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“Indira hatao. Desh bachao.” Remove Indira Gandhi. Save India. The lines were among frantic slogans Narendra Modi’s forebears coined to remove Indira Gandhi from power. She used democracy to become powerful and then subverted it. Gandhi cited Hindutva as a right-wing threat to India, a challenge she believed had the support of the West. She was prescient in her observation but her method of redress became her undoing.
Gandhi’s triumphant rivals in parliament sent her to prison. They divested her of the Lok Sabha membership after she won a mid-term poll from a southern constituency where they worshipped her. When she won again from Chikmagloor in the south, her recharged supporters coined a telling slogan. “Ek sherni, sau langoor. Chikmagloor bhai Chikmagloor.” A tigress against a bunch of monkeys, that was Chikmagloor.
It is not uncommon in democracies for people in the streets to demand the exit of a leader even if the leaders have the numbers. Richard Nixon was shown the door when people, including his erstwhile supporters, felt insulted by some of the things he did as boss in the White House. Bill Clinton survived similar scrutiny albeit related to abuse of a different genre. Call it the devil’s luck.
In India, there are useful non-parliamentary routes too to bring down an erring leader. Before the people could take a view about her waywardness, a high court judge unseated Indira Gandhi for using government money to build a podium, literally a wooden platform, to address an election rally. That’s a far cry from charges of mass murder. The benchmark for probity has changed. Gandhi survived by disregarding the judgement and suspending democracy itself. That fear lurks and, with Modi, it may have deepened. The ding-dong battle between power and people keeping an eye out for its fair use is life-giving. If the battle stops, democracy ceases to be worthy of trust.
When it comes to pouring vitriol on their rivals, the Hindutva’s lung power is unmatched.
In this regard, a growing brouhaha is threatening to overshadow parliament’s winter session. Mani Shankar Aiyar’s acid views on Prime Minister Modi are all too well known. As a passionate critic of Hindutva, Aiyar is withering with Modi. On this occasion, so the charge goes, the Congress party’s outspoken lefty has expressed his sharp excoriations to a Pakistani TV channel. One has to remove Modi from the equation before India-Pakistan talks can resume, Aiyar apparently said. And since Modi is not likely to exit to please us, we have to wait patiently for the time when India can do a Bihar or a Delhi on him. This is the gist of what Mani said.
What he said could pass for the parable of marooned men desperate to open a sardine can on a desolate island. They had a few cans of food left, but no tool to prise one open. “Let’s assume there is an opener,” the economist among them said profoundly, still gazing hard at the problem. That’s what Mani was saying. Let’s assume Modi doesn’t exist. In other words, he was stating the obvious. The bottom line is there is no way to open the can of peace talks with Modi in charge. If anyone can prove Mani Shankar Aiyar wrong, it is Modi. Will he?
When it comes to pouring vitriol on their rivals, the Hindutva’s lung power is unmatched. One person though could stand up to Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah in the recent Bihar elections. He was Lalu Yadav. His outrageous videos of mimicking the Hindutva duo have gone viral on the web. Mani perhaps comes a close second in this talent, but the English language, which confines his constituency, limits him.
All the talk about a so-called anti-national act of giving an interview to a Pakistani channel seems a ploy to airbrush the humbling defeat in Bihar. The boot is usually on the other foot.
Remember when Sonia Gandhi was reportedly planning to take the oath as prime minister some years ago — and there are different versions of whether she was brimming with ambition to become prime minister or was actually fighting shy of the fraught chalice — Sushma Swaraj and Uma Bharti of the BJP came out on the streets, threatening to tonsure their hair at the head of right-wing protests across India. Dark rumours circulated that Gandhi could be assassinated like her mother-in-law if she ignored her bitter foes or dared to take the prime minister’s oath. In other words, even if Sonia Gandhi had the numbers, as Modi won last year, she could not claim the top job.
More than Aiyar’s barbs, a really worrying headache for Modi comes from friendly fire by his own Hindutva peers. With a sense of timing after the Bihar debacle, L.K. Advani raised Cain together with other senior leaders of the BJP who are opposed to Modi. They had never wanted him to be their leader, much less to become prime minister. In this limited way, they seemed to agree with former prime minister Manmohan Singh’s pre-poll assessment that Modi as prime minister would be disastrous for India. Advani is since said to have fallen in line. He could be the BJP’s candidate for India’s president.
It would be unusual for Aiyar to agree with India’s business cliques but they agree with him today. If a former BJP minister of industry is to be believed some of the business captains, possibly most, have become restless with Modi. “The industrialists who meet the prime minister don’t speak the whole truth,” former BJP minister Arun Shourie was quoted as saying. “After meeting PM, they wonder what is happening and say ‘please do something’. And in front of media they give the government nine out of 10.” Everybody seems to be looking for the elusive can opener.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2015
