Bharat Bhushan: A changing narrative about the Prime Minister can unravel his leadership
The public perception of Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to be changing. The farmers’ agitation against three proposed laws, Chinese incursions in Ladakh and a worsening Covid-19 pandemic have only added to a long term malaise of rising unemployment, declining economic growth and alienated youth. And yet the government appears unperturbed. Perhaps the last general election has shown that a public narrative of economic despair will not necessarily translate into anti-incumbency. No general election is due for a long time and the BJP’s election planners have almost always managed to produce a rabbit (or even a peacock) out of the hat in state elections.
But two things suggest that public disillusionment may be
deeper than earlier. Social media lampooning of Prime Minister Modi and the BJP
is not only more vicious but also more personal. China’s persisting
belligerence is also a terrible embarrassment for a government that has thrived
on cranking up ultra-nationalist sentiments. It has also shot to hell the
carefully nurtured image of Prime Minister Modi as a world statesman.
Social media is an unmissable indicator of a downturn in youth support for Prime Minister Modi. They have voted against the issues raised in his radio homilies by pressing dislike buttons. Youth hostility is even visible on the BJP’s social media platforms. Perhaps the anger is fuelled by their uncertain future. India’s GDP has not only shrunk overall by 23.9 per cent in the June quarter, but the contraction is much higher in labour intensive sectors, with construction contracting by 50 per cent, manufacturing by 39.3 per cent, and trade, hotel and transport y 47 per cent.
Data collected by the Centre for Monitoring Indian
Economy suggests that in the month of August roughly one in ten
persons in urban areas could not find work with the urban unemployment rate at
9.83 per cent as compared to 9.15 per cent in July. Rural unemployment also
increased to 7.65 per cent compared to 6.66 per cent in July. Disturbingly
rising unemployment coincides with the freeing of economic activities curtailed
by a harsh lockdown. Economists believe that layoffs in the formal sector and
saturation in the farm sector are contributing to deepen the employment crisis.
So the crisis of those seeking first time employment has been over-layered with
those who have lost old jobs and need new ones.
Even those employed are worse off because of large-scale
salary cuts in the private sector. In Uttar Pradesh the security of government
jobs will be diluted by plans to put new state employees on contract for the
first five years. Even though political opposition has failed to channelise
youth anger it will continue to fester unless the government addresses it
seriously.
Indifference to the public mood is not limited to the BJP
government at the Centre and in the states. The entire political class,
including state governments and the Opposition are quiet. But when anger erupts
it will be directed against the BJP, especially the Prime Minister, because
they had promised to create a $5 trillion economy by 2024 and 20 million new
jobs a year. States are unable to create jobs because they are financially
crippled by the central government’s inability to fully compensate for their
loss of GST. The finance minister has simply thrown up her hands blaming the
economy on “an act of God” – i.e. the pandemic. Maverick economist and BJP MP,
Subramanian Swamy has predicted that, “If the economy is not rectified, Modi
has about six more months till people start challenging him.”
However, more than the economy needs rectification. The
early days of the pandemic saw the Prime Minister lead a vigorous campaign
against the coronavirus. He addressed the nation every few weeks and people
blindly obeyed whatever he asked them to do. But he has gone silent after the
virus has claimed more than 85,000 lives. The government continues with its
ostrich-like refusal to take stock of the crisis and admit to faults in its own
planning. It thus claims that it has no official data on the number of migrants
who died trying to get home during the lockdown. It is either incompetent or
callous because academics from Jindal Global University and the Universities of
Emory and Syracuse, have recorded 906 deaths.
The government is also clueless about fatalities of
healthcare workers due to Covid-19. It cites the fact that health is a state
subject for the lack of data. Nevertheless the Indian Medical Association has
claimed that 382 doctors died during the pandemic and should be declared
‘martyrs’. There is no data on nurses, support staff and ASHA workers who
succumbed to the disease. Can people then be blamed for believing that they
have been abandoned by the government to their own devices?
The farmers of Punjab and Haryana are up in arms against
laws which will create a free market for farm produce, facilitate contract
farming and allow certain crops to be exempted from the ambit of the Essential
Commodities Act. The government has failed to convince them or their
representatives that the new laws will not do away with Minimum Support Price
and benefit them. The sole minister from the Shiromani Akali Dal in the Modi government,
Harsimrat Kaur Badal has resigned. Such was the hurry to enact the farm Bills
that they were rushed through by voice vote in the Rajya Sabha despite MPs
demanding a formal vote.
Still, the greatest damage to Prime Minister Modi’s image
has been caused by his military and diplomatic failure against China’s
land-grab in Ladakh. After the public denial on June 19 that China had intruded
into Indian Territory, the prime minister has gone silent leaving the battle
for public perception to Indian army commanders and his ministers. The
statements by the ministers for Defence and External Affairs suggest that far
from restoring status quo ante China’s belligerence in Ladakh has increased.
The prime minister’s failure on the China front may become another millstone
around his neck.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence on major issues
facing the nation should have his party worried. At some point the BJP will
have to start exploring an alternative leadership if the present one continues
to falter.
