As India finds itself embroiled in one violent ideological contest after another, the top question on most people’s minds is why Prime Minister Narendra Modi is permitting fringe elements — be they students questioning the very sovereignty of India or bleeding-heart left-leaning liberals or even goons dressed in lawyers’ robes — to take away from the development discourse he painstakingly built throughout his election campaign.
Over the 21 months he has been in power, the transition that the prime minister has displayed has become a travesty for India, with his silence being questioned in most quarters. Modi has often been perceived as saying too much or too little or nothing at all in matters deemed controversial. When he has chosen to act, he has either done nothing or has allowed fanatics to overdramatise matters. And whenever he has broken his silence, he has never managed to address the issue directly.
His administration’s ineptitude in manoeuvring the levers of democracy has left Indians stunned — especially given that he is the same man that had many in awe as he deftly managed the entire political and media discourse during his eight-month campaign to win over India.
Of late, his silence has started to hurt India. The last two sessions of parliament were a washout as the country’s opposition decided to take the fracas — related to alleged corruption by ministers, the beef ban, the Dadri lynching and the spate of attacks on churches in the nation’s capital — to the central hall of parliament, blocking the passage of key reforms in a move that has the potential to disrupt an economic recovery in Asia’s third-largest economy.
Now, due to the ongoing melee at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), compounded by mismanagement by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, the opposition found itself with adequate ammunition to disrupt parliament again, risking the much-awaited budget session even as the country eagerly looks forward to major reforms after the ruling party’s electoral loss in Bihar.
The prime minister should have controlled the media discourse pertaining to these issues from day one. But he did not. By not speaking out and at the same time allowing ideologues to unleash their goons, he not only gave credence to those who say intolerance is on the rise, but also allowed opposition parties to hijack his development agenda.
The JNU event happened in the same week that he was unravelling his ambitious ‘Make In India’ campaign in Mumbai. The irony was that while the world media should have been painting images of a “roaring lion” willing to impose its hegemony on the world of manufacturing, it instead was taking pictures of nameless and shameless lawyers acting as goons attacking journalists and those on trial inside the court of law, making India’s much-touted judiciary look like a kangaroo court.
Additionally, Modi has allowed liberals to dictate the media agenda so fiercely up to now that any outsider watching the national media would have been forgiven for thinking that Kanhaiya Kumar, the student’s leader of JNU, was in the same league as nationalist leaders who were dragged off to jail during British rule. The government failed to provide the counternarrative, which has not only had a latent effect on India’s economy, but also given way to certain individuals and, sadly, even media persons who argued all last week that an individual can now break the law in the guise of being liberal and young.
None of the BJP’s spokespersons or any minister seemed to understand that a man who is old enough to vote, marry and father children should also act in accordance with the law of the land — never mind participating in an event that commemorates the death of a terrorist who was accused of attacking parliament and issuing a death threat to the highest court of the land and the president of India who had refused his mercy petition.
Many have argued that by not allowing the public to voice dissent, Modi’s government is a threat to democracy as it is stifling the space for debate on various issues, especially on university campuses. But no one from the government could challenge the comments that voicing dissent could never be equal to celebrating the “martyrdom” of terrorists accused of killing thousands of innocents.
Foreign newspapers have issued warnings over the growing intolerance in India, which they believe is oppressing democracy in the country.
The overt display of dissent and patriotism by a large section of the community is costing the country and is acting as a diversion to the real issues at hand, as our soldiers die trying to fight terrorists and farmers remain overburdened with debt, with some driven to commit suicide. It is time Modi took charge and doused this flame of the incessant warmongering against castes, religion and personal choices that individuals make. He risks losing the mandate he won and the idea of a developed India he so cherishes.
Archisman Dinda is a journalist based in Kolkata, India.
