Bihar defeat is Modi's defeat

Had drafted this note in longhand on the 9th of November. Lethargy had stopped me from posting it for 8 weeks. Though dated, still posting it so that it at least appears in the timeline of 2015.

Claiming ‘I-told-you-so’ post occurance of an event carries high credibility risks, particularly when there is like evidence of one actually having said so. For this reason and this alone, and even after discounting the lusty cheerleading going on till around 11 AM on October 8, words of many pundits, who now claim to have had foretold BJP’s debacle, are flummoxing.

Did not the Modi brigade claim an overwhelming mandate for development all along? Did it not claim that Modi’s INR 1,75,000 Crores package was a deal-sealer, that Modi’s personal appeal was transcending caste/class barriers and that people are voting for Modi in droves or that Modi’s attack on possibility of reservations for minorities had stymied the desertions of backward classes and had re-rallied support for the BJP?

Just what did happen in a mere hour that the cheerleading got replaced with a list of sage reasons, ranging from the lazy intellect of Biharis to weird conspiracy theories. All sort of reasons but scarcely any blame getting attributed to the Modi-Shah duo or any the BJP’s lackluster governance. It was quite striking when you consider that only an hour earlier, paeans were being sung to them for their vision, sagacity and efforts. Now, if credit was to be given for good show, how can the same people not be blamed for a bad show? Just how different from Congress is this ‘party with a difference’. There too, all victories are by the ‘Grace of Gandhis’ and all defeats ‘collective responsibility’?

This intermittent blogger, to all those who had cared to ask, had all along maintained that there was no way the BJP would win in Bihar, and that too for the most simple and obvious of reasons.

Modi triumphed in 2014, buoyed by a ‘wave’. Then, the general public voted for an icon, an idea that would deliver them from the hopelessness all around and guide them to a better future. Seventeen months in power is a long enough time for people to form impressions whether their hopes are being fulfilled. If they are not, people may still cling on hope, but definitely will not rally around the hope-giver like they had done previously. And even otherwise, Modi wave was a catharsis of frustrations, blood and tears of many. Our most successful politician ever, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi knew that public emotions cannot be aroused again and again. Hence, he kept a lag of a decade in between each of his major mass movements, from the non-cooperation to the Civil disobedience to Quit India.

Can we rationally expect people to come out and vote in droves for a messiah who may be false? Can people really be expected to vote for someone who seems disconnected with the masses, disowns electoral promises, talks haughtily and most critically, under whose rule, the humble onion, dal and mustard oil became food for the not-so-humble?

To all those who claim that the outcome of even 2014 would have been different had Nitish-Lalu allied in those elections, I beg to differ. History shows that individual vote shares of 2 parties do not translate into an absolute total when win alliance. Most candidates being their own loyal votes too, the core vote of the party could be lesser than the increments provided by the candidates. A case in point would be Maharashtra where the combined vote shares of NCP-Congress when they had contested separately was over 50%. If elections were sum of core vote shares, there would not have been any point in strategising, in conducting strenous campaigns. Outsiders like AAP would never have made an impact anywhere. So the claim that the BJP was at a huge disadvantage needs to be dismissed. To say that backward castes polarised is disingneious. Major chunks of even Brahmins and Rajputs have voted for Mahagathbandhan. Moreovr, polarization carries an inherent risk of counter-polarisation. Given the Modi wave in 2014, there is little to suspect that even a Nitish-Lalu combine could have worsted NDA in Bihar.

Many Modi apologists keep on claiming that 17 months is too small a period to undo 60 years of mess.

Was India really a complete mess in these last 60 years? No, it wasn’t! And does it really take 5 years to make a difference to the lives of people? Again, no – it doesn’t!

A case in point – only a few months in the NDA’s first regime in Bihar, there was a perceptible improvement in law and order. The first few months of UPA saw such momentous (some may say disasterous) actions in terms of NREGA, RTI and so on. Each spell of Mayawati’s rule in UP invariably sees an improvement in general administration. Modi’s own 1^st stint in Gujarat saw a dramatic improvement in the relief and rehabilitation measures being taken for the earthquake survivors. Kayan Singh’s 17 month old Government, even when pre-occupied with the Ram temple liberation movement, gave the best governance UP had had in years.

