By Patricia Mukhim
In 2014, when India headed for the elections there was a sense of dismay that nothing was going right. The Congress-led UPA -II was headed by a Prime Minister who maintained a stoic silence on crucial issues. There was the coal scam and the spectrum scam amongst others. The economy was teetering and employment had slumped. The scenario was such that all Indian pined for change. In that bleak scenario entered Narendra Modi the CM of Gujarat who had ostensibly catapulted that state onto a financial trajectory that was the envy of most other states. At the time Indians were overcast by low self-esteem. There was a general feeling that the country needed a strong leader to bring it back on the rails and, “Make India Great Again,” (a la Donald Trump) as Modi says with his chest thumping bravado. Indeed, India was then at a point when it had a ‘strongman fetish.’ Modi was invited to Lady Shri Ram College in Delhi where he made his opening speech as one who would be the PM of the country. Many were taken up by Mr Modi.
Five years down the line this same man who campaigned like a prophet of a new age Hindustan looks haggard and is beginning to hallucinate and speak things that you would attribute to a petulant child making tall claims with his peers to make himself look good. For a Prime Minister to speak out of turn and resort to bombastic claims that the whole country, nay the whole world knows is a lie, makes every Indian feel ashamed. The question to the media (News Nation) that hosted the interview is why the interviewers did not correct Modi and why they allowed him to equivocate on serious issues. Were they trying to make him look bad? Or what were they thinking? Normally serious interviewers would not let their subjects drift or speak of personal issues. After all the news channel was interviewing a Prime Minister who came to power on a solid mandate and had all the goodwill to wrought the changes that he promised but had seemingly failed to.
What Indians failed to grasp at the time was that Modi the strongman, like all strongmen across the world would also be a demagogue. He would actually harvest from the dystopia of a people who feel deep hurt and a sense of being let down. Indians are also known to look at the distant past and to romanticize it. So there’s that cocktail of nostalgia and despair that helped to create a Modi! India is as much affected by globalization and the economic slowdown that has impacted large parts of the world including China now. It needed a leader with a broad vision who would not undo everything that his predecessors had done in a fit of hubris. But that was exactly what Modi did. His government dismantled the Planning Commission without putting in place a more robust system that would have to first be tried and tested. The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog has not been able to bring about the grassroots transformation that it promised to, by allowing states to list out their priorities in a bottoms-up approach. That’s because the states too never adopted a bottoms-up planning process. No state in India ever makes development plans through a process of grass-roots consultation.
Then came Demonetization like a bolt from the blue. It shocked and paralyzed businesses, especially starts-ups. The former RBI Chief, Raghuram Rajan had apparently warned of this turning into a misadventure that would affect small businesses in particular. But the BJP’s greed to win the Uttar Pradesh elections far outweighed its concerns for the economy. Remember Demonetization came on the eve of the UP elections. And indeed since money is paramount in winning elections, the non-BJP parties suffered a major jolt with no money to pay the voters.
In its five year tryst with the electorate of India the NDA Government has managed to disrupt the polity by creating a climate of fear and distrust. First, the cow vigilantes went on a killing spree with the Prime Minister speaking only when he was pushed into a corner. Now, after five years the PM adopts a victimhood narrative and posits himself as a person who is vilified by the system which throws up ‘Naamdars’ like Rahul Gandhi, the Congress President and his ilk and which seemingly does not create the space for ordinary Indians, not part of dynasties, to survive in this political battlefield.
India’s grave error was to vote a strongman who did not have even a vestige of statesmanship in his veins. He was neither a visionary nor a peace builder. On the contrary he traded in fear. As we came closer to the elections the Pulwama attack happened and 40 CRPF personnel were blown to smithereens by a suicide bomber. The NDA then did a surgical strike at Balakot which it claims credit for. But the fear-mongering persists and that fear ironically seems to pervade the majority Hindus even while Right Wing activists go around committing violence on minorities in the country.
Today India is gripped by hatred, fear and a general sense of oppressiveness where the media finds it difficult to operate as a free agent and fourth pillar of democracy. This climate of fear (of Islamic terrorists because Hindus can never be terrorists) has set the emotional tone for our politics. Of course it is fact of history that politicians rise by stoking fear. We are at a point in our democracy where factories for manufacturing fake news operate 24×7. The army of trolls is busy defending their champion PM and hitting out at anyone who does not conform to their idea of what a hero he is and a defender of the faith. Today free-thinking people with a twitter handle think carefully what to put out for fear of provoking a twitter backlash. This suggests that we no longer enjoy freedom of speech and expression. It is in this climate of fear, of resentment and claustrophobia that right wing ideology thrives. Most people who would rather not be caught in a partisan territory are being pushed into a binary of, “You are with us or against us,” like the Americans were the post 9/11 Bush era. How we have arrived at this juncture of our history is what will be written about at some later date but the point is whether India can continue to be governed by this fear and rigid ideology.
In her book, “The Monarchy of Fear, noted philosopher Martha Nussbaum writing after Trump was elected, tells Americans to get in touch with their feelings; not in a fit of self-indulgence but as a righteous act of civic duty. She says that the fearful person turns asocial and rejects a compassionate response to social problems but instead lashes out. Nussbaum says that fear is intensely narcissistic and drives out all thoughts of others; the fearful person does not see particular individuals just hateful shades who arouse disgust and can be blamed. Fear, Nussbaum says induces herding behaviour.
Indeed this herd behaviour also means that we are incapable of analyzing the fear and looking it in the face. Were we to do that we would be able to comprehend that much of what we fear is in our minds. Sadly, while there is a strongman model on one side there is no one on the other side who can gather Indians in that mantle of hope and optimism. The other side is ridden with ego-laden personalities wanting to rule this country, not to serve the citizens. One of those projecting herself as PM is known for her penchant for elephant statues. Another is now using violence as a tool to control the electorate. The third person is clueless about governance and has only been reacting to the strongman.
As Indians I am not sure that we are in a good place today. Let’s see what surprises May 23 throws up.