Stripped Naked In Fancy Clothes
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is off to a private
lunch with Queen Elizabeth and yet another rock star reception
at Wembley Stadium in London shortly. The latter, expected to be attended by
60,000 ticket-buying British of Indian origin.
The poor man certainly deserves a break away from
his humiliations at home, and hopefully the extent of them won’t lead to any
loss of enthusiasm on the part of his hosts. These are both the pitfalls and
compensations of leading from the front.
Meetings with prime minister Cameron, his cabinet
colleagues, and the leader of the opposition, other parliamentarians, nobs of the
diaspora etc. are also part of the typical NaMo omnibus cum blitzkrieg foreign
visit, now grown familiar in terms of its contours.
There will be inevitable and trademark talk of
billions in future foreign investment, provided Modi can remove the hurdles and
irritants that have kept them at bay so far.
The British will try to sell us things, instead, and we will probably end up committing to buying at least a few million worth. This is par for the course.
But the million pound question is whether Modi is a
lame duck prime minister already, after just some 17 months in office?
Even before things turned difficult, Modi has
demonstrated an unexpected timidity and caution as prime minister that was
missing when he roared dynamism and spouted promises on the election trail in
2013 and 2014.
Observers and detractors have been mocking his lack
of delivery for quite some time now. Lalu Prasad, who won the biggest share of
seats for his RJD in Bihar, did an impressive stand-up routine on it at the
hustings, mimicking Modi and ridiculing him roundly.
This was in Bihar, but also here in Delhi, in media
and public discourse, the prime minister is the main target, because without
him the BJP is considered easy meat. The rebooted Congress scion Rahul Gandhi
spews contempt. The legion of Congress sympathisers chime in. But Modi keeps
quiet and does nothing about it. The prime minister or his government also does
nothing to either counter the mockery, or indeed set things right on the ground.
What is the problem people think. But nobody seems to know. Is the man out of
his depth?
The question now is, can Modi do anything legislative
at all for the rest of his term? That is, without unacceptable levels of
compromise, horse-trading, or sheer grovelling, in an attempt to garner
opposition support.
Can Modi content himself with just passing only the
innocuous bills, while the big ones, GST, land acquisition, labour reform,
bankruptcy law reform, and others on the anvil for later, keep on hanging
perpetual fire?
Has Modi been rendered as hamstrung as his
predecessor Manmohan Singh as some have been suggesting by calling him MaunModi?
Amit Shah has clearly failed twice in a row, and
Arun Jaitley has not exactly covered himself in glory. The rest of the cabinet
also seem lacklustre, though we are told Gadkari and Goyal are doing well.
Mohan Bhagwat of the RSS seems disconnected to reality in most of his quaint
pronouncements made at inopportune times.
The opposition, from within the NDA and the
BJP/RSS/Sangh Parivar, and without, seems determined to box him in, and render ineffective the first
majority government in 30 years.
This is a growing and sinuous bandwagon, and include,
so far, a revived Congress, Lalu Prasad/Nitish Kumar/ the Left/Mamata Banerjee’s
Trinamool Congress, and the vocal and fluent Arvind Kejriwal, perhaps the BJD,
and the NCP. There is friendly-fire coming from the Akalis and Shiv Sena, as
well as from side-lined BJP people.
This, ironically, just as it managed to stymie the
Rajiv Gandhi government in the eighties, attacking him from within and without
too. This, despite the largest majority ever won by any government in
independent India’s history.
Once the Bofors controversy broke cover, there was
no going back. The personal targeting of the then prime minister, and his
integrity, destroyed the rest of his five year term. It also turfed him out of the
top job at the next general election
along with his party.
Perhaps the Modi government will have to content
itself for most of the time till 2019, not with legislative breakthroughs, but
with those administrative and executive actions that do not need laws adopted
or changed.
Not only was the last session of parliament a near
washout, but the coming winter session beginning late in November, promises to
be contentious too. It is more than likely that the opposition will up the ante
and attack the prime minster directly this time.
After all, even a copiously passed law and
constitutional amendment, like the NJAC Act, was overturned by the Supreme
Court as unconstitutional!
Or, could it be, because a week in politics is a
long time, that the BJP/NDA will succeed
in exploiting fault-lines within the opposition, and its opportunistic and unwieldy
unity, as the time passes?
Meanwhile, is there also a deeper point to make that
is outside the cut and thrust of party politics? Is there a bitter truth of the Indian political
temper to comprehend? One that protects its freedoms zealously on the one hand,
and cleaves to the socialist path of welfarism and subsidies on the other?
New-fangled ideas in the Indian context, of self-reliant
vikas, that actually generates an income and jobs is just not generally
understood or found palatable, because it does not manifest instantly like a
hand-out does.
It takes too long to come about from the point of
view of poverty stricken and often illiterate people, with few skills, and
little ambition. It calls for many building blocks to fall into place, and others
that obstruct progress to be removed. And then there is the inevitable
gestation period.
Rich people, it is thought, can afford their
patience. The poor can’t even see what it is that is being sought, and do not
truly believe it will help them. And so, young and old, are content with
hand-outs.
Modi’s 2014 elevation was a unique departure from
the script, but the public who voted him in, as they never would have if anyone
else was leading the BJP, expected to see a great deal of benefit accruing to
them within these 17 months.
Instead they seem to have got a consistent dose of Hindutva policies, and a muddled, confused attempt at governance.
When the poor didn’t get the vikas plus ‘acche din’
as promised, they started believing the opposition that insisted that it was
all a sales pitch and a confidence trick.
The vikas pitch, the principle point, chosen and aimed at the millions of youth in Bihar tirelessly by the prime minister in 30 well-attended rallies there, could not, any more, trump the age old caste tug of war.
Modi has lost most of his credibility without even
realising it.
The other issues of reservation, communal
polarisation, bad selection of candidates, too many seats shared with a
non-delivering set of allies, etc. are the usual grist to any election mill.
This muddle would have come up roses had the NDA won. The narrative always
belongs to the victor after all, because everything else seems to be apologia
and blunder.
Where can this government go from here after this
referendum on the prime minister that now strenuously pretends it wasn’t?
Down the well-tried socialist path of course, where
else, if it wants to keep winning any future elections? The line of distinction
between the Congress and its friends, and the BJP and its allies, needs to
blur. Any real second stage economic reform that comes about, given the current
pass, will have to come, the good old Indian way, that is, by default.
The opposition, having smelt blood, is not going to
ease up on the pressure.
They will, as Lalu Prasad has already declared,
start an agitation from the prime minister’s constituency in Varanasi, that
will resonate all the way to Delhi and Lucknow, right up to 2017.
And Lalu Prasad, who cannot be taken lightly after
being the most accurate forecaster of the Bihar election outcome, wants the
prime minister to resign and go back to Gujarat as soon as possible for
promoting communal politics!
It has often
been pointed out, that India has grown economically, mostly through crises, and
despite being let down very substantially by its policy makers.
What is clear now is that even with the best will
and sincerity in the world, this is probably the truth. The future, and its
treasures therefore, will have to be divined within this relative framework and
set of references.
(1,434 words)
November 9th, 2015
Gautam Mukherjee
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