It’s a maha change

It would not be too hyperbolic to say that the elections in Maharashtra have radically altered the political landscape of the country. The BJP had never dreamt of getting the single largest party status in the state. They got emboldened only after the Lok Sabha election. It was Narendra Modi’s audacity that led to the break up with the Shiv Sena, and not the so-called stubbornness on the part of Uddhav Thackeray. Like all totalitarians in history, he wants to establish total control over the country and its systems.

The RSS will celebrate its 90th anniversary next year. It will be a huge, frenzied event with an unprecedented extravaganza and a high decibel announcement of the Hindu Rashtra, within “constitutional limits”, of course. The BJP won all the six seats in Nagpur, the headquarters of the RSS. The ideological position of the RSS, the high command of the Modi government, is that there is no difference between being Hindu and being Indian. All those who live in India are, by definition, Hindus. So there is no contradiction and no threat to Muslims or to any other religious community.

This diabolical logic and dubious distortion of history will now be spread by the media, particularly the notorious social media, to create a conducive atmosphere for this ideology. In this communally divisive environment, the election in Bihar and then in Bengal and Uttar Pradesh will be held. Since Congress has yet to recover from its political arthritis, it will not be able to fight back. The saffron juggernaut will then conquer the East and North.

Neither Mr Modi nor the RSS want to leave any empty space for the liberal and secular ideology. Till 2019, Mahatma Gandhi will be quoted time and again, to give a false impression that India under Modi’s dispensation is Gandhian! It is ironic that the 90th RSS anniversary year will be Pandit Nehru’s 125th birth anniversary year. Modi has also announced programmes for Gandhiji’s 150th birth anniversary year, 2019. But Modi’s programmes for Gandhiji’s birth anniversary will not promote the idea of Ishwar Allah Tero Nam-Sab ko Sanmati de Bhagwan but only Swacch Bharat, instead of compassionate and secular humanism. Mr Modi had asked that he be given just 60 months to clear the mess of 60 years, which would make the country “Congress-mukt”. Of these 60 months, six months have passed.

The only things that have been done are the continuation of the UPA schemes, including the much-marketed Swacch Bharat, which is just another name for the panchayat-driven healthy village scheme. The magnificent Mars Orbiter Mission was launched Dr Manmohan Singh, scientific research was done by Vikram Sarabhai and carried out by Isro, the organisation launched and built by Pandit Nehru and Indira Gandhi. The Aadhaar card project and the Jan Dhan Yojana were twin projects initiated by Nandan Nilekani and P. Chidam-baram. The Clean Ganga project was the unfinished agenda of Rajiv Gandhi.

Be that as it may. The only “new” initiatives that have become visible are communal in nature. Whether the test marketing of Hindutva-driven text books in Gujarat or the live broadcast of Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat’s speech and building a huge statue of Vallabhbhai Patel. With Maharashtra and Haryana in tow, Mr Modi will continue his march, as stated above till 2017. But the murmurs of protest and discomfort in the party and in the RSS have started. The critics within are upset that Modi is trying to project himself above the Cabinet, the party and the RSS. The party used to shout from the housetops that it was against personality cults. Now it looks pathetic or non-existent.

The ministers, as well as senior bureaucrats live in a state of permanent fear psychosis of Big Brother and are voiceless. George Orwell’s 1984 has been realised in India after 30 years. But just as the Nazi Germany and Iron Curtain Russia failed, Mr Modi’s India too cannot come under the saffron straitjacket. The media has created an illusion that cannot last long. A reality check will begin from within the party itself. Though the Sangh Parivar was looking for its own Fuehrer, the politicians in the BJP are brought up in the multi-polar Indian democracy. In the UK, the so-called Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, too became so overbearing to the party and the system that she had to step down unceremoniously.

Today, Mr Modi and Amit Shah are ruling as if there are no other centres of power. The Cabinet is marginalised, and all ministry-related committees, including those related to defence and security, are sidelined; the party leadership neutralised, BJP MPs reduced to lifeless creatures who rise only to raise their hands, and the media treated with disdain. The claustrophobia being experienced by Mr Modi’s party men and allies will start imploding in about three years.

The Emergency Regime had started cracking up from within. But Mrs Gandhi was sensitive enough to feel the internal heat and decided to call for elections without even discussing the idea with Sanjay Gandhi and many others who thought they were close to her. Modi, who has no one other than Shah, has no kitchen Cabinet. Unlike Nehru, he has not created a second and third command of competent people.

Modi’s style is that of a ringmaster. We saw how he addressed and treated MPs in the first meeting after the elections. The top defence brass was treated the same way when he laid out his so-called defence strategy a few days ago. He does not exchange ideas, does not consult, does not discuss with peers and carries on as if he knows everything and has the answers to all problems. According to one unpublished but widely circulated report even President Obama was dumbstruck by the unwarranted audacity of the man and wondered, “Is he the Prime Minister of India?”

Well, he is and will remain till 2019 at least. The question is not ‘what after 2019?’ The real question is ‘what till 2019?’ That is a newer-futuristic question which neither his worshippers on the social or other media want to answer nor his critics. There is no opposition to give confidence to the people nor any institution to bear the cross. Then we will witness not the so called “functioning anarchy” that legendary scholar-diplomat John Kenneth Galbraith saw in India in the sixties, but the free fall into “dysfunctional anarchy!”

The writer is a journalist and  commentator. Views are his own.