Just how long is incrementalism or planted stories on Modi’s work ethics going to sway the gullible masses? If we believe that Modi’s promises led people to vote for him, how can we reject the hypothesis that his u-turns on those promises disillusioned at least some of his voters, who if not voting for his opponents, did not vote for him this time? That if people rallied to vote for him driven by his promise to get black money stashed abroad back to India, would at least some of them, not reacted with disgust when the party president called those promises mere jumla?

In isolation, neither Modi’s taste for rich dressing, his insipid governance, his u-turns would have been strong enough to prompt people not to vote for the BJP. But together, they certainly take away the sheen off the self-proclaimed deliverer and show him to be just another politician, a glib talker, a jumla master, an alliterating demagogue, but at the end of the day, just another self-serving politician, in service to the suited-booted of the world.

Now, if the voter had to choose between just another politician and his own caste brethren, why would he overlook his caste loyalties? On the other hand, if he had felt that the great leader was actually working to change his (the voter’s) life for the better, he would have cared little for caste or the contrived controversy over Mohan Bhagwat’s comments (which I maintain, going against conventional wisdom, was factual and had nothing objectionable in it)

On governance, just how credible an attack on Nitish for his mis-governance when the BJP was very much a part of his government for 8 years? Personally, I had relied on the average Bihari’s appreciation of Nitish’s efforts in delivering them from jungle raj to bless him with their votes. They did. I dare say that Nitish could have fought alone and still managed a comfortable number of seats to gain support from Congress and RJD to form a government with less dependence on Lalu for survival.

Ever since the impact of Nitish’s governance had been manifest on ground, the NDA had hardly lost any election in Bihar, be it the general elections or bypolls. Hence, to claim that the Bihari does not reward good governance is plain lazy blame-shifting,

Finally, the Lalu factor. The media loves to write off people. It loves to deify people. Then it loves to write them off again only to deify at a later date. It is simply because extreme tales grab eyeballs much more than plaid staid facts. Even in the worst of times, Lalu commanded some 20% vote share in Bihar. Any commander of 1 in 5 voters in the state is a formidable force, particularly in the 1^st-past-the-post electoral system of India. That the RJD came back from the dead is a story only for those who confuse sensationalism with news. RJD was never dead. It simply prospered again in the right conditions.

If anything, the story of RJD’s rejuvenation should provide a jolt to those Modi-worshippers who had actually started believing in fanciful tales of a Congress-mukt Bharat.

In its worst ever performance, the Congress has managed to win over 18% of votes. A few right alliances, a few more failures of Modi, a little more of people shedding their hopes and it won’t be long before the Congress, aided by dispirited Modi supporters staying at home, wins a vote share of 23%-25%, sufficient enough for them to form Government once again.

Some optimistic right-wingers believe that Modi/BJP will learn their lessons from this defeat. Lessons they will surely learn, but all the wrong ones!

Rather than focusing on making people’s lives better, the trio of Modi-Shah-Jaitely is likely to focus on keeping the ‘fringe’ in control. That the BJP’s performance post ‘cow-polarisation’ in Seemanchal was comparatively much better than in rest of Bihar would be lost.

We know what happened in 2004. Then, the arch-secular BJP was routed and it took 10 years of UPA misrule for it to make a comeback. Let’s make no mistakes; Modi would not have become the phenomenon that he became had the UPA under Rahul Gandhi not been his alternate.

Today, if elections are conducted, inspite of all the disillusionment, Modi may still emerge as the leader of choice, though by a much reduced majority. The same Bihar which has voted for Nitish-Lalu now may still vote for Modi as PM. All this for 2 reasons. There are still vestiges of hope. People do not want to lose hope till they can. And even more importantly, there is no credible alternative to Modi on the horizon right now.

Yet, it will take only a few more mis-steps and a sustained campaign by a re-branded Rahul or a Priyanka or even a Nitish, to ensure that Modi and the BJP get confined to history in 2019. The diiference with 2004 would be that this time, the exile would be much longer. While Modi could not deliver a Congresss-mukt Bharat, the next rulers would definitely ensure a BJP-RSS mukt Bharat in their rule.

