Silence of secrets

MANY SECRETS LIE BURIED IN THE WOMB OF SILENCE. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Finance Minister Arun Jaitely, Rajsthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia and India's most known son-in-law Robert Vadra are parts of one such mysterious web of silence. 

For details read TURNING OF THE WHEEL chapter in the Book: The Enabler Narendra Modi, which can be bought at http://amzn.to/1CR528s

Despite losing elections and having been instrumental in BJP's humiliating loss at the hands of the maverick activist turned politician, who is also a brutal exponent of the art of politics of muck, Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi, Jaitely stays the most powerful minister in the Modi Cabinet. That Jaitely is the most pedestrian minister ever to head the Ministry of Finance is not a fact unknown to Modi. Yet, Jaitely's comfort is not an ounce less.

http://amzn.to/1CR528s

Vasundhara Raje Scindia is a mass leader who delivered the most humiliating loss to Congress in Rajsthan. She has paced ahead of her own government at the Centre in unveiling reforms. But she is least heard at the national level. Not by default but it appears that by design she keeps distance from Modi and his government at the Centre. Modi is more than eager to para-drop at any place to associate himself with any landmark developmental works. Yet, Scindia chose to inaugurate the Jaipur Metro herself and did not share the honours with any Central BJP leaders. 

That she is miffed with Modi for non-inclusion of her son Dushyant Singh in the Modi Cabinet is an old tale. She had fought the Assembly elections in the state about six months before Modi got his landmark mandate on an issue, which is now buried in the womb of silence. And that was the alleged unscrupulous land deals involving Robert Vadra. Unlike Manohar Lal Khattar, who was hand-picked by Modi as chief minister of Haryana, 

Scindia is a popular state leader and no taint has yet touched her. She is not yet in the leagues of Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who had to complain to Sonia Gandhi against spirited Congress campaign over Vyapam scam in the state. Chattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh's name keeps being tossed in media reports over allegations of favouritism. Scindia has stayed away from such accusations and has a stature of her own in the state and the party.  

Robert Vadra's name was on the lips of Modi at each of the public rally he addressed in 2014 Lok Sabha elections. But "Damad ji" is not troubled a bit despite BJP forming government at the Centre a year ago and in Rajsthan one and a half years ago. BJP came to power in Haryana about six months ago. 

Senior Congress leaders who are not the camp followers of Rahul Gandhi claim to have some insight over the mystery. The book -- The enabler Narendra Modi -- has examined the mysterious silence at length. 

(Note: This post was written before the controversy surrounding Lalit Modi unfolded and has become all the more relevant now.)

Print edition at http://www.amazon.co.uk/enabler-Narendra-Modi-Breaking-stereotypes/dp/1514145766

    

THE ENABLER NARENDRA MODI

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

BY 1971 Indira Gandhi was perched as an empress of Indian democracy. She had established a political cult with no parallel. After about six years of flux in Indian politics, Indira Gandhi had unveiled a one party rule. She had no challengers. She had run her surgical knife on Pakistan. She midwifed birth of Bangladesh with a surgeon’s precision. She lifted the doom from the conscience of millions of Indians who suffered collective national depression following India’s humiliating defeat at the hands of mighty Chinese army in 1962. The Opposition hailed her as ‘Durga’ (symbol of Shakti, power).

Destiny could not have been more kind to Indira Gandhi. She had her firm grips over absolute power. She was the face of India’s resurgence. She effected fundamental changes in Indian democracy and economy. She gave Indian democracy twin legs of secularism and socialism by incorporating them in the Preamble of the Constitution. India firmly embraced an identity of a welfare state.

The mighty lady is arguably the mother bank of ideology of not only her party Congress, but also the whole lot of socialist parties which dot vast swathes of the country. Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru had groomed her politically and ideologically. He shaped his daughter’s worldview. Destiny was much kinder to her, for Indira Gandhi not only grew in the bosom of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru but was also adored by Mahatma Gandhi.

Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru was an internationalist. He was arguably the father of industrial India. His daughter was a case in contrast. She was more of a nationalist than an internationalist. Her father co-opted industrial world. She shunned them. Her father knocked at the doors of United Nations for solutions to vexed Kashmir issue. She cared the least for any international power. She was uncluttered and shunned lures to romance an international stature. She charted her own course.

Mahatma Gandhi was arguably her ideological father. Nehru dreamt of India having large industries and equitable distribution of wealth. She embraced his ideas in her statecraft. She anchored her politics on the plank of anti-poverty measures. She was no believer in large industries and the free market economy taking care of the poor. She unapologetically disowned Nehruvian economy through industrialisation and instead believed in direct transfer of wealth to poor.

