The seventies sweepstakes is on a roll with the PM’s buttoned-up kurtas (much like his style guru—superstar Rajesh Khanna). And, if all this is not enough of a reminder of that decade, here’s more of the old faff-over-substance policy: like Indira, Modi loves to don the ethnic clothes of every state he visits, from the gigantic wild-boar-tusk headgear of Nagaland to the Ladakhi goncha to soaring peacock feathers in Manipur, preferring theatrics over actual work. Then there’s the moral lessons in cleanliness and godliness in public life; and experiments with benevolent punishment. Recall also the public sniggers at the hundreds of babus and lowly clerks who were forced to come out on Gandhi Jayanti to sweep their offices, including toilets, though the Swachh spirit has all but evaporated from government offices. And just like the late and lucked-out Sanjay Gandhi, Modi also has a fetish for a soldierly workforce of bureaucrats, officers and clerks even as his ministers and administration sit befuddled with no power or work. No wonder, for our PM also believes in Soviet-style centralisation of work. And forget those free markets and private enterprise slogans. Now it’s back to good old Indira-style PSUs (public sector undertakings)—from mammoth state oil refineries to steel plants—succumbing to the demands of the Sangh ideology of a bucolic swadeshi economy.