Prem Panicker - Modi's Unwillingness To Listen To Criticism Has Knocked The Halo Off His Head
The crowds that
thronged Delhi to celebrate Narendra Modi’s swearing-in breathed that purified
air through the Modi mask that had during the election cycle been elevated to a
fashion statement. And in response to Modi’s triumphant speech, they responded
to his call of "Achhe Din" with chants of "aa gaye", in a
symphonic chorus of sycophantic adoration. The crowds responded
to Modi's call of ‘Achhe Din’ with chants of ‘aa gaye’. Those were heady days.
The air was perfumed with faith – "the substance,” says Hebrews 11:1, “of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” A nation saturated with a
carefully constructed narrative of UPA non-performance, endemic corruption, and
policy paralysis had found faith in the mythological "Gujarat Model";
it now sought evidence of turbocharged performance in the headlines.
On May 28, 2014,
Modi talked tough to
his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif. Also on May 28, the Modi Cabinet in its
first formal act constituted a Special
Investigation Team to bring back the black money stashed abroad. On June 5,
he shook up the
bureaucracy, told them their leisurely golf games were a thing of the past, and said they
should clean up their offices and their act. His tough love energised the
bureaucrats, we learned. The decisions flowed
thick and fast; the contrast with the paralytic UPA2 could not have been
starker. June 10:
Poverty was to be eliminated. June 11: The Supreme Court was asked to take a quick
decision on the question of MPs with criminal back-grounds. July 30: Through a
“lab to land” policy, steps were taken to increase agricultural output, producing
“more crop per drop”. August
7: FDI in defence and railways was increased. August 20: A new irrigation
scheme was announced. August
28: Every citizen was to get a bank account.
On September 17, Modi sought his
mother’s blessings on his birthday. September 20: Modi batted for Indian Muslims and spoke of
the injustice done to them. October
11: Each MP was told to adopt a village. October 23: Modi spent Diwali
with the troops in Siachen. October
26: In three quick meetings, defence projects worth a total of Rs 1,20,000
crore were cleared. November
22: Modi spoke of his affection for the people of Kashmir and promised to
restore democracy and humanity to the region. November 30: The police force
became SMART.
He charmed the United
States and wowed Madison
Square Garden. Even the gaucherie of wearing a suit with his name embroidered on it was
quickly forgiven when it raised Rs 4.3 crore in auction for the cause
of cleaning the Ganga, and we cheerfully lapped up eulogies to his "hotness quotient".
He roamed the world in
pursuit of India’s energy future, and was hailed as an international rock star. Australia,
charmed, returned two
antique statues that had been stolen from India. Appropriately enough, Modi won
– by a distance – the reader poll for Time Person of the Year.
The markets loved him;
shops from Delhi’s Sadar Bazaar to Bangalore’s Malleshwaram reaped windfalls from the
sale of Modi merchandise. We heard of five reasons why Modi was special; we learned he had
a 10-point plan to
improve India in 100 days. “We are going to win so much you may even get tired
of winning,” Donald Trump was to say on
the stump in May 2016. In India, it felt like we were already living Trump’s
boast two years before he articulated it. Who was going to say nay?
Modi, working 18 hours and more
each day in pursuit of the promised "achhe din", grew weary of all
this winning, tired of all this praise. “I miss criticism,” he
lamented. “Democracy is alive only if there is criticism.” Back in 46 BCE,
when Julius Caesar entered Rome in triumph, he had at his left shoulder a man
whose job it was to lean over every once in a while and remind him, over the
cheering of the crowds, “This too shall pass.” The Modi of 2014 seemingly had
everything – except a voice to remind him that praise is fleeting, that it is
accomplishments, not accolades, that are worth pursuing.
And thus, on October
4, 2017, 1,005 days after he lamented the absence of criticism, a querulous
Modi was reduced to fudging figures and lashing out at a “handful of
people” for “spreading pessimism”. “The BJP is on the back foot” is the word on
the streets. Dissenting voices are proliferating across sectors ranging from
agriculture to industry to entertainment and beyond. Previously voiceless
sections of the media are finding their voices, and these voices are sharp,
they are critical, they excoriate. The opposition has upped its game on social
media, once the hegemony of the BJP, and reduced party bigwigs to warning of a
tool they once gleefully appropriated to their ends.
Fact-checking is the
new growth industry. One-time cheerleaders are turning apostate. Allies – the
Shiv Sena, to cite the most obvious example – have turned fractious. And even
members of Modi’s own party – Arun Shourie, Subramanian Swamy, and Yashwant
Sinha to name just three – have voiced their astringent criticisms publicly,
openly, almost daring the party to take action, in full knowledge that the
now-beleaguered BJP cannot afford to have its own people outside the tent
pissing in. Three years is a very
short time in politics – seemingly too short a time for a messianic figure to
so thoroughly lose his sheen. To understand why this has happened, turn to the
story of Shalya from the Mahabharata… read more:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/prempanicker/modis-unwillingness-to-listen-to-criticism-has-knocked-the?utm_term=.afW5mAdDo#.uxv5gdqzA