'Secularism khatre mein' - The murder of reason

A few days back, University of Hyderabad students, or more precisely those affiliated to the Students Federation of India (CPM's student wing) and other assorted leftist bodies protested against yet another brazen attempt at 'saffronisation' of education. 

This contemptible attempt was the University floating a circular asking graduating male students to wear kurta-pyjama or dhoti-kurta and women to wear saree or salwar kameez, rather than gowns during covocation ceremony. While the more innocent among us would have seen this circular only in light of a series of efforts to indegenise our ceremonies (remember Jairam Ramesh condemning convocation gowns as barbaric, Uttar Pradesh Governer Ram Naik asking for doing away with the gowns, or students at BHU and many other universities in North India switching over to Indian attire during convocations?), our leftists with deeper perspective on all issues under the universe, discerned an attempt to ‘impose RSS’s idea of Indian culture’, which is ‘Brahminical and patriarchical’ and of course religious (what else can an angavastram denote?)

SFI’s valiant defence of Indian secularism was successful and the RSS had to withdraw licking its wounds. It is now probably planning its next assault on that modern and only true religion, Indian secularism!

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Globally, the left has had the most fantastic of conspiracy theories (though upstaged by the Islamists now). In all seriousness, they still believe that the telecommunication reforms started by Rajiv Gandhi was a tool to popularise television, which in turn was meant to popularise Ramayana, which in turn was meant to polarise people. In times when common sense had not yet met its demise, the above assertions would have elicited only mirth and ridicule. Yet, years of brainwashing by dominant section of media has ensured that our own beliefs, preferences, sense of outrage are all dictated by others. Not for nothing did one of the hoardings at the Mahim Church proclaim – ‘The media is the most powerful institution in the world. It controls what we think!’

When does a crime stop being a crime and become much more sinister? How do we determine that acts committed by an individual have been influenced by the groups she/he belongs to? Does the outcome of a crime change depending on the identity of the victim? When does a crime committed by individuals or motely groups become heinous enough so as to demand condemnation of the community they belong to? How does it get determined that ‘x’ act is a provocation and ‘y’ a reaction? Or does crime become excusable if committed by certain groups but punishment-worthy only when committed by some others?

In a world with its moral centre intact (ooops... sorry for having used the regressive 'M' word), the response to above questions would have been a no-brainer. A crime is a crime irrespective of the identity of the criminal or the victim. Unless supported by a common consensus of the community, no crime committed by an individual or a motley group would become a pretext to hound any community. The criminal’s mere association with a group would not make the group party to the crime. Most of all, the outrage and judgement on crimes would not have differed from case to case.

In spite of having followed socio-political developments quite closely since 1989, I cannot really quite make out the tipping point when Indian Nation-hood, Indian Culture, Indian tradition, Indian religion became cuss-words. It is quite inconceivable that even in the late 90s, leading media houses would not have had the guts to condemn India for taking a strong line against Pakistan or China. It would again have been quite inconceivable that the media would have openly promoted Hinduphobia the way it does now.  In the late 80s and early 90s, even when the bulk of media was ranged against the Ram Janmabhoomi reclamation movement, there were quite a few media and social personalities who openly sympathised with the National sentiments. Even those who opposed, qualified the opposition on the grounds of the issue being time-barred, generally avoiding mocking the Hindu faith in existence of Rama or his divinity. Post destruction of the disputed structure in 1992, while it became quite fashionable to condemn the RSS-BJP more virulently, the visceral hatred which the left-liberals have for the Nationalists is quite a recent development. Was this tendency exacerbated when the BJP lost the 1993 assembly polls, or then when it tried to cleanse itself of its Hindutva leanings or when Sonia Gandhi’s leadership gave a decisive anti-Hindu tilt to the Congress or post Gujarat riots 2002, when the RSS-BJP proved hopelessly inadequate in countering the left-liberal propaganda?

Maybe a mix of all!

