Fifth column: Modi loses control
Rahul Gandhi gave Narendra Modi a lecture last week on how to behave like a Prime Minister.
Written by Tavleen Singh, a leading Columnist associated with The Indian Express.
Rahul Gandhi gave Narendra Modi a lecture last week on how to behave like a Prime Minister. He should know. Right? His family has ruled India for nearly all her years as a modern nation state, and by the laws of democratic feudalism, it should have been his turn to claim his heritage last summer. Mummy had been de facto prime minister for 10 years, and in that time, had neutralised every opposition leader but for the uppity ‘chaiwallah’ from Gujarat. A decade of demonising him as a ‘merchant of death’ had failed, and the wretched people of India chose to believe the hated upstart when he told them India needed change and development, and he would make these things happen.
What Modi did not notice when he made his electoral promises were the many, many people who had a solid vested interest in preventing ‘parivartan’ and ‘vikas’. Democratic feudalism could not have existed without the support of a powerful conglomerate of leftists, high officials and ‘socialist’ industrialists. The last thing they want is change. India suits them best if the majority of her people remain mired in poverty, illiteracy, dirt and disease. When ‘parivartan’ happens in these areas, it creates a middle class that becomes demanding and difficult. So in the name of the ‘secular, socialist’ Republic of India, nothing must change. How clever Rahul’s granny was when she used the Emergency to slip these two words into the Constitution.
Once Modi showed signs that he meant change to happen, the vested interests started working against him. Within weeks of his becoming Prime Minister, murmurs began about how there were no signs of ‘achche din’. They became louder when huge audiences applauded him on his foreign tours, so more murmurings about him being a non-resident Prime Minister began to resound. Once he made the mistake of wearing that ludicrous suit, our Heir Apparent of yore gleefully started chanting ‘suit-boot ki sarkar’ wherever he went, and charged Modi with working only for the rich. Guided by his socialist advisors, he added that he himself would always stand beside workers and peasants, not rich people. What nobody has asked him, yet, is why his family has done so little to improve their miserable lot in long decades of ruling India.
Modi’s slogans would have had no resonance if they had. But if today he appears to have lost control of the narrative, it is his own fault. His first mistake was to not share with the people just how bad the economy was when he became Prime Minister and why urgent reforms were needed. Other than the abolition of the Planning Commission, there have been few reforms, and here he moved only halfway by allowing the NITI Aayog to continue to be hamstrung by planning-minded officials. His next mistake was not making urgent administrative reforms, and then he made the crucial mistake of keeping the national media at such a distance that not even his achievements get the publicity they deserve.
There is a clear, new policy in
Kashmir that seeks to reduce the international space for Pakistan and its proxies like the Hurriyat. In the moribund Defence Ministry, there are finally signs of life. In foreign policy there have been some excellent changes as there have been in the social sector. But these things have gone mostly unnoticed by the media because of the impenetrable walls that surround the Prime Minister’s Office. Most journalists covering government and politics in Delhi have no idea who to call if they want the Prime Minister’s view on something. An annual media gathering like the one last week is no use to either the media or the Prime Minister, and that monologue on Mann ki Baat is simply no use at all. The narrative has slipped out of Modi’s hands so completely that this ludicrous debate on ‘growing intolerance’ has become possible.
If he wants to put ‘parivartan’ and ‘vikas’ at the top of the national agenda, then he must begin by appointing a media team in the PMO under a skilled media advisor. With more than 350 hungry 24-hour news channels and more than 300 million Indians with access to the Internet, never has a Prime Minister more desperately needed a full team to deal with the media. And there is not even a press secretary in place.
It is this lack of communication that has allowed the narrative to change so much that there is more attention paid to 44 (sorry 45 now)
Congress MPs, than there is to a Prime Minister with the first full majority in 30 years. Since the choice is between real change and a return to democratic feudalism, it is bad news not just for Narendra Modi but for India, so please, Prime Minister, can you get on with what you need to do.
