National

Tea Going Cold Fast

Has the PM become a man caught in his own hype, wooing the world but quite losing the plot at home?

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Tea Going Cold Fast
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We can examine the economic figures but we cannot ignore the tea leaves. The self-proclaimed chaiwala has, after all, become a world statesman, shaking hands with world leaders and examining, up close and personal, statues in foreign lands. A year after that dizzy moment when we wrote in Outlook that “India has shifted on its axis”, we must ask if the Supreme Leader of May 26, 2014, has recogni­sed the limits to his power. Is he now stuck in a particular axis made of his own hype, trapped between the great expectati­ons of those with lots of money and the rising apprehensions of those with very little.

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Narendra Modi became the main contender for the PM’s post—overriding resistance within the BJP and NDA—because of his own mega ambitions and multi-crore backing from the corporate sector. His ‘Gujarat model’ essentially showcased a tough administrator, ready to make things easy for big business, from acquiring land to silencing dissenters. By the time Modi extended his writ to the Sangh parivar, he had transformed the BJP from being a party of traders (who significantly voted AAP in a megapolis like Delhi) to one that would have to answer to corporate raiders!

The expectation of the money managers (who invest in the stockmarket) therefore was that Modi’s coming would set off a “boom”, not because of any particular improvement in the economy per se, but because of the image of a ruthless pro-reform administrator. That has not happened because in all the hype of the election campaign last year, the existence of the upper house of Parliament, which reflects state clout, had been forgotten. Now the Rajya Sabha is remembered every day as the ambitions of the regime get stalled there. The slow pace of policy-making, logjam on the land acquisition bill plus tougher laws on black money (which appeals to the traditional RSS cadre) is spooking investors. Rec­ent statements and editorials written by the likes of Arun Shourie, Sub­ra­manian Swamy and Tavleen Singh (all of whom began as self-proclaimed admirers of Modi) reflect that disenchantment with the policy direction.

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There have been many opinions and stories about Modi’s first year, some assessing this sector or that. But in the micro details we cannot lose sight of the basic fact that big capital put in money into the most expensive campaign in India’s history (and possibly the world) and they want their returns quickly or else they will start looking at other opt­ions if things drag on. There are no free lunches at the high table of politics, world diplomacy, big business. The Modi regime’s stubborn determination to app­arently consider calling a special joint session of Parliament to pass the ame­n­ded land laws is less about the det­ails of what that legislation would achieve on the ground. It’s actua­lly become a prestige issue; a test case to show the world and India that PM Modi means business and can get it done! It’s on land that the great faultlines will emerge and the cracks get larger.

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What Has Worked For Modi And What Has Not

  • No-nonsense image of hardworking administrator with clean track record as chief minister
  • Persona of self-made ‘chaiwala’ who is pro growth and reforms
  • Excellent oratorical skills and 360-degree communication strategy across mainstream and social media
  • The much-vaunted Gujarat Model which voters, investors, businessmen and corporates bought into
  • Ability to engage with the world despite a seeming lack of English-language proficiency
  • Apparent understanding of complex economic issues to create growth, employment
  • Strong pro-Hindutva image with clear-eyed view of direction India should go in
  • A near-dead opposition within BJP, RSS and outside, till AAP win and Rahul Gandhi revival
  • Falling global oil prices
  • Response to floods in Kashmir, earthquake in Nepal
 
  • Overcentralised leadership, with PMO having a say in everything, resulting in delays, bad vibes
  • BJP’s low bench strength hampers the kind of people he can bank upon to deliver results in immediate term
  • Weighed down by two lacklustre budgets from Arun Jaitley and other retrograde steps from Fin Min
  • Lack of trust in ministerial, party colleagues; inability to built bridges with non-embedded media
  • Silence on pet themes of Sangh parivar outfits; disdain for institutions and constitutional norms
  • Operating in election campaign mode long after victory, delivering hollow homilies and silly slogans
  • Difference between the middle-class impulses of mercantile Gujarat and rest of India
  • Land bill, labour reforms have exposed him to charge of being anti-poor, anti-working class
  • Obsessed with sartorial appearances, inviting Rahul Gandhi’s jibe of “suit-boot ki sarkar”
  • Clear Gujarati imprint in choice of bureaucrats, industrialist friends.

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The problem with the proposed land laws is not what it will actually do or not do. In a time when unseasonal rains have damaged crops in northern India, when an agrarian crisis has been in the making for some years, it will become the lightning rod for rural discontent, and thereby the smartest stick to beat the government with. Why, even yoga guru Baba Ramdev has stated last week that the government has become ‘arrogant’ and must shed its ‘anti-farmer’ image. (He also had words of praise for Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal although last year Ramdev was likening Modi to a mythological demi-god).