Currently, we are in throes of mass hysteria over lynching of a Muslim man over suspicions that he had consumed beef. Just what makes this crime so noteworthy? It is not the first time that a lynching has happened. In India, thieves, docaits, suspected rapists, child-lifters have all been lynched at some time or the other. A few months back, a Muslim man was snatched from police custody and lynched by thousands in Nagaland. Scores of women get branded as witches and get killed by mobs every year. A couple of years back, Rudrapur was hit by riots. It started with some roadside temple being defiled with beef. Hindus lodged a complaint. Nothing happened. Then, the incident got repeated, the difference was that the beef was loosely packed in pages carrying Quranic verses. Riots happened. Muslim mobs roamed the streets of Rudrapur and lynched 3 men, before any action was taken to restore calm. Are these crimes any lesser than the crime committed in Dadri? Of course not. So, what is different here?

Have we not always been pontificated that crime must not be given a communal colour. When Sachin and Gaurav were lynched by Shahnawaz’s family and other Muslims in Muzaffarnagar, were we not told that this issue was merely of competitive machismo over eve-teasing and that it was only incidental that the Hindus were Hindus and Muslims, Muslims? In news-reports almost every other day, have we not been told how nefarious designs of the chaddi gang (RSS and its co-horts) were defeated when the conscious liberal bravely fought its attempts to communalise a crime? So, why is it different now?

A few months back, a Hindu cow-protection activist was killed by Muslim butchers when the latter were caught smuggling cattle at Devengaore, Karnataka. Does anyone even remember this event, leave aside it becoming the National rage? Very recently, a Muslim father killed his 4 year daughter for her ‘failure’ to cover her head properly. Did any single news-report make it a cause celebre and claim that this was an outcome of rising fundamentalism among Muslims?

So, why do our scales of judgement change when the criminals happen to be Hindus and the victims Muslims? How can a Kavita Krishnan or a Mukul Kesavan ‘bravely’ write that ‘murderous Hindus kill innocent Muslims’ but the media becomes mealy mouthed and report ‘members of a particular community’, when the victims are Hindus and the perpetrators Muslims?

A Charlie Hebdo massacre does not become a cause to poke fun at Muslim fascination with imagery of the Prophet. So why does reinforcement of a ban on beef become a focal point of ridicule of Hinduism and its belief systems?

It has become quite fashionable to claim that the ancient Hindus consumed beef. Yes, they did, under certain circumstances as pointed out here and here. Are those eating it now fulfilling those requirements? And in any case, Hindu taboo on beef is over two millennium old. Even the medieval Islamic rulers recognised cow’s sanctity to Hindus. Some prohibited its slaughter, others ritually killed it in temples and adorned idols with its entrails. The entire early twentieth century, particularly the decade of the 1920s is full of communal riots triggered by cow slaughter. During the partition riots and East Pakistan massacres, the conversion of Hindus to Islam would be sealed only when the Hindu consumed had publicly consumed beef. None of the sixteen sanskars governing the Hindu life can be completed without a cow.

Given the salience of cow in the Hindu religion and its symbolism in the Hindu-Muslim relation, do I then need a BJP or an RSS to tell me that the cow is a venerated animal? Or is it that only RSS-BJP stand for Hinduism? Did riots over beef happen only after Modi became the PM? We cannot be expected to remember the massacre of Sadhus (not aligned to any political party), when they laid seige to the parliament demanding law for ban on cow slaughter in 1966. But how stupid are we if we don't remember the series of minor riots plaguing Haryana and parts of West UP over cattle smuggling for slaughter in the last few years? A time when neither Modi was the PM nor BJP ruling in Haryana.  Then just why is the blame of the lynching being laid on the doors of the RSS-BJP? What a case that neither the local police, nor the district administration, nor the state government is responsible for the crime, but the RSS is!

What is painfully clear is that the traditional RSS-BJP way of managing media has resulted in zero impact. With more and more of the younger generations growing up in nuclear families, far beyond any association with traditional groups, their sense of world-view gets impacted more and more by media which is all around them. Many ape the ‘cool thing’ to do without even bothering to understand the issue and its cause. At one level, we condemn khap. At another level, our social media behaviour makes us worse than the worst of kangaroo courts where the first allegation becomes the crime and its proof!

