Like it or not, you have to admire Narendra Modi’s latest monarchical gambit. At the touch of a finger tip, four dead and gone former adversaries have been elevated to totems of the highest national order.
While their adulators might well be greatly appeased, think whether the subject totems might be grinning with delight or feeling rather cannily used weeks before a general election.
Imagine that Karpoori Thakur, Chaudhary Charan Singh, M.S. Swaminathan and P.V. Narasimha Rao had still been with us in flesh and blood. What might they have said or – in these days of Enforcement Directorate raids – thought to themselves?
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Karpoori Thakur: “I have not forgotten how in 1978, when I first introduced 26% reservation for OBCs in Bihar, the Sangh brought down my government. I have not forgotten how, in order to neutralise the social justice agitation that led to the implementation of the Mandal commission recommendations, you launched the divisive, revanchist Ram temple movement, unleashing wrack and ruin in many parts of the nation that you pretend to love so much.
“Nor have I shut my eyes to the contemporary fact that you continue to reject the demand for a nation-wide caste census, because you fear that measure might overturn your upper caste applecart which continues to deny the vast majority of Hindus the just fruits of their labour, and their right to equality under the constitution.
“How I hope that those who venerate me will not be taken in by your disingenuous subterfuge.”
Chaudhary Charan Singh: “How clever of you; how very clever of you to have thus co-opted me, me who was principally responsible for bringing down the Janata government on the issue of the dual membership of some of its constituents, demanding that they either be in government or out of it as members of the RSS.
“Do you truly think my followers will forget that my entire political career was informed by a resolute rejection of sectarian politics which you practice?
“And how cynical of you to imagine I did not see what you did to the farmers’ agitation over a year-long period of time, during which some 750 of them sacrificed their lives for their cause which you did not grant. Are my followers to think that bestowing thus honour on me has helped lower the cost of farm inputs, or hiked farmer’s income from a grand Rs 27 a day to even 30?
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“To think further that I would have accepted this honour while thousands of farmers continue to take their own lives because of their inability to repay bank loans, and to meet the cost of farming, not to speak of earning from it, while lakhs of crores owed by fatcats are written off account books, and fresh bonanzas given to them who buy your electoral bonds and fill your party coffers.
“And, do you think I, who kept my son away from inheriting my political legacy, would have advised his son, my grandson, Jayant, to barter his loyalty to you because you honoured the dynasty posthumously? I certainly hope he will not stoop to do so.”
M.S. Swaminathan: “I cannot even begin to express the distress I feel at being so unscrupulously used so that you may prosper among the farming community, come the elections.
“That you made promises to implement the C2+50 formula for farm incomes that I had worked out so diligently and with justice, only to betray the promise repeatedly with callous disregard for the lives of some 60% of Indians.
“That you should think this gesture to me will bring good news to you from the southern states because of my identity – disgraceful beyond words.”
Narasimha Rao” “That I am reviled to this day for the demolition of the five-centuries-old mosque in Ayodhya (that the Supreme Court called a ‘criminal’ act) owes entirely to the unethical fact that you made a promise on an affidavit to the highest court in the land that you would not allow the mosque to be damaged at any cost. How you betrayed me in the deepest consequence, ever to taint my otherwise illustrious career, even as you accused me of having purchased votes to save my government.
“And do you think I am not cognisant of the latest perfidy on your behalf? That lauding me for having opened up the economy, you should bring a White Paper to parliament, deriding everything that my policies had achieved for the republic over ten long years, making possible your own further efforts to build on what my UPA government had set in motion?
“You keep tom-tomming how you have made the economy fifth largest globally, concealing the all-important fact that it was under Manmohan Singh’s stewardship of the finance ministry in my cabinet that we pulled up our GDP three-fold from $609 billion to $2.1 trillion at an average growth rate of 8%.
“In 10 years since my party left office in 2014, you have raised that number only to $3.3 trillion.
“More fool you.
“Does it please me that in honouring me your chief purpose has been to snub the party to which I belonged all my life? You assume too much…
“Do I not understand that you seek to use me now to better your prospects in the Telugu regions of the country? But do not think that those who speak my language and share my culture will be so easily fooled. They know your reality lies in imposing Hindi on India below the Vindhyas.
“You always say how erudite I was; indeed; so I grin, but am not taken in.”
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L.K. Advani: “Who has better knowledge of you, my young friend, than this relegated old man?
“For decades now, you put me on the shelf, indeed, in the cupboard, and now pull me out to bring back the active participation of older workers of the right-wing who have been disaffected with you; how well I know this to be the fact.
“I also know, knowing you so well, that you may yet bestow some more Ratnas to entice sections of the populace whose favour you have lost. The names of Balasaheb Thackeray, Kashi Ram Ji, for example, come to mind.
“One compliment I do give you: that over the years you have come to best your mentor to an extent and in ways that I, your mentor, may not have imagined.”
All together: “So, will our elevation to speechless totems serve your crude political purpose? Alas, it well may.
“This continues to be a nation that likes deities rather than human subjects, that celebrates power rather than freedom of thought, that treats slogans raised by autocrats as achieved results, that is quick to rally given a sense of its alleged victimhood, that follows a cult in power to the ends of the earth to seek out some newly constructed enemy, that values a paroxysm of emotion over rational poise.
“So, in return for the honour bestowed on us, we give to you the award of having pulverised the common mind away from fact and reason, more than the greatest of magicians the world has known, not excluding Houdini.
“A day nonetheless does come when cheated and mesmerised innocence realises the swindle. Then the rage of the reawakened retrieves lost causes as nothing else will.
“Perhaps we are not there yet, alas.”
Badri Raina taught at Delhi University.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
