though economically advanced, is culturally a backward province. Bengal in contrast is economically backward but culturally advanced.”
In another tweet, Guha described Soratt as an Englishman who became an Indian as well as a communist who became a free-market liberal and clarified that he doesn’t endorse the quotes he posts. The Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani jumped into the debate as he responded to Guha and called his post as tricks to divide Indians. He wrote,
“Earlier it was the British who tried to divide and rule, now it is a group of elites who want to divide Indians. Indians won’t fall for such tricks. Gujarat is great, Bengal is great. India is United. Our cultural foundations are strong, our economic aspirations are high.”
Guha sarcastically took a jibe at the Gujarat Cheif Minister and said,
“Indeed in safe hands as the Chief Minister is so keenly following the tweets of a humdrum historian and so easily confusing the historian with a dead writer being quoted.”
‘Economy is in Safe Hands’
The Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also joined the debate as she shared an article that was published in 2018 which said that the Maharaja Jam Saheb Digvijaysinh ji Jadeja who gave shelter to 1,000 Polish children during World War II. The article was written by Philip Spratt. Guha again took a jibe as he sarcastically said that the economy is in safe hands if the Finance Minister is keeping a close eye on Twitter. Sitharaman replied,
“The economy is very much in safe hands, worry not, Mr. Guha. Taking cognizance of thoughts in current national discourse + responsibly doing my job aren’t mutually exclusive. Either way, an interest in history is a plus. Surely an intellectual such as yourself should know that.”
Source: Scroll.in
