Politic: An Uncensored Diary | Indira Versus Modi

Statistics conceal more than they reveal. In cricket, a batsman can boast of reaching a personal milestone by scoring a hundred. Likewise, in politics, even a thousand can denote failure, a setback …and ennui.

The BJP on July 25 celebrated Narendra Modi’s completion of 4,078 days as the Prime Minister. This stint is without a break, they insisted. The number, 4,078, was portrayed as important because that surpasses Indira Gandhi’s continuous stint in office between 1966 and 1977, before returning in 1980 after a break. Not a mean achievement for Modi at all.

But to understand how significant these two critical phases in India’s history have been requires a deep dive. Let’s compare the two phases dispassionately to wipe out the mist of false equivalence that just numbers could generate.

Though Indira has been reduced to just the Emergency in contemporary discourse, she is known for revolutionary decisions like bank nationalisation, abolition of privy purses, creation of Bangladesh, pursuing an independent foreign policy in brave defiance of American pressures and the first nuclear test. Though Modi often talks about “atmanirbhar Bharat”, Indira took the most decisive step towards self-reliance by pulling off the Green Revolution.

Apart from setting up major PSUs like ISRO, Coal India, SAIL, BHEL, Indian Oil, BPCL, HPCL, HUDCO, Hindustan Paper Corporation, Rural Electrification corporation, she took decisive steps towards mineral exploration, shipyard building and expansion of education and health infrastructure. Great universities like JNU and NEHU were set up during her tenure.

India’s first satellite Aryabhatt was launched under her leadership. There are countless other achievements: integrating Sikkim, the gharibi hataao campaign, land reforms, even the 20-point programme. After Operation Bluestar, she was advised to remove the Sikh guards from her personal security, but she refused to do so because of her unflinching commitment to national integration. Ultimately, she sacrificed her life.

Modi hasn’t built any major, labour-intensive public sector unit though he has sold off many. He often takes credit for launching Swachh Bharat and Beti-Bachao Beti-Padhao Abhiyan, but that is without any tangible outcomes. The state of Make-in-India, bullet trains and Smart Cities projects aren’t encouraging.

Making of toilets and roads are often mentioned. He hasn’t shown the courage to confront American and Chinese bullying. Foreign policy goals aren’t clear but what is clear is that India stood isolated during the recent conflict with Pakistan. Numbers indeed don’t tell the real story, be it the 4078 or the 56-inch rhetoric.

Rahul Gandhi’s emergence

Rahul Gandhi is indisputably the supreme leader of the opposition at least from the 2019 parliamentary elections. But did his writ always run supreme in the Congress? After the debacle in 2019 election, he himself wrote, “At times, I stood completely alone…” His decisions, whether the brutal attack on Modi in the Rafale case or the visit to strife-torn JNU, were not appreciated by senior leaders.

His Nyay (minimum income guarantee) scheme was not whole-heartedly adopted by the party in 2019. Even the party’s stand on removal of article 370 from the Constitution was publicly criticised by many. His dramatic thrust on caste census and social justice angered many in the party. Above all, his brazen attack on Adani-Ambani was deeply detested by a large number of leaders.

But that has completely changed now. Rahul’s line is automatically the party line. Though there are some critics even now but they know he is the leader and party workers are determined to invest in him rather than anyone else. While the Bharat Jodo Yatra might have radically increased his stature in the party too, most senior leaders now see in him a fearless warrior who has personal integrity and the courage of conviction.

Rahul now has complete control over the organisation though he takes care to be seen as working in tandem with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge. His experiments with the organisation also evoked resistance earlier. But now a radical idea of choosing the district presidents across the country through surveys among party workers by central observers has not evoked any dissenting voices. This has happened despite the fact that this can be seen as Rahul trying to dismantle the stranglehold of state chieftains through this exercise.

‘Dhaexit’: Dhankhar fallout

While the true political fallout of the unseemly Dhankhar episode will only be quantifiable when the former Vice President decides to speak up, some significant repercussions on Rashriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politics are already visible. Reports suggest a growing demand for giving key posts to leaders rooted in RSS ideology.

Modi couldn’t adhere to that principle because of his near-megalomaniac approach. He did whatever he fancied, feel many in the RSS, without always executing the ideological plan. Otherwise, how could Smriti Irani have been chosen for the HRD ministry when the first BJP government with full majority came into being in 2014? Education is the most important instrument for ideological infiltration into society. But Modi preferred an apolitical actor to the seasoned Murli Manohar Joshi on the pretext of age.

Modi has ignored entrenched players from the RSS all this while, creating deep unrest among a section of the BJP. While the key portfolios of Defence and Finance were given to Nirmala Sitharaman, a non-RSS person who joined the BJP as late as 2008, trusted loyalists like Nitin Gadkari were kept out of the core ministries.

Opportunistic imports like S. Jaishankar, Jagdeep Dhankhar, Hardeep Puri, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Himanta Biswa Sarma, Jitin Prasada, Kiran Bedi were accommodated in the power structure while entrenched ideological players were ignored. Dhankhar’s exit has precipitated a crisis of sorts for Modi as there are murmurs in RSS-BJP about wrong choices of the Prime Minister creating problems for the Government. Some people are now also wondering whether Ram Nath Kovind and Draupadi Murmu were the better candidates to occupy Rashtrapati Bhawan than many committed “Sanghis” who have selflessly toiled in the field for decades.

Vishwaguru’s divinity

“Touch karna tha, chhuna tha… bus ek hi dream tha Modi ji ko paas se touch kar lun. Mere bhagwan mil gaye (I discovered my God),” a sobbing woman says in a viral video on social media.

Another video shows another woman, crying hysterically, “Mera living god hai wo, living God. Main door hun lekin unke jaisa koi nahin hai. Unka sewa karenge to dhanya ho jayenge. I am overwhelmed I got his darshan.” Why these women, besotted with Modi, who were thrilled to touch him, were in tears is not known.

While some people made fun of them because one held her Indian passport in hand, suggesting that she was brought for this drama from India, the other’s husband said they represented a ‘Jharkhand Association’ despite the said person claiming that she lived in Boston.

Let’s not smell a rat everywhere. So what if they flew from India to touch Modi in Maldives or London? What’s important is that Modi is not alone to think that he is non-biological, that he has divine powers. There is no dearth of modern-day Meeras who are wandering across the globe to look for their Krishna. If the Meera is not exactly authentic, don’t scream. The Krishna too isn’t real.

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