Narendra Modi’s dilemma after Pulwama: To respond as a PM or PM candidate?

In the last five years, Modi and his government strove hard to maintain his pre-May 2014 persona, characterised by bravado, bombast and bluster.

India's policy on nuclear deterrence has killed Pakistan's fantasy of pre-emptive nuke strikes. But Narendra Modi has erred in changing a successful script, and trivialising it in the elections campaign | PTI / File photo

If governance could be summed up in numbers, the BJP would have won the 2019 Lok Sabha elections already — that is if we go by what the ruling party’s leaders have been claiming at public and party meetings about the beneficiaries of the NDA government’s schemes.

Look at the stats: 50 crore covered under Ayushman Bharat health insurance, 12 crore under the PM-KISAN yojana, 22 crore under other schemes. And there are at least 11 crore BJP members. Even if one discards half of these numbers to adjust overlaps and boasts, there is practically no electoral contest left. Mind you, the BJP had got only 17 crore votes in 2014 when it got a clear majority in the Lok Sabha.

But, no matter how much BJP leaders might desire it, stats are loyal to none. As the BJP’s ‘Kautilya’ Amit Shah often says— sometimes to make light of media analyses/assumptions — politics is not arithmetic; it’s chemistry. That explains the BJP sending the list of 22 crore beneficiaries to its booth-level workers with instructions to reach out to them—to try and make chemistry out of arithmetic.

The BJP’s problem, however, is not chemistry; it’s psychology and to an extent, geography and sociology.

Geography

Traditionally a north Indian party, the BJP has now expanded its footprints in the northeast but hasn’t made much headway in the south, except in Karnataka, and in Kerala, howsoever notionally. In West Bengal and Odisha, the saffron party has got a surge, but can’t expect much in the 2019 general elections unless its leaders start believing their own propaganda about the party being set to get 23 and 6 Lok Sabha seats respectively in these two states. The BJP sympathisers may, however, argue that these geographical constraints were there in 2014, too.

Sociology

The coming together of non-BJP parties in states—mostly representative of particular castes and communities — makes sociology a factor in the BJP’s politics. But how it will play out in the elections depends on the psychological state of the voters when they reach the voting stations: are they still hung up on the Modi of yore, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate who had a magic wand and promised them the moon? Or, have they come to terms with the Modi of today, probably a lesser mortal but real?

If the first weighs on their minds on the voting day, there could be trouble for the BJP. The party may fumble for answers on many counts, especially jobs. People were thrilled when then BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Modi had told them that if the black money stashed outside the country were to be brought back—which he promised he would—every poor Indian would get ‘for free’ Rs 15-20 lakh.

After the elections and BJP’s historic win, Amit Shah once clarified that Modi’s promise was a “jumla (idiom)” and the party’s leaders have since skirted this topic. Three studies on black money commissioned by the government threw up wide variations in the amount of black money stashed abroad.

A back-of-the-envelope calculation of the highest estimation of unaccounted wealth held by Indians offshore —US $490 billion divided among estimated 1.30 billion population at the exchange rate of Rs 71 per dollar—suggests that every Indian could get about Rs 26,767 in her account if Modi were to deliver on his poll promise. Therefore, the question here is: Would a farmer who got Rs 2,000 as the first of the three instalments in her bank account after Prime Minister Modi launched PM-KISAN scheme Sunday be happy with what she has got or would she find it too little, too late? Judging by the opposition party’s reaction, people may have short memories. Former finance minister P. Chidambaram vented out his frustration in a tweet early Sunday morning: “Today is the ‘Cash for Vote’ day…. The BJP government will officially give a bribe of Rs 2,000 per agricultural family to get their votes.”

Psychology

Independent surveys of Prime Minister Modi’s popularity rating suggest that people are getting increasingly disillusioned with him.

But he has himself to blame for that. In the past 56 months, he, his party and his government have strived hard to maintain that pre-May 2014 persona of his, which was characterised by the 3 Bs- bravado, bombast and bluster. Blame it on frequent assembly elections, the transition from a prime ministerial candidate into an incumbent in terms of public perception and expectations wasn’t seen as necessary.

This has come to haunt the saffron party as PM Narendra Modi is confronted with a difficult decision days ahead of the Lok Sabha poll announcement: India’s response to Pulwama terror attack. His choice has to be dictated by cold reason, but the prime minister himself is bringing passions into play when he talks of revenge and “fire in the heart” at public rallies, obviously to live up to his pre-May 2014 image and persona.

Modi may not be a trained psychologist, but he is known to read people’s minds well. He knows better if, on a vital national security issue, people would want him to behave like the prime minister of India or a prime ministerial wannabe that he was five years ago.