India:The Sound And Light Show
BY R.K.MISRA
Nothing grows under a banyan tree .Again,
dazzling light ,shattering sound and pummeling propaganda may induce ,even
overawe but rarely inspires .Whether It is Indira Gandhi or Narendra Modi, two
diverse ends of the Indian political spectrum ,neither nurture leaders .They
only have sub-ordinates and followers .The Congress is already facing the
repercussions ,the BJP will do so over time.
Highly individualistic leadership with
an over centralised administration has it’s own pitfalls . When the going is
good it is very good, but when it is bad it is worse .There is much in common
between the two,except that the instinct to command and control is more
heightened in Modi.
If Indira had to battle hard to
neutralize the powerful ’syndicate’ within the Congress comprising Morarji
Desai .Sanjivva Reddy, S. Nijalingappa, S.K.Patil and Atulya Ghosh , Modi found
it comparatively easier to create his ‘margadarshak mandal’(advisory council)
comprising L.K.Advani ,Murli Manohar Joshi and Yashwant Sinha, on taking charge
as Prime Minister in Delhi. But then assuming
total control is only one half of the journey ,the real battle begins
only thereafter .And no one knows it better than the present Prime Minister,
Narendra Modi now a victim of his own success.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee,the first Prime Minister
of the BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) , was a liberal at heart but
still managed to keep the hardliners snapping at the feet of his government, at
bay .Nevertheless it sapped enough governance energy and image credo to see the
glaze of ‘India shining’ wear of and the Congress back in the saddle at the
helm of a UPA government in 2004.
Two UPA innings later, like a knight
in shining armour ,armed with a sweeping mandate ,Modi breezed in,riding astride a crest of
expectations .Inching towards his second
year in power ,the sheen seems to be coming off faster than his NDA
predecessor.
Vajpayee was a democrat so the 2004
debacle was the defeat of team NDA.Modi has no such pretensions.Hence, every NDA
or BJP setback goes to debit his account .Delhi and Bihar elections have been a
major drain, made more so by the vicious manner of campaigning by a Prime Minister
.Social media ,Modi’s home turf, says it all .The uncrowned ruler in the run up
to the 2014 general elections, he is the butt of ridicule and jokes on it now. Why?
The Lok Sabha tally of 282 seats was
gifted to a voluble leader who had built up the image of a development messiah
capable of crushing the caste ,region ,religion fault-lines to deliver a future
built across divides embracing the most modern and the best of the scientific ,social
,cultural as well as technological panorama .Instead ,the sheen is wearing
thin. Politics now is abusing the Congress opposition(sixty years country has
gone to seed).Religion now is hindu majoritarianism, the rest be
cleaved(lynching in Dadri, murder in Dharwad).Protest is anti-national and
criticism equated with criminality(Patel-jat, agitation ,Jawaharlal Nehru
University protest).And the man at the helm now maintains a deafening silence .
Modi promised to make a difference. Nothing
has changed in these two years or so. Corruption is the same ,prices rule
higher ,the blame game is a continuation of the old order. Destabilising the
government in Arunachal Pradesh through use of a pliant Governor who cites cow slaughter
as a reason knowing fully well that ‘mithun’ sacrifice is part of the religious practice of the area and so it goes on.
Elections are round the corner in West
Bengal ,Assam ,Tamil Nadu and Kerala this year. Among those lined up for next
year include Uttar Pradesh .The only faint glimmer of hope for the BJP is Assam
but the way the party leadership is playing it’s cards ,its hopes seem to be
receding by the day.
As in Assam for now, so in Uttar
Pradesh for next year, the polarization
game has already begun. Suddenly the air is full of talks about rebuilding the
‘ram temple’ and a host of such issues that work towards religious cleaving of
communities .The recently concluded by-election in Muzzafarnagar was a trial
run of sorts, replication will follow. The BJP hopes big on UP but knows that
it is Mayawati’s BSP which is the frontrunner .Jammu and Kashmir which it had
stitched together to form a PDP headed government is also coming apart at the
seams after the death of Mufti Mohammed Sayed with chessboard moves the order
of the day. Modi’s obduracy may well prove a stumbling block for his party’s
first shot at power in the region.
An uneasy calm rules but the BJP pot simmers within .Modi is short
of trusted hands .For the moment he has managed to fend off demands for a change of Amit Shah and managed
to get him back as party president. This now ensures that Modi is in total
control. He is the government and he is the party. But therein lies a tale.
It is in this backdrop that various
chessboard moves between the RSS and the BJP need to be seen. Those who have
seen Modi’s functioning in Gujarat know that he believes in total control over
the entire governance apparatus whether it be the party or the government. Such
was the case in Gujarat, so is it in Delhi now .In his initial terms in Gujarat
he hardly appointed anyone from the party to state boards and corporations ,running
them mostly through bureaucrats. Whatever the level of opposition that Amit
Shah will be re-elected party chief was never in doubt.
Other names were being bandied about only to
make him concede ground elsewhere. The RSS is very keen that Sanjay Joshi’s
services be utilized by the party. Modi has been deadly opposed to it. He
nurses old grudges. Joshi has a string of victories in the states he has
handled for the BJP.
Shah- with a history of understanding
what Modi wants without his even saying it-is very intrinsic to Modi’s planning in a crucial election year-West
Bengal ,Tamil Nadu, Assam and Kerala- after two reverses in a row—in Delhi and
Bihar.
Modi, short of dependable leaders with
sworn allegiance and equal understanding of his boss, has only one Shah. And
though it may not be his immediate priority, his own citadel, Gujarat is on
it’s way to becoming his Achilles heel. The appointment of a president for the Gujarat unit of the party was caught
in an intractable squabble between chief minister Anandiben Patel and national party president Shah .Both
are close lieutenants of Modi but bitter rivals of each other. As long as Modi
ruled Gujarat the position was no more than that of a glorified errands boy but
after he left for Delhi, it has suddenly acquired importance.
The fact is that key decisions
pertaining to Gujarat are still taken by the prime minister and the selection
of Vijay Rupani for the post signifies that Shah has had his way.
The internal dissensions apart,the BJP
government is facing serious problems in Gujarat.The patidars who have for long
constituted the backbone of the BJP vote bank are up in arms.It has already
eroded the rural vote bank of the
party providing a decisive edge to the
Congress which now controls 21 of the 31 district panchayats and 124 of the
total 230 tehsil panchayats.The BJP infighting and the patidar
stir has virtually revived the
Congress.The BJP government is virtually under siege and the broad contours of an anti-BJP front are
emerging in the state which goes to polls in 2017.Any adverse fallout here will severely impact Modi’s shot at a repeat
term to rule India in 2019.
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