Just taking the example of beef, while the social media imagery of Muslims mocking cows was on expected lines, what has been a revelation is the stand taken many young Hindus. What was taboo even a few years back is very clearly isn’t one any longer. On what grounds? Individual choice? Give us a break!

The State which bans beef also bans consumption of wildlife, something which has directly impacted existence (not merely taste buds) of our forest dwellers. Did we hear any voice of outrage? Many European countries have outlawed consumption of cats, dogs and horses on account of their ‘association of love and service to humans’. Even in India, killing of a dog or a cat can get you behind bars. So, those bans are ok because they have been imposed by more ‘enlightened’ people?

What the left-liberal demands is that in order to accommodate the ‘dietary preferences’ of others, we have to forego an article of our faith. After all, as per them, since it is the Hindu faith, of course, no article of faith is worth having!

Some pompously claim that since Hindus cannot take care of their cows post their productive age, they have no right to get offended if someone kills them. Oh, I did not know that respect and killing were a binary and nothing could exist in between!

One would like to believe that people can see through the evil behind selective outrages. Sadly, little has happened which would make one believe that people actually do so. Through repeated assertions, Gujarat 2002 has become a tale of Muslim massacre (the Godhra carnage and Hindu deaths never happened), Church attacks and nun rapes have become real, bombings perpetrated only by the Hindu fringe, a Muslim suspect automatically declared innocent while a Hindu suspect - guilty by birth. Where is it ok to handover relief to Muslim victims of a riot but impose penalty on Hindu victims in the very same riots. When it is 'known' that Hindus start rioting and it is only the 'poor Muslim' who is the victim!

As life becomes simpler and our capacity to think independently reduces, our belief will be more stark. We will then openly bray: Hindus bad, non-Hindus good!

No Banana Republic, we are an Animal Farm

The more things change, the more they remain the same!

Animal Farm is one of my favorite books. Of the little I have read, this book contains amongst the sharpest of satires. While funny in patches, I find Animal Farm to be a dark book. Dark because it talks of futility of hope, of how the masses get cheated again and again. Long back, Bharatmuni had codified the structure of fictional narratives. As per Natyashastra, each tale had to have a hero, a villain and unsurmountable odds. Yet, the tale could have no ending but a happy one. Not surprisingly, each of our ancient and not-so-ancient tales has good vanquishing evil. If not absolutely happy, at the very least, the closure is with hope of a better tomorrow.

Books like Animal Farm and 1984 run against the very basic grain of a kavya. Yet, they are probably much closer to life. After all, have not a vast majority of masses been born, have lived and died in misery with no ‘happy ending’ for them. Still, against all our awareness of stark realities, we like to be hopeful for it is probably the hope of a better future, if not for us, for our future generations which keeps us going. This may precisely be the reason why, while enjoying tales like that of the ‘Animal Farm’, we still like to believe that those are but flights of fantasy and reality can never be that bleak, that harsh!

As humans, we laugh at ostriches for burying their heads in sand in face of danger. We get amused when pigeons close their eyes when scared of snakes, thinking that the snake can no longer see it. But, these are simply base reactions driven by an urge for self-preservation. Among human beings, while children may close their eyes when scared, ‘mature’ adult may adopt a mode of denial, refusing to accept what stares them in their eyes, breathes down or grasp them by their necks. Some others, who are more directly impacted, react even more strongly and start believing that the tormentor is not really a tormentor but is doing what he is doing for a greater good.

If and only if, life was as it is hoped!

This intermittent blogger has previously criticised Arvind Kejriwal for betraying the hope of a people who were looking for a systemic change. This blogger, while being an unabashed Hindu Nationalist, has in his previous posts displayed an uneasiness with Narendra Modi. Yet, this same person had voted for the BJP and was ecstatic when results were out, simply because any alternative seemed better than the shame of a Government which had been ruling India for the last decade.

While the vote against UPA remains valid, what has been validated even more strongly are the reservations against Narendra Modi. What did India vote for? Among many other things, a promise for vyavastha parivartan, where Nation comes first, where the Government governs for the benefit of people, where old elites are trashed into dustbins of history, where a citizen is empowered enough to mould his/her own future.