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It’s just bad politics to appear to be anti-poor and hence a schizophrenia has set in. The Modi regime must try and appear to be what it is not: one that puts the interests of the less fortunate sections of society above all else. It will mark its first year by a week of campaigns to highlight what the government has done for the poor. They will talk of the insurance scheme, the Atal pension yojana, skill development and so on. Partymen have been told that Modi’s speech made on May 20 last year in the central hall of Parliament is the template of the message he wishes to amplify now with a heighte­ned sense of urgency.

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In that very polished performance, Modi had said: “It is the power of our Constitution that a poor person belonging to a poor and deprived family is standing here today.” Later he said that “a government is one which thinks about the poor, listens to the poor and which exists for the poor”. That is the sort of rhetoric we can expect when Modi visits Deen Dayal Dham in Mathura to mark the first anniversary of his government. The great irony, perhaps, is that Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, one of the ideological icons of the BJP, was a promoter of swadeshi. But Modi shall invoke his name although he is most visible as a prime minister in pursuit of foreign capital in foreign capitals!

Still, it is noteworthy that after a year, the PM, government and party have found it imperative to begin a campaign that says “we love the poor”! The stated necessity for such posturing, pamphleteering and publicity is obviously the suited-booted charge that has been levelled on the Modi set-up. Modi must now stoop to try and conquer the poor.

Or at least keep up an appearance of doing so while he tries to push through economic legislation of his liking. Stuck between rich benefactors and poor voters, Modi and his team must from now onwards pull off a trapeze act.

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The storm clouds are gathering. If Modi had a spell of good luck with low oil prices a year ago, that’s steadily going up and will cause inflation. There is therefore a potential triple whammy of rising US interest rates (which can pull investments from around the world back into the US economy), crop failure in northern India besides rising crude oil prices that the Modi government will have to negotiate. In the midst of all that, the PM is being criticised for travelling the world wearing striking clothes and expensive shades but he is actually trying to attract foreign capital from countries like Korea and China to counter international money managers, those whose interest may be dwindling.

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The other intriguing dilemma after a year of power is whether the BJP is in the midst of scaling back its mighty national ambitions. Will it therefore revert to a Vajpayee-type model that settles for political cooperation from some regional parties in exchange for various quid pro quos—that can involve anything from making criminal cases go away, or keeping up the heat before they are made to go away and so on? In return, the regional party would be expected to be “less hostile” in the Rajya Sabha. There is no doubt that the government at the Centre is hoping for greater “cooperation” from J. Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu, and from Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal. The third formidable lady who also faces criminal cases is Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh although leveraging her seems more difficult. Also, such understandings are always nebulous as politicians understand self-interest above all else. A Mamata may be polite to the PM at a time when her party leaders confront serious charges. But on the ground in Bengal, the BJP is still straining to grow and will be in the fight when assembly elections take place in less than a year. As for Mayawati, the BJP will be trying to break her Dalit votebank when that critical assembly election takes place in 2017. The greatest scope for “friendly” gestures is from Jayalalitha as the BJP has nothing much to lose or gain in Tamil Nadu. But even that would be an erratic arrangement at best, so the going in Parliament will continue to be challenging for some time.

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But if things start going wrong, in the case of Narendra Modi and his team, the real danger lies within. Modi did manage to have a semblance of control over the RSS and its frontal organisatons, but for how long?

Will party president Amit Shah carry the same clout if they lose Bihar, after the disaster in Delhi? What about the so-called ‘fringe’ elements who are very much part of the “mainstream” that propped Modi up during the inner parivar deliberations? It is no accident that tickets were given in Uttar Pradesh to two sadhvis, one yogi and one swami, all of whom won and have since made embarrassing statements.

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But they were each hand-picked by Modi’s man Amit Shah. This is what lurks within the BJP, and regardless of the PM’s not-so-strong admonitions against communal statements, such forces have their own ambitions and agendas for India. Modi must know by now when they are an asset, when a liability. And if an ordered, incremental approach to governance fails, he must also know that they are useful for certain polarisations that have always been part of the BJP and Modi arsenal.

And Modi too has made some memorable blunders, one just on the eve of his first anniversary in Delhi. Every morning the PM is handed sheets of paper that show the Twitter feeds of several accounts. He reads them first before getting to the newspaper clippings. He would know therefore that he has faced a serious onslaught on social media for his remarks made outside India that “There was a time when Indians would be ashamed and say what sins did we commit in our last life to be born Indian in this one. Is this any country?”

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Obviously Modi was trying to tell nris that with him at the helm, the golden age is dawning. By now, the PM must know that even his own supporters were embarrassed by his hyperbole. (Imagine if he had worn the pin-striped suit with his name on it and uttered such words). The going can only get harder for Modi and his team, as there are truths beyond simple electoral majorities in India. But unlike our prime minister, some of us never feel “ashamed” of our country although we can worry about the direction in which it is headed.

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