Diktats on institutions: PM Modi needs to be a better strategist to make development agenda work

By Harish Nambiar

Celebrated English novelist DH Lawrence, and Bertrand Russell, one of the founders of analytical philosophy, veered towards each other in early 20th century though they belonged to the opposite ends of the spectrum; one Dionysian and the other Apollonian. The former was a cartographer of instinct, spontaneity and the spirit. Russell was the stern materialistic logician in the best tradition of the European Enlightenment.

Both were brought together by the same need though: the restriction of the “self”. Not surprisingly, at least with a century of hindsight, their joint lecture series where Lawrence was to speak on “immortality” and Russell on “ethics” did not come to fruition as planned.

Lawrence then accused Russell of being the owner of the “powerful malignant will” which came in the way of the partnership. Russell in his riposte said that Lawrence, like all great men, hated the powerful malignant will in others.

When prime minister Narendra Modi recently cautioned India’s pre-eminent judges and chief ministers of states against being unduly influenced by “fivestar activists”, Russell’s riposte to Lawrence rang true.

Modi was cast as the repository of everything that was in sharp contrast to the previous dispensation’s inertia, passivity and sloth. In that sense, he was in possession of the powerful malignant will Lawrence mentioned.

That Modi should find detestable the presence of will, in people of political persuasions opposite to his, seems rather inconsistent with the prime minister’s assertions regarding the sacredness of the Indian Constitution and the diversity of India. One would imagine, Maolike, Modi would have loved a thousand independent wills to sprout all around India and make the country strong.

There is a fairly widespread undercurrent of left-liberal paranoia that Modi is an autocrat, slowly and surely taking over the reins of the country. This, obviously, is more pronounced and pervasive among minorities of all hues and ideologues of the Left. But, a relatively less threatened majority, primarily Hindus and the economically better off middle classes of urban India, which form the bulwark of the BJP’s votebase, think of this as a project of fear mongering.

However, Modi’s frontal attack on “activists” was a rather straightforward underlining of his priorities. He wants to reclaim his mandate for “development” and creating jobs for the majority of Indians, a screamingly urgent need. However, his methods have been unorthodox, to be charitable to him. They have been rather rough-edged, by other accounts.

In January when Greenpeace activist Priya Pillai was offloaded from her plane to London, after she had got her boarding pass, many imagined it to be a case of bureaucratic bungle. Turns out the Indian government under Modi had serious issues with Pillai’s nationalistic commitment.

The Delhi High Court foiled India’s plans of keeping Pillai within the strict definition of “Indian” as Modi’s government would like it, saying that travelling abroad and espousing one’s views without criminal intent did not amount to “antinational” activities.

A general hurrah for the judiciary for standing up for Pillai has not gone down well with the Modi dispensation. On Thursday, when Modi was to land at the Charles De Gaulle airport for his first visit to France, his ministry of home affairs delivered a rather telling message to the Delhi High Court.

It suspended the registration of Greenpeace India under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) for encouraging “anti-development” campaigns across the country.

Greenpeace’s bank accounts in IDBI Bank, ICICI Bank and Yes Bank have been frozen. The NGO has also been served a show-cause notice asking why its registration should not be cancelled. Security agencies have claimed that Greenpeace India is a threat to national economic security.

The Love for Focus

Was this what Modi was hoping the learned judges would be nudged to accept? That Pillai is the kind of “five-star activist” that sways the judiciary? Modi has often seemed a fabulist in a conference of post modernists. His ability to deliver folk wisdom from Aesop’s fables or the Jataka tales does work and speaks above the heads of the interpreters of reality that the media is. In many ways, his tactic of speaking over the heads of the media has succeeded.

There have been few politicians whose scorn for the media has succeeded so spectacularly as Modi’s in contemporary history. But, for that, he has had the huge support of cultist social media enthusiasts; all aspirational urban youth of India who do not recognise the need for a large swathe of the unwashed that India needs to push up into their ranks.

Modi needs to be a better strategist than the brilliant tactician that he has been so far. Institutions do not change on diktats and one-line whips.

The Modi government’s love for focus tends to put a large and volatile population and its concerns into soft focus. The 31% of Indians that voted the BJP to power will be a very flimsy bet for the prime minister’s next election.

A non-partisan view of the RSS holds that its finest moment was during Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. The Modi government’s attempt to simulate a protracted emergency, so that a view of development that the governing party prefers would be slipped past all checkpoints that the Constitution provides, might seem smart tactic but is likely to prove bad strategy in the long term. The Indian federation is famed for its surprising resistance to top-down governance whether it is the imposition of Hindi or Rajiv Gandhi’s famous defamation bill. Quiet multitudes do not sheeple make.

(The writer, a former journalist, now travels and writes)