But, what have we got? A thespian who only talks - in acronyms, alliterating, gloating on his supposed greatness, all the while searching for a new stage to perform? Arvind Kejriwal is condemned for indulging in theatrics and achieving little in his 49 days in power. While Arvind is justifiably condemned for having cheated the public, if the same standards of measuring output get applied, Narendra Modi’s government comes out much worse.

For a set of people who believed that UPA polluted India by its very existence, finding humungous merits in the latter’s acts has been amazingly easy. Be it the bigger issues like Aadhaar, Direct Benefit Transfer, Land-swap agreement, GST, disinvestment, FDIs in certain sectors, recovery of black money, nuclear deal with US or relatively smaller issues like declassification of the Henderson Brook Report on China War, Justice Mukherjee’s report on Netaji’s disappearance or investigation of cases of corruption (including those involving the Nation’s son-in-law), the Modi-led BJP has both spoken and acted precisely like its predecessor. And we are not even talking of going back on core agendas like Kashmir. From talking of a Congress-mukt Bharat, we now have the reality of Modi sharing toast with Sonia Gandhi on a high table. Well, the Vajpayee Government always offered Sonia Gandhi respect and space far more than what was constitutionally required. Modi is simply carrying on with the tradition. And had not the ruler pigs in Animal Farm later made peace and partnered with those very humans they had rebelled against?

How morally bankrupt this Government is if after opposing UPA’s policies for the last 1 decade, it adopted them in a duration less than what it takes us to blink? On top of the chain of turnarounds, this Government is too smug, too arrogant, too drunk on its power, to offer even a fig leaf of an excuse for its countless turn-arounds! Today, if it really believes that all its U-turns are for the benefit of the Nation, then why was it stonewalling and protesting against UPA on these very moves? Is not then, as the Congress alleges, the BJP equally responsible for the rut India was in, for the last few years? Which U-turn are we looking at next? A 'Promotion of Communal Violence Bill' because it is good for the Nation? Many of us would argue that the BJP became aware of realities once it came to power. That it is in fact a testimony to its greatness that it is carrying on with those policies which it had opposed. This argument does not hold any water for 1. the Indian Parliamentary system co-opts the opposition through various committees and standing groups where all details of any proposed legislation are analysed, 2. any bill is presented much before it is debated and even the Government of the day explains all provisions of any bill to the opposition, and 3. BJP leaders are no babe in the woods having been in power and in public sphere for years. And if they are, they are unfit to govern!

For decades, the Sangh Parivar and its various offshoots have detested Nehru (for all the right reasons, I would add). While they opposed Gandhi initially, in the last two decades or so, he has been incorporated in their phalanx of venerable National icons, to some extent out of expediency, but more because the Sangh does articulate the same thoughts as Gandhi on issues like Indian culture, conversions, morality, economy, etc.

However, while Gandhi has been co-opted, his most toxic and disastrous ‘gift’ to the Nation, Jawaharlal Nehru still remains (ostensibly) a hated figure for the Sangh. A second member of the dynasty who is hated by the Sangh Parivar, is Indira Gandhi, but in patches. The Indira of 1980-84 was not the strongly ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ Indira of 1969-77 but someone whose actions were much more to the liking of the Hindu right. It was not without reason that RSS volunteers worked primarily for the Congress(I) and not the Vajpayee led BJP in the 1984 polls. Nonetheless, the legacy of Indira (1969-1977) is too strong to overlook and is the very anti-thesis of many principles the Sangh Parivar stands for. Hence, she continues to be abhorred for her authoritarianism, her acts of weakening the edifice of institutions, in fact of the Nation, of her corrupt regime, of her cultivation of the very anti-Hindu Left, her socialism and of course, the emergency.

