British philosopher Mary Midgley had said, “Hubris calls for nemesis and in one form or another it is going to get it, not as a punishment from outside but as the completion of a pattern already started”.
In politics, hubris typically creates a pattern of destruction from within.
Charismatic leaders get swayed by their own relentless rhetoric until one day they start realising something is giving way. At this stage there is no redemption as there is an inevitability about the pre-destined denouement. When voters offer unquestioned allegiance to a leader for a long time, the latter starts mistaking it for his or her invincibility. The cycle of hubris and nemesis thus gets entrenched within the cult leader-follower interaction.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
This may partially explain why Modi’s persona alone is becoming less and less important as a factor in the ongoing elections.
Modi gave a clarion call of “400 plus” seats for the BJP and its allies sometime ago. This was clearly born of hubris as it took for granted the voters of BJP who gave Modi a thumping mandate in 2019. For 10 years now, Modi’s voter has given the PM a sort of carte blanche. The PM could say anything and do anything as the loyal voter of Modi thought he could do no wrong. Such sentiment created a self image of Modi where he started talking about himself in the third person.
Implicitly Modi projected himself above all institutions, as one who could alone deliver India into a golden period of “Amrit Kaal”. His attempt to inaugurate a half constructed Ram Temple against the advice of the established Hindu clergy showed he could take on anyone with populist support.
Eventually, hubris is only the flip side of such affection that Modi often boasted he received from 140 crore Indians. Sheer arrogance also marks the BJP slogan ,”Aayega to Modi hi (it has to be Modi as next PM)”. This slogan takes the people who have stood by Modi all these years totally for granted. Then there is also much conceit in the advertising tag line “Modi ki guarantee (Modi’s guarantee),” which encapsulates Modi’s personal guarantee to deliver free food, housing, cooking gas, tap water, etc. Tax payers’ money used for welfare becomes an individual’s hand out to the people.
All this is fine until the democratic impulse suddenly takes hold of a people hitherto mesmerised by the rhetoric of a demagogue. History is replete with instances of demagogues staring at their decline abruptly, and without warning.
Are Modi’s speeches in the second phase of the election onwards indicative of the nemesis which Mary Midgley argues is merely the flip side of hubris. Modi’s relentless charge against the Congress – that it will distribute the wealth of the people to the Muslim minorities if elected to power or his assertion that opposition leaders do not believe in Lord Ram – betrays a desperate bid to reconnect with his vote base which may be displaying some exhaustion, of late.
Analysts who have travelled across the Hindi belt are coming back with reports that Modi is certainly losing vote share compared to 2019. BJP had got the bulk of the Lok Sabha seats from the Hindi belt and its brutal majoritarian politics is played out in states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Haryana and so on. But suddenly these states are showing some fatigue with Modi’ s persona and the cult status accorded to him in 2014 and 2019. Suddenly, real issues such as unemployment and back-breaking inflation which seemed buried deep in the crevices of the Hindutva consciousness are coming back with a vengeance.
The narrative of “400 plus” sets for the BJP has vaporised in no time.
As Yogendra Yadav eloquently puts it, “It is clear the patient has fever; you know by touching the body. The only thing that remains to be established is whether the fever is at 100°F or 103”. In other words, he says, the BJP will definitely lose vote share from 2019 but it is to be seen how many seats it will lose in several Hindi-speaking states which were considered the BJP’s majoritarian bastion.
Yadav says that as things stand, crossing a simple majority of 272 seats is a challenge for Modi now.
