Nobody knows what Narendra Modi is thinking. Surely, he must sense the tide is turning

As the discontentment mounts, the crucial question remains: what is the PM thinking? He is a shrewd politician so he must have a long-term strategy. But no one can figure out what it is.

Modi's middle-class supporters are no longer as starry-eyed as they once were | Image for representation | Photo: X/@narendramodi

Despite the bad press his government has received over the last few weeks, it is always a mistake to underestimate Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He is still the single most popular politician in India and easily one of the shrewdest. He has usually been at least three moves ahead of his opponents (well, okay, maybe not in the last couple of months or so), and each of his decisions surprises politicians and commentators because no one can predict what he is going to do next.

What is easier to notice, especially after the last general election, is how the Prime Minister’s supporters are reacting to his performance. And his relationships with other branches of the government — the judiciary, for example — are out in the open for us all to observe.

This makes it clear that among all of Narendra Modi’s supporters, the middle class is the most disenchanted. It’s true that many middle-class people voted for the BJP because of its Hindutva agenda, but it is wrong to suggest that every Modi supporter is a closet (or even, open) communalist. Many members of the educated middle class supported the BJP because they genuinely believed that it would promote development and reward those who worked hard to try and turn India into the global super-power that Modi often talked about.

 

Diminishing returns for voters

The middle class’s disillusionment with Narendra Modi began during the last general election campaign. Occasionally, Modi did say something that appealed to them but all the big speeches, the ones that set the tone of the campaign and were most covered by the government’s tame electronic media, were the attack speeches.

The overwhelming theme of the Prime Minister’s campaign was negative. The BJP has repeatedly asserted that the Congress is now a party of no consequence but that message seemed to have not reached the Prime Minister. Many of his speeches were straight-out attacks on the Congress, with innumerable distortions of its manifesto promises forming a large part of his message.

To these attacks was added a communal subtext. Not only was the Congress going to snatch the mangalsutras off the necks of Hindu women and confiscate the buffaloes of poor farmers, all of these were then going to be given to Muslims.

There were times in the past when this message may have had an impact. But this election was not one of them. The educated middle class, which had hoped for some promise of better days, was put off by the talk of buffalo-snatching and the nakedly communal subtext.

You could perhaps argue that politicians need to say emotive things to win elections. But when they actually get to office, they implement policies that please their core constituency.

Well, maybe. But in that case, Modi does not see the BJP-supporting middle class as his core constituency.

The Budget, which should have been an opportunity to reassure and encourage this class, gave it virtually nothing. Instead, the tax proposals ignored middle-class concerns. And when the rollback of a punitive tax proposal came, after public protests, it was so half-hearted and so grudging that it did nothing to cheer up the middle class.

Since then, the government has continued to act as though the middle class does not matter; only its fat-cat pals do. All over social media, there is widespread anger about the revelation that a small proportion of taxpayers (around 2 per cent of our population) pay more income tax than the entire corporate sector does on its vast earnings.

It would have been easy enough for the BJP to fight the Congress’s charge that the government is in the pockets of oligarchs by reaching out to help the middle class. But for some reason, it has chosen to deliberately add to the perception that this is a government that reserves ‘tax terrorism’ (a phrase used even by some BJP supporters) for the honest taxpayer while letting its fat-cat cronies make thousands of crores.

When you offer nothing to the middle class except for negativity and communal hatred, the disillusionment that follows also leads it to look at the rest of your performance more critically. Why, people ask, do trains keep derailing? Why are new roads and bridges cracking? Why are expensive new statues collapsing? Why do we have so few friends in our neighbourhood?

They also notice how you misuse central agencies to serve political ends. This is not a new phenomenon: the government has used laws such as the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to threaten and arrest opponents for years. But now, people are paying more attention than before. And the Supreme Court is no exception. The comments in the court over the last few days about the denial of bail to people against whom the primary evidence is the word of former accused—who have now been pardoned in return for their testimony— strike at the heart of the BJP’s persecution of the opposition. Judges who have uncritically accepted the government line now face more scrutiny.

Once the government loses the power to lock people up for long periods without bothering with a trial, it frees the opposition from the fear of arbitrary arrests and threats of jail time.

In the early days when things were going well, the middle class was content to let politicians be arrested on the grounds that it believed that all politicians are crooks anyway.

But now, it is asking the obvious questions. Are there no crooks in the BJP? What kind of governance is this when the people you once told us were racketeers have their sins washed away and all cases dropped the moment they join the BJP?

 

What’s Modi going to do?

As the discontentment mounts, the crucial question remains: what is the Prime Minister thinking? He is a shrewd and experienced politician so he must have a long-term strategy. But no one can figure out what it is.

At present, the only strategy visible is to attack, attack, and attack. The BJP IT cell may no longer reflect the views of the Prime Minister but the tone of its posts is uniformly accusatory and negative. The party’s keyboard warriors continue to be semi-literate and abusive. When there are protests (against the shocking RG-Kar rape in Kolkata, for instance), the strategy is to use violence to provoke the police.

Is any of this really necessary? Does it even help? Why not just listen to the honest salaried people of this country, many of whom voted for Modi because they thought he believed in them and their values? Why not take their concerns seriously? Why not offer them some relief from the intolerable tax burden? If you can be so generous to the oligarchs, then the middle class deserves a few crumbs at least.

As I said, nobody knows what Narendra Modi is thinking. Presumably, all this has occurred to him. He must also sense that the tide is turning.

The question is: what does he plan to do about it?

Vir Sanghvi is a print and television journalist, and talk show host. He tweets @virsanghvi. Views are personal.

(Edited by Asavari Singh)