Modi's brazen take off

A walk through Jantar Mantar at stone's throw from Parliament may give a measure of India's restlessness. It's firmly etched in history after being host to many events, which later caused upheavals in India's polity. 

During one such walk, a booming woman's voice poured in torrent from a distance. A little closer, the verbal torrent turned coherent. A little more closer, victim of the verbal torrent appeared in sight. He was being led away by Renuka Choudhary, a minister in the Manmohan Singh led UPA government and a Congress spokesperson. 

The "victim" was in his 20s and later it emerged that he was a research scholar in JNU, New Delhi. And, he became a target of the verbal torrent released in seething anger by the woman, because he had asked a question during an open-air TV discussion, which was being recorded there.

"Your party supports division of Andhra Pradesh. Will your leader, Narendra Modi, support division of Gujrat, since your party favours smaller states," he had asked.

The answer apparently abruptly ended the TV discussion, but verbal torrent ensued. And Renuka Choudhary, apparently sensing that the young man could get in more trouble, forcibly led him away. Even significant moments after the man had been out of sight, the woman was still seething with anger.

Nirmala Sitharaman

About four months later, she was sworn in as Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Commerce. She is Nirmala Sitharaman. 

In the last two years, a lot of people started believing that the TV discussions in late evening shaped opinion of the people. Though this blogger does not watch any TV discussion, on and off one man had been seen with all the shrill in the most noisy news channel. He would shout down all voices against Narendra Modi and BJP.  He showed that his lung was better than that of intemperate anchor, who demands answer on behalf of the nation each night.

That man with most shrill voice is Piyush Goel. He, too, was sworn in as Union Minister of State for power in the Narendra Modi Cabinet. 

Though Modi declined taking son of Rajsthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia, Dushyant Singh, in his Cabinet on the ground that he would not have anything about dynasty, Goel is son of late Ved Prakash Goel, who was a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Cabinet. And, therefore, he is also a product of political dynasty.So, Modi not having anything about dynasty falls flats on close scrutiny.

The faces of BJP beat reporters would invariably turn dull at the sight of Prakash Javdekar. He would most sincerely defend Modi from opposition barbs. He would be too plain straight without any spin to elicit interest from reporters. He too became a minister with dual charge of Information and Broadcasting and Environment.

And, Ravishankar Prasad, as chairman of media cell of the BJP, would most sincerely defend Modi. He, too, is into Modi Cabinet.

Former Miss India contestant and India's most famous "saas and bahu", Smirti Irani had been on all news channels for the past one year to defend Modi dutifully. She surprised all with her Cabinet debut, that too as Union minister for Human Resources Development.

That she is not even a graduate has taken much of the print and air space should not cast aspersion on her ability, because even Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalitha is just 10th pass. But unlike Jayalalitha been a political heir of the founder of AIADMK M G Ramachandran, we still do not know what Irani is in that sense. 

"She is very articulate in Hindi and English.." was all that Ravishankar Prasad fumbled when asked on the controversy. But India has millions of people who are very articulate in two languages.  

When former Union minister Jairam Ramesh threw his barb "Modi talking of

Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi

sanitation is like Asaram Bapu speaking about chastity", calls apparently came to BJP spokespersons to attack the irrepressible minister. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi apparently ignored instructions from Gandhinagar. Making his case more worse, he red-flagged induction of JD (U) leader Sabir Ali in BJP with his "Dawood Ibrahim" tweet. He could not make into the Modi Cabinet.

A pattern emerges that all those who valiantly defended Modi in the media are now in his Cabinet. And that invites the criticism, that Modi yielded to favoritism and bias while picking his team.

That the Modi team is young and lean is all accepted, but ministers like Dharmendra Pradhan, who is an illiterate as far as the business of oil and gas is concerned, is looking after petroleum ministry tells the larger story of brazenness of Modi in picking his men.

Afterall, the decisive 2014 mandate is not at all for the inner circle of Modi. Rather, the mandate is for a stable and strong government. And, Modi has given opening hints that he had been quite exclusive in picking his team. That surely is not a good omen, as has been admitted by most die-hard admirers of Modi, who admit having been led down.

A close Modi watcher explained that Modi had been like this only, as he had picked the likes of Anandiben Patel, Saurabh Patel, etc., who were unknown in Gujrat till they became ministers after 2002. One of them is now chief minister of Gujrat. But India is not Gujrat and running a Central government requires working closely with states. However, Modi, arguably, is taking forward his Gujrat model in New Delhi literally.

Incidentally, Modi, who seeks to emulate India's most admired Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has been far off in at least picking the men for various challenges. Vajpayee had B C Khandoori who heralded road connectivity. He had Pramod Mahajan who brought in telecom connectivity. Jaswant Singh steadied Indian ship through uncertain waters during the US sanctions against India after the nuclear test. Yashwant Sinha captained economy with aplomb.

Ironically, the RSS laboratory ignores history of medieval India most, while singularly remaining obsessed with ancient India, in shaping intellectual base of its products. Had it been otherwise, Modi would have known that the glory of Akbar had been due to his fine generals, who expanded his frontiers, and ministers, who perfected the statecraft. 

It's early days for Modi government and it will serve him well if he could find people who would be more than proponents of "Yes, Minister". India has enough of sycophancy. Another spell could break too many hearts.