Strangely though, for all their visceral hatred for Nehru, Sangh/BJP leaders take great pride in recalling that Nehru had identified a young Vajpayee as a future Prime Minister and puff with pride when any of them get called ‘cast in Nehruvian mould’ or having a ‘Nehru like vision’. As such, may be it is not quite so surprising to see that the ‘chosen one’ of this very Sangh Parivar is emulating its two supposed pet hates. Like Nehru, our current Prime Minister believes that the world is his stage. And like the gullible public then believed that India’s international standing was because of Nehru, today too, people are getting drunk of a non-existent potion of India’s ‘enhanced’ stature in the world. Nehru allowed his personal predilection for communism overrule National interests. Here, Modi's government leaks info that Sujatha Singh was removed because she refused to keep the issue of Kim Davey (Purulia arms-drop) aside when dealing with Denmark. Why is that important? Because Modi had invited the Dane Prime Minister to Gujarat and his no-show on account the MEA's pressure on Denmark to resolve the Davey issue was a personal insult to Modi! So, non-arrival is a personal insult but hosting a fugitive and refusing to hand him over, is not? How so Nehruvian! 

Like Nehru, who seemed to believe that India was his personal fief and made unilateral concessions to other Nations, our current Prime Minister too seems to believe that the path to ‘statesmanship’ and a possible Nobel lies through being magnanimous with the Nation’s assets. What else can explain the unseemly haste in acceding to US demands on the nuclear deal, on food protection, on intellectual property rights, on cheap drugs for millions of poor? Maybe I am in a hopeless minority, but I could only cringe when the Indian Prime Minister seemed a tad too eager to appear ‘close’ to a lame duck POTUS without adequate reciprocation from the latter. How can then Obama be criticised for gratuitously sermonising on how should India be as a Nation? Nehru is the only Prime Minister who contributed to the sartorial taste of India. Now, after 50 long years, we have a Modi kurta to give company to a Nehru Jacket. Nehru was supposed to have his clothes laundered in Paris (maybe an archetypical tale meant to indicate Nehru’s deracination and taste for luxury). Our current Prime Minister is one up. Never to appear sans designer clothes, he now gives company to figures as illustrious as Hosni Mubarak in wearing suits embroidered with his name!

As regards emulating Indira Gandhi, does authoritarianism ring a bell? Still, for her legion of followers, India maiyya could do no wrong. For the countless Modibhaktas, at least on social media, Modi is a god who can do no wrong.

In any other land, a Prime Minister claiming that only 'personal chemistry' between leaders matter and 'commas and lines on papers do not', would have been laughed off. Strangely, while much attention has been focused on the Prime Minister's fashion sense, hardly any analyst has commented on the inanity of that particular statement. Seriously, how can an Indian Prime Minister even think that way when so many times have we been led on the garden path by more realistic foreign leaders?

I still believe that India is great Nation, that in spite of all its challenges and dysfunctionality, it is land blessed by the divine, by the presence (both past and current) of great souls. Why then do we have the type of rulers we have? And can we, the people escape blame for our rulers? How can Modi alone be blamed? Adulation is heady and self-serving. The sight of those hundreds of thousands of commoners thronging grounds in searing heat to see him, chanting his name with frenzy, wearing his masks, would make all but the really great feel that yes, I am indeed the messiah! Even now, when the last eight months of Modi rule has yielded little but song and dance, talk and more talk, people enamoured of Modi find little fault in their leader. Each U-turn gets rationalized and defended, at times with passion of fresh converts to the cause. And as far as the mainstream media is concerned, till the time the issue is Hindutva/secularism, there is little to find fault in the Government. In the run-up to General Elections 2014, on Modi being presented as an outsider to the Delhi establishment, this blogger had observed that if a person associated with the Delhi power structure for three decades and who also happened to be a 4 term Chief Minister could be termed as an outsider, then there would be hardly any ‘insider’ in the system. Sadly, I don’t find any joy in feeling vindicated.

We, the people, who have invested our hopes in Modi have a moral duty to be vigilant and ensure that our leaders don’t digress from those promises which made us vote for them. Our Nation will become great, we will become successful, not by defending the indefensible but by being demanding, questioning and forcing our leaders to perform. If we don’t, and continue to believe that all acts of our leaders are for our good, our fate will be no better and in all likelihood, much worse than those creatures of the proverbial Animal Farm.