RK Laxman’s genius is timeless. Above, as exhibit A in support of that argument, a cartoon dating back to December 2002, and as relevant today as Gujarat prepares for the polls.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has over the past month or so become a permanent fixture in Gujarat, which is fair — it is his home state and his political stronghold. What is interesting is what Modi has been doing in course of his frequent-flier electioneering.
His speeches are no-holds-barred attacks on the Congress party — which, too, is fair, since the Congress is the principal opposition and during election campaigns, if you don’t attack your opponents who are you going to attack? What is fascinating though is the nature of the attacks.
There is the usual reference to corruption, which has an increasingly tired feel to it — the BJP has been in power at the center for over three and a half years now, which by any yardstick is sufficient time to stop talking and do something about it; if you can’t, then these recycled agitations are no more than slander. And to add a degree of difficulty to the sell, Modi is simultaneously being forced to address the Jay Shah issue, which combines both dynasty and corruption in one package.
There is the startling claim that the Congress has consistently hampered development in the state. Startling on two counts: (1) The BJP has been in power in Gujarat for a little over 22 years, with Modi himself heading the government for the major part of that period. To, therefore, blame the Congress for lack of development is not only a leap of illogic, it is an inversion of the argument at the national level that development in India has been stalled because the Congress has been in power for eons. (2) To argue that the Congress has stalled development in the state is to concede that there has been little or no development in the state — and that flies in the face of the famed Gujarat Model that is Modi’s chief claim to administrative fame.
Risibly, Modi even drags in the BJP’s favorite red herring, Nehru, who he says feared the BJP. That gives a whole new meaning to ‘turning over in his grave’, since Nehru died a full 14 years before the BJP was formed. Equally risible — and illuminative — is Modi’s suggestion that the Congress is equally responsible for GST, a statement that takes some unpacking. Is GST the miracle cure for a stagnant economy, as Modi and Arun Jaitley keep claiming? If yes, then it turns out the Congress is not so bad after all. If the GST is a case study of imperfect planning and faulty execution, as its critics say, then Modi’s is the bulk of the blame. So which is it?
Elsewhere, Modi has been launching schemes at the rate of knots. And he is not the only one — Jaitley set the ball rolling with Gujarat-specific GST exemptions; the Vijay Rupani-led state government has chipped in with more. Again, it begs the question: If Gujarat is the highly developed state it is claimed to be, why is there the need for so many election-eve fixes? More to the point, is good governance solely about winning elections? Or, put differently, are those states that do not have elections in the immediate offing not deserving of GST relief measures tailored to their unique needs; of schemes that will aid their rapid development?
On another front, it is an open secret that the BJP spreads money around like confetti to buy up as many of its political opponents as it can. (In this, the party is cleaving to its Hindu roots — ‘daam‘, to buy up, is the second element in the four-pronged strategy set out in Chanakya Neeti.) The latest manifestation came when Patidar leader Narendra Patel spoke of a one crore offer to jump ship. The BJP push-back to this allegation has been strangely muted, where the more obvious — and politically savvy — move would have been to launch an investigation into where the Rs 10 lakh in hard currency Patel flashed at his press meet came from. This lack of concrete action is all the more noticeable given that the ruling dispensation has been using IT raids as its weapon of choice to silence dissent. Rumour — and I’ll emphasize the word rumour because that is all it is at the moment — is that the BJP can’t push back too hard because Narendra Patel videotaped the cash handover, and the Patidar team are holding the evidence in reserve to cut the ground out from under the BJP in the event it makes too much of a fuss.
No election-oriented development of recent times, though, has been quite as startling as this:
Since I was a child I was hearing about a ferry service from Ghogha to Dahej. It was not done all these years because development was never a priority for them. When we got a chance to serve we focussed on all-round development and the ferry is operational today: PM @narendramodi
— PMO India (@PMOIndia) October 22, 2017
Modi inaugurated the roll-on, roll-off ferry on October 22. Even the most fervent critic can find no fault in that — the lifeblood of development is fast, efficient transportation, and any project that cuts transport time is a blessing. However, there are two tiny issues with this particular project: First, its inauguration has been rushed with an eye to the elections and is nowhere near complete. The PM said in his inaugural speech that this is the “first phase”, in which only passenger traffic is possible; the ro-ro element, which facilitates the transportation of large trucks and other goods-carrying vehicles, will only happen later. In other words, what has been inaugurated is a plain vanilla passenger service, no more no less, so to claim it as a ro-ro service is at this present a bit of a reach.
Which brings up the second problem: Modi claimed in his speech that it was the first of its kind, not only in India but across South East Asia. The “first of its kind” claim was duly regurgitated by the media, which in any case has for many years now abdicated its primary responsibility to fact and functions purely as stenographers for whichever dispensation is in power at the moment.
The service, unfortunately for Modi’s tall claim, is not the first of its kind even in India. In other words, Modi lied. Blatantly. Again.
You expect a certain amount of mendacity from politicians on the stump; in the wake of the 2014 national polls, Amit Shah casually brushed off one such example as being nothing more than an “election jumla”, not to be taken seriously.
What is worrying, therefore, is not the “jumlas” that proliferate in the silly season, not even when it has been weaponized to the extent Modi has done, but the increasing lack of reaction from the public. Even a couple of decades ago, a politician caught out in a blatant lie would have had an uncomfortable time of it; the outrage — both in the media and among the electorate — would have been immediate, and profound.
Today, however, lies — even when propagated relentlessly by a head of government who never misses a chance to sink to the occasion — result in nothing more than a dull, resigned indifference. That indifference is, in itself, a form of collusion. And in this era where fakery has been given political legitimacy, this collective indifference of ours is no more, no less than collusion.
Shouldn’t we expect more from those who lead us?
There is a lot more that happened during my time away from the blog, but I’ll get to all that later. For now, I’ll leave you with this video I found on Twitter yesterday, and which to me summarizes what life feels like at times like this:
Olağanüstü bir Performans.. pic.twitter.com/2uuvKa5SjF
— Fuat (@fguzfguz) October 21, 2017
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