In the pantheon of India's Prime Ministers something about Narendra Modi makes him an exceptional Prime Minister. Understanding the exceptionality requires a review the regime he has given India.
In 2014 Mr Modi burst upon the national political scene like a tornado promising what he presented as a new way of doing government, economy and politics encapsulated in his slogan of "Sab Ka Sath, Sab Ka Vikas". With his skilled oratory, use of modern technology and the emphasis on economic development, the 21st century India's needs seemed to have met their match in him.
Four years into his regime, PM Modi has not proven to be much different from his predecessors excluding Nehru and Shastri, the first and second Prime Ministers of India. Other than in his art of the bombast and over the top promises he has been quite like several of the previous Prime Minister.
In the twentieth century we often heard it said and written that India was a rich country of poor people. Given the country's bountiful natural resources, the human capital and the grinding poverty it had been easy to agree with that view at the dawn of independence and at least for sometime thereafter. But the sheer optimism of the early years of independence led us to believe the conditions would change and that India would grow into a more socially just, economically prosperous and egalitarian country. Indians were reaffirmed in that hope by their own massive rejection Indira Gandhi's Emergency Rule, its injustices and constrained freedoms.
Though social and economic inequalities galore and poverty still abounds in the country, the economic changes and progress unleashed in the late eighties, early nineties and since have given Indians reason for a modicum of pride and joy. India's is now one of the major economies of the world and growing fast, at times faster than any other economy. But the rewards of economic progress aren't yet available to the vast majority of people. Some argue the rising tide of economic development would eventually lift all lives. While quite a few have been lifted, many more have been just marginally touched or improved by the much touted economic miracle. The middle class isn't as large as some had hoped. In fact a significant part of the population has been further impoverished; the gap between the rich and the poor has only widened. Despite his and his acolytes' extolling of his accomplishments in terms of the economy and job creation, Mr Modi's regime has been quite a disappointment and a relative failure in this regard.
That India's is still an underdeveloped economy is undeniably the cumulative effect of the successive governments' inability and or unwillingness to govern India in a way that would have enabled all Indians to realise their full potential. The governments have failed to ensure that all Indians fairly benefited from any economic progress in the country. In economic development and employment growth Modi regime, like its many predecessors, has fallen far below its own stated goals. The chasm between the promised and the delivered reality has been substantial and it may seem unusually large because of Mr. Modi's excessive proclivity to over promise--promise the moon, so to say.
The corruption in government began to take significant root during the Indira Gandhi regime. Since then all Central governments have talked a good line on corruption while conveniently looking the other way particularly when their own friends, supporters, MLAs, MPs or Ministers were at the trough--in countless cases illegitimately amassing untold wealth belonging to the people of the country. Modi government has been no different in this regard--the allegations regarding the VYAPAM scandal, Vasundra Raje's son, Amit Shah,s son and Rafale are just some cases in point and there are many others.
Major institutions of government have not escaped the caustic effects of partisan and corrupt politics. Beginning with the Indira Gandhi regime, the government institutions such as the Central Bureau of Investigations and the Enforcement Directorate have been abused against the opposition and its supporters. Modi regime has broken new ground. It has politicised the Reserve Bank of India and undermining its independence.
But at least in one very significant respect Narendra Modi does stand tallest among the Prime Ministers of Independent India.
No, it is not the infamous Godhra riots; for one he was just a chief minister at the time; for another the Congress government at the Center surpassed the butchery of Godhra in the carnage of Sikhs that followed Indira Gandhi's assassination.
It truly is in the crass weaponising of religion in aid of partisan politics that Mr Modi and his regime have no peers. In the annals of post independence India, Modi as PM and his government have been exceptional in this regard. He has turned the weaponisation of religion into a fine and efficient art. For instance of all the cow vigilante incidents since 1947, over 95% of them have taken place since 2014--under the Modi regime. The outfits such as the Bajrang Dal, some of Narendra Modi's ministers and BJP MPs and MLAs have not shied away from stoking the fires of communal hatred. This deliberate weaponisation of religion has targeted Muslims for various trumped up reasons such as allegedly eating or possessing beef or for allegedly transporting cows to slaughter. Dalits, rationalists and dissenting scholars too have been killed. Campaigns such as against love Jihad and for Ghar Vapsi have spread fear among the population.
According to the National News Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms, as of April 2018, as many as 27 BJP MPs and MLA's had outstanding criminal case of hate speech registered against them. Included among them is Uma Bharti facing seven criminal hate speech charges, currently a proud member of Modi's cabinet.
Quite recently another BJP MLA, Vikram Saini, fanned the flames of sectarian hate saying "those who say they feel unsafe and threatened in India should be bombed. Give me a ministry and I will bomb all such people. Not even one will be spared." His remarks were directed at the veteran actor Nasseeruddin Shah who had expressed fears about the plight of his sons in the event of a mob ever asking them about their religion since they wouldn't know how to answer the question; they had not been raised with any particular religion. He had been speaking about the cow vigilante violence in Bulandshahr which had taken the life of a policeman doing his duty to keep the peace. Nasseeruddin had bravely lamented India's sad but stark truth under Modi: "In many places the death of a cow is given more importance than the killing of a police man."
In the face of continuing violence of the cow vigilantes of the Bajrang Dal and other communal fronts, spawned by the poisonous hate unleashed in the last four years, the Prime Minister has deliberately chosen to remain silent. This most deliberate and deafening silence of the Prime Minister has been extremely troubling. If at all he has ever been moved to speak about the religious violence upon the Dalits, Muslims and other victims, his remarks have been perfunctory and without his trademark passion for oratory.
The most profound obligation of the Prime Minister of India is to ensure that at all costs and without fail India's borders and its domestic peace and harmony are fiercely preserved and defended. The office of the Prime Minister bestows, even upon its ordinary occupants, the gravitas to lead in that endeavour. Sadly PM Modi's actions and omissions have allowed the many members and fronts of the BJP and the RSS push India into the worst communal quagmire since 1947. His has been an exceptionally abject failure in protecting India's minorities, its internal peace and amity.
But hope springs eternal. Prime Minister Modi still has a few months of governing left before the national elections; he has a chance to exonerate himself. As the principal and mighty orator of the governing party occupying the PMO, Prime Minister Modi is uniquely equipped to inspire Indians to be guided by their better angels, to douse the communal conflagrations, to bring about peace, prosperity and hope. It is never too late to do the right thing. He should make it his New Year's resolution. Both India and he would be better for it. Here is hoping he cares enough to listen.
@ujjaldosanjh
