We are yet to ascertain if Narendra Modi is mythopoeia; whether he is a colossus which will breathe only in the hopes of his bhaktas . It is quite early. But people, who are acquainted with Gujarat and how he ran his administration there, know — like water diviners — the direction of his flow.
Some of that flow is evident in New Delhi as well. Presiding as the deity of the Raisina Hills, Modi’s image is that of a prime minister who has absolute control over his flock of ministers. He sometimes sits on a chair kept on an elevated platform, godman-like, while the ministers try to understand if there are any hidden, life-altering messages for them. Contrast them to an image, circulating on the social media, of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, sitting around an oval table with his ministers — so non-descript, and identifiable only by his sky-blue turban.
In the run-up to prime ministership, Modi was all caps. He had an opinion on everything — he was like the Mahesh Bhatt of primetime politics. He had his pie charts and statistics all decked up, just like his kurtas .
And now, suddenly, he has gone silent. It is as if the only thing on his mind is to prepare a detailed brief for Troy Costa, who is designing his wardrobe for his U.S. trip next month.
Meanwhile, India goes on, as usual. There is stone-pelting in Kashmir. The Shiv Sena is at its rowdy best, force-feeding poor mess supervisors. A Sangh Parivar lackey thinks stem cells can be preserved in pure ghee. Rains create Euphrates of vehicles on Mumbai roads. In Gujarat, Maya Kodnani is out on bail. Jilted lovers throw acid on women. Girls go missing in Uttar Pradesh. There are more antibiotics than protein in chicken. Illegal buildings are collapsing. Vegetable prices are soaring. Nobody has a clue about 39 Indians stuck in Iraq (or are they in Syria now?).
But at least Jeet Bahadur is happy. He has been reunited with his family in Nepal, thanks to Modi.
No such reunion, unfortunately, is now possible between the Gandhi family and Natwar Singh after the publication of his book. Using “venomous” among other adjectives to describe Sonia Gandhi, Singh said no Indian would have treated him the way Mrs. Gandhi did (by ending his political career). He also termed Rahul Gandhi as a “good person”, but added that he didn’t have the fire in his belly to be a politician.
That is old news, at least for the Congress walas . They have known it for long, but lacked the courage to say it. But after the last elections, the murmurs have grown a bit loud, beside the occasional outburst. But they all agree — including Natwar Singh — that without the Gandhis as anchor, the Congress will disintegrate into “five factions”.
Sonia Gandhi has now promised to write a book, her own account, she says, in response to Natwar Singh’s comments. It is interesting to see, however, how both Mrs. Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, it seems, have been cautioning each other — he on the possibility of her becoming prime minister in 2004 and her on him being made the party’s vice-president in 2013. “Power is poison,” she apparently told him.
But even the shot of power failed to rev up Rahul Gandhi.
The Aam Aadmi Party, after tasting power in Delhi for 49 days, gave it up willingly in February this year. That proved to be a disaster, as the voters signalled to them in the Lok Sabha elections. Arvind Kejriwal and his comrades are now trying to salvage the situation; they are treading cautiously.
But all eyes are on Narendra Modi. In villages, in towns, in cities, both his supporters and detractors wait for acche din . So far it is not measuring up to the nation’s gross domestic expectation. The only place where India is shining currently is on Modi’s designer kurtas .
