Game On? NaMo’s ‘shankhanaad’ from Parliament floor

Both the optics and sonics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two speeches in Parliament on February 7, 2018, were unmistakable. It was NaMo in classic fight mode, the lion on the hunt. The budget done and dusted, Modi made his intentions clear by aiming squarely at the Congress in his Lok Sabha speech, sounding the bugle for next year’s elections. Not the expected cheers from the treasury benches, but the expressions of grateful satisfaction on faces of those occupying them were telling. Their leader is an election-winner and they knew it. 

The opposition, on the other hand, were nonplussed if not rattled as the PM took them to the cleaners. Despite the continuous heckling, which went on relentlessly through most of his speech, they looked crestfallen. The rhythmic slogan-shouting by our esteemed parliamentarians was reminiscent of agitating university students, clapping and keeping up the beat. Except that the ranting this time was not by juvenile near-delinquents, but by our elected representatives, many of who are senior citizens. If all that the most vociferous among them could do was to raise slogans, mocking and jeering the PM, wasn’t that sorry evidence of their inadequacy if not incompetence?

The PM, on the other hand, tore right into the holy of holies, not just attacking the erstwhile ruling family, including patriarch ‘Chacha’ Nehru, but also raking up contentious and uncomfortable legacy issues. The whole non-performing assets bugbear, which threatened to cripple if not bankrupt our public sector banks, was just one example. Modi said that the NPAs were much higher than was let known, 82 per cent and not 36 per cent as had been trotted out. He said that from 2008 to 2014, the advances doled out by our banks ballooned from Rs 18 lakh crore to Rs 52 lakh crore.

He had exercised restraint not to spook or panic the system after he assumed office, Modi said, but now he was constrained to let the cat out of the bag. Successive Congress-led governments actually aided and abetted bad loans, flagging off a gravy train in which astronomical sums of citizens’ savings were ladled out to cronies, knowing fully well that there was little chance of recoveries. As if that was not enough, Modi said that the real bequest of the Congress was the division of India. It was they, he thundered, who had kept us backward and poor. “The opposition believes that by speaking lies all the time in a loud voice, it will sound true,” but he added ominously, “The people will not forgive you for your sins.” 

We may not agree with everything that the PM claimed. Indeed, when it comes to winning elections, what politicians and leaders say is quite beside the point. What is important is how the public reacts to it. Do they lap it up as true-sounding or do that find themselves disregarding the spin? In Modi’s case what makes him a match-winner is his appetite to go on the offensive, to chase down his opponents, to corner them, then to go in for the kill. 

After a part-populist, part-prudent budget, not to speak of the reverses in the Rajasthan, the Cassandras and naysayers had started their usual chorus of doubt and dubiety about the outcome of the great Indian 2019 electoral sweepstakes. Even members of BJP had privately begun to whisper about the prospects of whisker-thin majorities and coalitions. Given that anti-incumbency at the centre is the incontrovertible constant, suddenly it seemed as if the nation’s mood might change. The high approval ratings of the PM notwithstanding, 2019 might throw up some surprises – so the pundits and pollsters began predicting.

Just then, in his inimitable style, Narendra Modi snarled. It was a gentle reminder to his admirers and detractors alike that he is still in the running and reckoning. In popular parlance, Modi is very much a political animal. To carry the metaphor forward without prejudice or ill will to anyone, what we have come to understand by observing him in power for seventeen years, nearly thirteen in Gujarat and four at the centre is that is he no ordinary exponent of the art. 

Some political animals are mere beasts of burden – whether horses, camels, or bullocks – at best serviceable at worst dispensable. Some are fleet-footed hares or plodding tortoises, either of which, given the luck of the draw, may make it past the post. There is even an occasional peacock or doe, adding glamour to the hustings. But only once in a long while does a true lord of the jungle emerge whose leonine gait compels the others beasts of the jungle to give way and whose roar makes them tremble.

Narendra Modi is one such. Love him or hate him, you can’t take that away from him.

The author is a poet and professor at JNU. Views expressed are personal