Prince Charming or the Vile Conjurer?
Let us not forget that every man is defined by his actions. No amount of sophistry can conceal his true character for long.
We have all heard of the fairy-tale where the frog turned into a prince when kissed by a princess. A somewhat similar situation seems to be upon us with 32% of the voters and the media having kissed and turned Narendra Modi into “Prince Charming”. This means not just hailing Modi in some abstract way, but more significantly accepting and glamorizing what he represents.
In the past few days, the mainstream media has gone all over town telling us how Modi is not a pariah anymore and foreign powers are vying with each other to court him. The reasons for this change in perception that India has now become corporate worlds’s favourite investment destination, and most importantly, that he is the guy who can take “decisions” and not keep the nation waiting for action.
From the best known names of the mainstream media, like Shekhar Gupta and Rajdeep Sardesai, to international magazines like the Economist and Time, are now churning out reams of paper about Modi’s ability to take decisions. Though some of them have been circumspect enough to mention his role in the Gujarat Carnage of 2002, hardly anyone has focused on the political eliminations, the fake encounters and the ongoing subversion of the criminal justice system and the scant regard for institutional safeguard mechanisms. Most commentators, in their alacrity to please the new Monarch consider these heinous acts of commission and ommission to be insignificant blips on the radar which, at best, should be graciously forgotten or ignored in view of the bigger conquests and glory awaiting him and the Rashtra.
The purpose of this piece, however, is not to accuse these mainstream liberals of complicity with Modi, but to look at the reasons behind why this has happened and that too at a pace that defies logic. There seem to be two specific reasons or catchphrases that explain Modi’s canoodling by the corporate groups including the corporate media.
The first catchphrase is “decisiveness”, the perception of which is predicated on the success of the Modi-led BJP’s selective interpretation of issues such as growth, governance, peace and security, and how these have now been mainstreamed. To come to “peace and security” first, a constant projection of “threat-perception” both from within and outside — meaning Muslims and sometimes Maoists from within and Pakistan from outside — is now complete and mainstream. So much so that during the last Congress-led regime we had suddenly witnessed a flurry of decisions confirming capital punishment. Those in power had to show that they were “decisive” just like Modi was in 2002. The perception of threat is now so internalised that government sponsored messages on radio constantly tell you to get the identity of your tenant verified by police, and even encourage your neighbours to do that. It is in times like these that a “decisive” persona like Modi scores over a “vacillating” Congress.
The second magic word in this context is “governance”. What does it mean under Modi? That he cut down all bureaucratic rigmarole so that the Tatas could set up their Nano car factory within a matter of days. Or that thousands of investors could flock down to the green pastures of Gujarat. Modi’s governance means bureaucrats do his bidding without questioning. In these times of the ideology of less government this is exactly what is loved by the corporate sector and the media. This interpretation of governance obviously does not include the social cost of “development”.
In addition to the above, Modi’s accession to power is also the culmination of the middle class’ frustration with the inept and moribund Congress Party. The voters were cleverly manipulated into the either/or mode by the imaginative campaign of Modi led BJP supported by a happily cavorting and pliant media. And the incompetent bungling of the Congress helped in no small measure, The Indian middle class found itself locked in binary-mode politics: either vote for an apparently inefficient and inept Congress or a ruthlessly efficient and brazenly neo-fascist Modi. As we all saw, the Indian middle class including the young voters preferred to chose the efficiency of neo-fascism as any other combination was thought to be unstable for the country and hence non-conducive for their collective dreams and aspirations, little realizing that dreams and aspirations will scarcely fructify in a body afflicted with the odious gangrene of ideology driven hate-politics. But that is how nations learn. If at all they do.
Let us not forget that every man is defined by his actions. No amount of sophistry can conceal his true character for long. The adulating media, the new courtiers, the overenthusiastic bards and Modi himself will do well to remember that the real measure of Decisive Leadership and Good Governance is not the speed of decisions facilitating the proliferation of corporate wealth or the grandeur of illusory populist schemes, but the manner in which we address the issues that plague the underprivileged and oppressed sections of the society. The story of India is yet to unfold. Those who take this country and its people for granted do so at their own peril.
