When attempts to establish domination by deploying physical power begin, be sure that the authoritarian ruler is using his last weapon to prolong his control. That’s a reason to rejoice. Because that’s an indication of peaking desperation, an unintended declaration that deceptive tricks have lost their efficacy. The time to mesmerise the gullible with the promise of acchhe din is over; coercion and blackmail no longer work. Brute force, the last resort, is the solitary lifeline.
Narendra Modi has run out of steam. He is struggling to save the prime minister’s chair. He is now doomed to muddle along without democratic legitimacy. He forfeited legitimacy by adopting unconstitutional techniques to suppress people’s uprising. No, what happened on October 10 isn’t an isolated incident, an aberration amidst a glut of good deeds. This was the natural climax of unethical politics.
Demagogues never use facts and logic to counter opponents’ arguments. They trounce rivals and critics by lies and falsehood. They manage public opinion by churning out enticing promises and selling dreams. We saw Modi a few days ago desperately chanting “we will do it” to little impact.
Nobody wants to wait till 2047 to enjoy the imaginary fruits of Viksit Bharat. He knows the smoke and mirrors trick isn’t working any more. He has to change course. And what else could the next course be but violent repression? The Sangh Parivar-Bharatiya Janata Party combine hasn’t learnt the language of accommodation and accountability.
The images seen throughout the last week aren’t only disturbing because of the brute force used by the police and paramilitary forces. They signify the destruction of the political order, an eventuality the intelligentsia so anxiously awaited over the last decade.
Modi’s politics, aided by crony capitalists and religious fanatics, had to reach here sooner or later. The false conversation, which was devoid of genuine commitment to secular democracy, had to metamorphose into coercive action as the Opposition parties refuse to surrender.
Vilification campaigns and the conspiracy to attach anti-national tag on the critics and opponents by BJP spokespersons and television anchors were doomed to fail because they lacked substance. The Opposition ranks swelled with the arrival of Gen Z. The government felt compelled to unveil its true intent – police action and creation of fear psychosis in the country.
The very decision to rob the designated protest site Jantar Mantar from the people was a brazen advertisement of Modi’s determination to crush dissent in any form. The Leader of Opposition being forcibly evicted, day after day, from different protest sites is no ordinary message to the country.
While the deployment of forces increased by the day, no offer came for a dialogue. What does this signal, but the government's unpreparedness to leave the path of confrontation? Modi, however, doesn’t know confrontation with your own people is self-defeatism. This battle will now inevitably conclude in the government's defeat because both political rationale and morality are on the side of the Opposition.
Leadership crisis
Delhi is in the hands of police and paramilitary force as Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, mind and muscle of this government, rule in absentia. Modi, who misuses the exceptional state instrument of “address to the nation” on silly excuses, and Shah, who is the face of BJP’s political management, needed to lead from the front during this extraordinary crisis.
The prime minister is not expected to communicate with the nation only for self-promotion. Who will address critical concerns? Who will guide people out of the dark tunnel of hopelessness? Will it not be the supreme leader – who appears on TV to ask them to bang thalis and light candles to fight an epidemic?
India is passing through its worst institutional crisis. While the public trust in the Election Commission and the Supreme Court has vanished completely, there are question marks on the government’s ability to protect the constitutional scheme and national interest.
What bigger crisis is the prime minister waiting for? Instead of letting the police handle the public outburst through coercion and intimidation, the prime minister should have come out, faced the public and dealt with each and every issue with sincerity and honesty.
A poster pasted on a wall near Jantar Mantar in New Delhi reads, "Dande Mataram". Photo: Special Arrangement.
If Modi believes there is no problem with the functioning of the Election Commission and that the judiciary has performed with unimpeachable integrity, he should have shared his views with the nation instead of unleashing the brute power of the state to silence his critics.
And Amit Shah, who didn’t miss a trick in the West Bengal and Bihar elections, even as he miserably failed as Home Minister during the Pahalgam terrorist attack and in the continuing Manipur crisis, should have explained to the nation why such an unprecedented force deployment was required to handle our youth?
The sight of a hundred policemen and Rapid Action Force personnel pouncing on one or two boys walking around with placards was frightening. Is this how Shah intends to run India? If so, he should have articulated his position before the nation, unambiguously declaring that protests are not allowed in India any longer.
He needed to tell the nation that the designated protest site of Jantar Mantar has been snatched from dissenters and the beleaguered and that it now belongs exclusively to the government.
Letting the police handle the Opposition leaders, activists and students without any political conversation is a cheap tactic. Even the goons at Jantar Mantar talked, issuing threats to those who are demanding justice and accountability, but Modi and Shah sealed their lips.
Anyone who nurses pretensions about leading the country also needs to convey to the nation their views on critical national concerns. Just demonising Rahul Gandhi is not politics. The nation needs to know what the Home Minister of India thinks about the post-poll vulgarism in Bengal.
The nation also needs to know what the home minister’s views are on communalism, political defections, crony capitalism and vigilantism. Politics is not a secretive mission; it is about public trust and constitutional morality.
Nature of the fight
Where is the counter-argument? We see countervailing forces against the BJP’s rivals but there is no credible viewpoint to contest the philosophy of the regime’s opponents. While the BJP spokespersons pour out venom on Rahul Gandhi, without specifically explaining what is wrong with his demands, the supporting ecosystem also relies on vilification and threats.
If the opposing side is talking about constitutionalism, governance failures and injustice, the government’s supporters talk of teaching a lesson to the anti-national forces. Some of them, educated by the WhatsApp messages, talk of Soros-funded elements and borrow the prime minister’s bogus “dimagi Naxal” narrative.
Politics will become a wrestling court without meaningful conversations. Calling Modi’s critics anti-national or shouting somebody down means nothing. Why can’t the BJP veterans, including Modi and Shah, confront Rahul Gandhi with counter-arguments?
Where are the right-wing ideologues, the thinking youth of the BJP, who can intellectually counter the likes of Yogendra Yadav, Manoj Jha, Kanhaiya Kumar, Neha Bora or Abhijit Dipke? Is it wrong to demand fair elections? Can anybody say the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) isn’t flawed? Can the government or the BJP claim Gyanesh Kumar is fair and impartial? Obviously not.
Anybody with a conscience knows the nature of crisis SIR has caused. The answer to the campaign for fair elections isn’t police repression and threats by right-wing goons. Where is the conversation, the counter-argument? BJP workers are chanting “Rahul Gandhi sharm karo.” For what? Demanding fair elections? For pointing out fraud in re-doing the voters’ list?
There was a time when the likes of L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi forcefully tried to put across an alternative viewpoint. The BJP appears to have lost that capacity and none of its spokespersons can offer scholarly presentations to counter the critics.
If a Nishikant Dubey, Sudhanshu Trivedi, Ravi Kishan, Kangna Ranaut and Sambit Patra deal in counterfactual nonsense, veterans like Rajnath Singh and Shivraj Singh Chauhan have restricted themselves to sycophantic gibberish. Even professors linked to their ideology behave like ill-informed bigots.
It’s a tragedy that the BJP could not create a talent pool despite being in power for so long. No genuine intellectual has so far joined their ranks. Not one.