By
Randeep Wadehra
All those fresh semi-circular marks that you espy on India’s
political sands are due to U-turns that politicians and political parties have
been taking during the current run-up to general elections. Even as the Samajwadi
Party supremo Mulayam Singh sets aside his loudly articulated opposition to the
Food Security Bill and declares to back it in the parliament’s monsoon session,
there have been spectacular back-flips elsewhere. The UPA flip-flopped through
the entire 360 degrees of its ideological spectrum. It began its second term
high on successes, based on growth and reform oriented policies, in the
previous innings. But, suddenly it paused for an inordinately long time.
It dawdled over whether to keep walking ahead on the road to
further development or turn left, as prompted by some influential economists who
had cautioned against accentuating the rich-poor divide. There were too many dollar
billionaires sprouting at the pyramid’s top, they averred. This would create
social tensions, they warned, raising the specter of emaciated hordes joining
the Naxalites, ignoring the fact while the number of billionaires was
increasing, there was also tactile improvement in various socio-economic indicators
at the pyramid’s bottom; more jobs were on offer; per capita income was
increasing at a decent pace. Whether one calls it trickle-down effect or
inclusive growth, more people were having food on their plates, shirts on their
backs and bucks in their purses. Individual enterprise, that had been for long an
emaciated child of the vapid Integrated Rural Development Programme, had begun
to take wing on its own. Consequently, India’s tertiary sector saw phenomenal
growth. Inexplicably, policy paralysis ensued, immobilizing all government
initiatives.
This is where the panic driven warped political vision comes
into play, thanks to three factors. First, due to adverse international
economic scene, India’s economy began to slow down and inflation began to gain
momentum. The second factor was the serial exposures of corruption related
scandals, as if some pestilence had broken out on the political terra firma;
and finally, the rise of Modi as main political challenge, who combined
development with jingoism rather too effectively for UPA’s comfort, thus
bringing about a seismic shift in the country’s politics. Never before had a
demagogue of such potency burst upon the political arena; Advani of the rath
yatra fame comes close, but he had an effective counterfoil in AB Vajpayee.
Modi makes no such concessions to the traditional political culture. He has the
gumption of a street fighter, backed with unbelievable self-belief, which has
propelled him from grassroots to top of the political heap in the most dramatic
manner. He has cleverly enunciated a development agenda that has special appeal
for the middle classes and the youth, even as he tinges it with saffron hues to
keep the Parivar happy. Modi touts the so-called Gujarat Model as an ideal
worth replicating in the rest of the country. He has caught the imagination of
the Middle India. He is all over the media space, confirming his rise as the
archetypal rock star of today’s politics. The social media appears to be packed
with Om NaMo bhajan singers, who deify Modi as no other political leader in
India has been in recent years.
Apparently, these developments have affected the UPA’s
reflexes much more adversely than it cares to admit. All attempts to yodel the secular anthem
failed to counter the rising chorus in Modi’s favor, hurtling the UPA
government into a time warp, signaling its regression towards the pre-reforms
era where populism predominated policymaking. They have fast tracked Food
Security through an ordinance. In their hurry, the UPA strategists forgot to
explain the reason behind covering 67% under the FSB when so far they had been
insisting that less than 33% were below the poverty line. Moreover, they have tried
hard to paint Modi as the ogre let loose by fascist forces to destroy the
country’s social fabric and poison its political eco-system. Whether it is the ‘puppy’
issue or the ‘secular burqa’ comment, every NaMo utterance is blown out of
proportion and turned into propaganda. Strangely, Congress strategists avoided
all engagement on developmental issues for unduly long time. However, PM
Manmohan Singh did the course correction a few days back, and countered all
disparagement with statistical presentation of UPA’s track record in keeping
the economy stable during eight of its nine most turbulent years.
If they had countered Modi’s developmental discourse by
highlighting UPA’s achievements earlier, perhaps he would not have gained the head
start that he presently enjoys. Considering the overall situation, and that
even “strong, controlled” economies like China, Russia and Brazil have been
showing symptoms of fatigue, our economy’s performance has been commendable
indeed. But, somehow, the UPA misread the public mood and raised the 2002 riots
and Ishrat Jahan issues, with negligible success. Even Muslims have clearly
moved on from that phase. Congress had mistakenly thought that it had fine-tuned
its communal card fuelled brahmastra to pulverize the NaMo juggernaut, but it
proved to be a damp squib. Cascades of corruption related scandals only added
to the government’s growing discomfiture. Belatedly, it came up with a flurry
of “reformist” measures pertaining to FDI etc, which it had earlier claimed
could not be implemented because of the opposition’s obstructionist tactics.
Simultaneously, it has been tying itself in knots while retrieving its development
discourse; this about turn has been under-articulated, but the question is
whether it will gain any traction in the coming months.
Inexplicably, Modi has taken another U-turn and reverted to
the saffronite, jingoist “I am a Hindu Nationalist” counterpunch. Although, his
supporters among the BJP’s rank and file may take heart from this development,
the common voter must remember that tyranny begins with demagoguery. Its fuel
is an explosive mix of prejudice and supremacist affinity. Patriotic zeal sends
it zooming skyward, and a collective hysteria generated by victimhood discourse
intensifies it. Charisma, stirring oratory, and hardnosed sophistry, along with
calamitously favorable socio-political and economic conditions, facilitate the
birth of a tyrant, who uses every ruse to outmaneuver and eliminate his rivals.
This enables him to eventually usurp absolute power and justify it too, a la
Adolf Hitler, who took Germany to extraordinary heights of economic and
military power. However, his hubris and hate induced vision resulted in
Germany’s ultimate doom and mortification.
Are our liberal-democratic instincts powerful enough to neutralize such
adventurism? Or, must we learn through a harrowing experience? Think it over.
Published in The Financial World dated 25 July 2013
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