FOUR and a half decades later Narendra Modi is perched as an emperor of Indian politics. Even his political rivals privately admit that Modi has surpassed the 1971 stature of Indira Gandhi. They firmly believe that India is on the cusp of a single party rule for quite a long time. He has eclipsed all his rivals. He has a grip over absolute power. His stature is a notch larger than that of Indira Gandhi of 1971.

Indira Gandhi incidentally had to struggle through her political course, as she was a contemporary of a galaxy of stalwarts not only within the Congress but outside. If Kamraj and Morarji Desai were her challengers in the Congress, she had to politically outweigh leaders like Jayprakash Narayan, Charan Singh, George Fernandes, Atal Bihari Vajpayee et al. But Modi seems to be lucky as he has none to challenge him inside his party and outside as well on a scale as faced by Indira Gandhi. 

NARENDRA Modi is also arguably the first non-Congress Prime Minister of India. There were seven before him from non-Congress ranks, including BJP's Atal Bihari Vajpayee. But they all bore strong ideological footprints of Congress and carried the legacy of Indira Gandhi in their thoughts, beliefs and statecraft. Modi stands apart because he carries no Congress baggage in thoughts and actions. He could do so because, he does not belong to New Delhi, which has a character of thinking India being just an aggregate of various bungalows in Lutyens' zone.   

In 1991 when Narsimha Rao took over the reign of the country, India was reeling under deep economic crisis. India had to mortgage gold to meet the requirement of current account deficit and pay interest on international borrowings. Rao appointed Manmohan Singh as his finance minister and gave him a template to revive the economy. Singh unleashed a slew of reforms and broke the shackles to put India on the path of free capitalist economy. 

A lot of systemic changes were brought in without being conscious of the poor, as the belief was in growth rate and trickle down theory. No doubt growth was achieved, but a vast population were left on the margins, leading to rise of Left Wing Extremism. Most of the analysis have revealed that liberalisation and LWE witnessed parallel growth. Later, when Vajpayee took over, he and his finance minister Yashwant Sinha followed the same path and Indian growth story reached to its zenith (9+ growth).  

In 2004, the Vajpayee government and the ruling party launched “India Shining” campaign. But it backfired. The left leaning and socialist forces galvanised against the ruling NDA. Even Congress sided with Left policies and managed to become the nucleus for such forces to dislodge the Vajpayee government.

However, it was a travesty of history that the architect of liberalisation, Dr Manmohan Singh, became the leader of the left leaning group of parties. Singh was anointed the Prime Minister of India. As the Manmohan rule progressed, it had the imprint of Sonia Gandhi and the four left parties with more than 60 seats in Lok Sabha supporting the government. Here again Manmohan Singh did not work on his own template, as was the case when he had been the finance minister. Then he worked on Rao’s template’ and as Prime Minister he worked on a combined template of Sonia Gandhi and Left Parties. Thus began the one decade of India being a ultra-welfare state, as the UPA government was repeated in 2009. Several pro-poor direct transfer and right based policies were put in place. They included like MGNREGA, RTE, RTI and food security act.

Now with Narendra Modi at the helm, it seems the state has drifted from its path of ultra-welfare activities and instead sowing seeds of being an enabler for people to avail benefits of the fruits of development. In case of most of the UPA flagship schemes, Modi did not discontinue, but has showed least interest in them in their implementation. Today nobody is talking about MGNREGA and even if some talks are made, they are all about non-payment of wages to labrourers. Even Right to education seems to have become a non-issue. Right to Information too has become irrelevant as many thousand applications are reported to have been pending in the office of CIC. 

In place of these the new government has launched several social sector schemes to empower people living on the margin. But in none of them the state is directly contributing anything. Be it Jandhan Yojna, or Pradhan Mantri Bima Yojna or for that matter Atal Pension Yojana, the basic criteria to avail them is to contribute, though very meager. Therefore, the Modi is government, in the name of welfare, has only been creating platform for people to come and join with their own money and get the benefits of the schemes. And that is the template of an enabler Narendra Modi India is witness to after the 2014 verdict.

The book is available in digital format at following link on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.in/ENABLER-NARENDRA-MODI-BREAKING-STEREOTYPES-ebook/dp/B00YFLMSBE

Those who don't have Kindle device can also read by downloading the Kindle App by clicking: For android phone http://bit.ly/19c6Xpm for Apple phone/ IPad http://apple.co/1MrRaF5 for PC http://amzn.to/1ImLwl0

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.

A mighty slump

That pampered lots are supremely blessed with power to self-destruct is surely a hard truth of life. Such individuals leave stories largely unheard, but those in public life leave telling tales to be told and re-told. 

And Nitish Kumar, a Prime Ministerial candidate till not long ago, has been such a masterly phenomenon of political rise and fall, that Shakespeare might have found in him a tragedy king. Political commentators can not deny being in love with him even if he is being denounced for his masterly swing to casteism from being a development icon.

