Prime Minister Modi’s comments in the run-up to 2019 hold answers about his agenda.
Narendra Modi’s well-known penchant for dressing up has often included his headgear – note the flowing turbans each time he speaks at Red Fort – but the attention to detail in the last few weeks has been nothing short of remarkable.
At the 75th anniversary of the Azad Hind Fauj government, Modi donned the cap made famous by Subhas Chandra Bose and hoisted the tricolour at the Red Fort to commemorate the occasion.
Second, we saw how the PM, announcing the nuclear triad (he called it a “triangle”) earlier this week at the completion of nuclear submarine INS Arihant’s first successful deterrence patrol, submitted himself to a submariner’s cap, on the side of which was written “Pradhan Mantri”.
And then on Diwali, as he felicitated Indian army jawans and those belonging to the ITBP in Harsil, Uttarakhand, his maroon cap with “PM” nattily embroidered on the side was unmistakable.
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But as Narendra Modi wades into political battle to defend his first term as prime minister, the question that all Indians have begun to ask is: Does the cap fit?
There are four noteworthy aspects to the PM’s recent comments. The first is his emphasis on the defence of the country. Modi doesn’t use Indira Gandhi’s infamous “foreign hand” phrase, but the meaning is the same.
The nuclear triad will keep India’s borders secure from enemies outside and he, Narendra Modi, will ensure that that happens.
Second, Modi believes that it is only the BJP that has made India strong. At the INS Arihant event, he invoked the names of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former President Abdul Kalam and lauded their contribution to India’s nuclear and missile development.
But there is no sharing of credit with Nehru, Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi or I.K. Gujral or Deve Gowda or Chandra Shekhar and Charan Singh. If it weren’t for these redoubtable men and women who protected India’s nuclear and missile programmes from sanction-happy Western eyes, would Vajpayee have been able to go nuclear in 1998?
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Third, just as the Nehru-Gandhi family went about littering India with its own names, Modi is intent on creating his own legacy. This involves, on the one hand, an embrace of historical personalities like Sardar Patel, who (or so Modi believes) was downright critical of Nehru and his politics; and there is the righting of so-called historical wrongs, by renaming of old cities like Allahabad and Faizabad.
Fourth, and this is most significant, Modi believes that his emphasis on security matters will distract from the most important matter at hand, which is the fragile state of the economy. In the last few weeks, the RBI has moved to assert its independence. Now, we also know that the RBI wasn’t as sanguine about demonetisation in the first place, back in November 2016.
Two years on, Modi is pretending as if the currency cataclysm never took place. There has been not a single tweet by the PM on the subject, as noted by my colleague Ruhi Tewari in ThePrint. Apart from a Facebook post by finance minister Arun Jaitley, the BJP led by the PM has ignored the disaster completely.
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Can the rest of us forget as easily? Should we remember that the BJP parliamentary party, on 22 November 2016 passed a resolution lauding the move and heaping praise on the PM? That the resolution was moved by home minister Rajnath Singh and then I&B minister (and now vice-president) Venkaiah Naidu?
“The BJP acknowledges this initiative as a national project of cleansing the system and of great significance that will usher in behavioural and attitudinal changes encouraging honesty in personal and public life, particularly political life. This will benefit the poor and the common man in several ways,” the resolution said.
But neither Rajnath Singh nor Venkaiah Naidu nor external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj has said a word on the matter this year. Amit Shah has merely tweeted all of Jaitley’s messages, leading some to believe that Jaitley may become the fall guy for this disastrous move.
Question is, will the coming state elections be a referendum on Modi’s economic behaviour?
I don’t think the average Indian worries about the defence of the country. 1971 erased the pain of 1962. India’s nuclear deterrence started on 18th May 1974. Successive governments have built upon that capability. There is also no objective reason for India to initiate – or be subjected to – a full fledged war, on one or two fronts. If anything, there have been opportunities for peace with Pakistan that we have allowed to slip away, with Kashmir going from bad to worse. 2. The economy is, of course, becalmed. Difficult to think of a single praiseworthy initiative that voters will reward. GST would have passed during UPA rule itself, but for an obdurate opposition. The bankruptcy code is just about beginning to work. Beyond economics, women’s safety, education, healthcare, the quality of governance in about twenty states where the party is in power, nothing has lived up to the promises made in the 2014 campaign. 3. The one difference is that, five years ago, the challenger was tearing into a government that had lost its will to power. The media was doing its job. Today, on fuel prices or the fall in the rupee, which had come in for such trenchant criticism, the opposition has been mild, the media muted. That may be providing a false sense of comfort. It is not that Indians have forgotten how to evaluate governments or how to vote. So the columnist’s questions will answer themselves in a few months.