Incidentally, RJD chief Lalu Prasad was political mentor of Nitish Kumar during the march of Mandal politics, which swept through Gangetic belt in 1990s. When Lalu Prasad had to quit as chief minister of Bihar, after being charge-sheeted in fodder scam, he thrust his illiterate wife, Rabri Devi, onto the state. 

That act of political expediency may have extended Lalu Prasad's reign in Bihar for a few more years, but a whole generation grew up with a sense of inferiority complex thereafter. The Congress president Sonia Gandhi aped Lalu Prasad in 2004 to pick Manmohan Singh, who was not an illiterate but an economist of high repute. But another generation has grown up with gloom during the last 10 years.

Political scientists may need to invent a term to explain this art of political expediency of thrusting somebody for personal exigency. Because, it's spreading like a virus, which has infected Nitish Kumar now. 

Some extraordinary commentators could go to the extent of claiming the anointing of Jitan Ram Manjhi, a Mahadalit hailing from Most Backward Caste (MBC), as a political masterstroke of NItish Kumar to checkmate rise of BJP in Bihar. But that will be too shallow to last a few days in public discourse. 

Jitan Manjhi

Because, Bihar inherently has a restlessness, which may not be in other states, to turn people repugnant with the very idea of casteism imprisoning governance in the state. By the way, Manjhi's administrative skill was so well acknowledged by Nitish Kumar, that he could not find for him a better ministry than the SC&ST welfare.  

Incidentally, Nitish Kumar is not the only chief minister who faced an electoral rout in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. He is in the company of Omar Abdullah and Akhilesh Yadav. But they have reacted differently to the verdict.

In fact, Omar Abdullah is seeking to undo mistakes of his government and tweeted his e-mail id to connect with the people to learn why was he punished in such a manner. Akhilesh Yadav is seeking to shrug off the shadow of his father Mulayam Singh Yadav and assert his leadership. 

But Nitish Kumar chose to relinquish the office, while "taking moral responsibility". His party chief Sharad Yadav has not yet resigned. Arguably, it can also not be ruled out that Nitish Kumar could not digest the idea of his arch-rival Narendra Modi becoming Prime Minister.

Arguably, the fall and rise in political career of Nitish Kumar and Kahkashan Parveen seem so overlapping to

Kahkashan Parveen

ignore. Parveen, a little known woman from Bhagalpur, first became a municipal corporator a few years ago and since then she has been rising and rising only.

Nitish Kumar first appointed her chairperson of Bihar Commission of Women and a few months earlier shocked most of his party men by sending her to Rajya Sabha. Politically Nitish sought to send the message that he was reaching out to Muslims. He denied Rajya Sabha nominations to party heavyweights Shivanand Tiwari, NK Singh and Sabir Ali.

Within JD (U), leaders and party workers saw Nitish in his full arrogance bloom during Rajya Sabha nomination episode. And, politics is sadly no hunting grounds for arrogant lots. That Nitish was handed over worst electoral defeat confirm him having lost touch with ground realities.

Was not Nitish Kumar hailed a development icon till a few years ago? Did he not win best chief minister awards at the hands of TV channels? Did not the media hail him for turning around a state, which had a long spell of dark age under his predecessors -- Rabri Devi and Lalu Prasad? Did not the Planning Commission of India certify Bihar of having achieved highest State GDP growth among all states?

Questions are too many and they should baffle political commentators. Because, Indian democracy in the last two decades has come to reward good governance. And answers of these questions will reveal the narrow world view of Nitish Kumar and his aloofness.

State of roads in states generally give a good measure of the administrative skills of chief ministers. In his first term, Nitish Kumar won accolades for building good quality roads. His models of monitoring on real time basis was also replicated in other states.

Incidentally, by the time Nitish went to people for another mandate in 2010, he even claimed that any one can reach any part of the state from Patna in a flat six hours.

But claims were highly exaggerated. Incidentally, this blogger, believing Nitish's words, could reach half the distance that chief minister had stated in 12 hours time a year ago. And the ride had been so bumpy, that one would need full two days of rest to recover from agony of road journey.

Public at large blame Nitish Kumar in the state for having destroyed education in schools by using teacher recruitment to further his political interests. Law and order situation improved and later nose-dived.

"Nitish did not take drive against criminals in  the state to its logical conclusion. The man who was credited to have put an end to lawlessness during Lalu-Rabri time soon lost favour with Nitish and was transferred to police training institute. Nitish is running a bureaucratic government where dissent is not heard," said Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lallan Singh during a conversation with this blogger two years ago. At that time Lallan Singh, after being the close confidante of Nitish Kumar, was also thrown out of the inner court of former Bihar chief minister.

And clear pitfall of a bureaucratic government is wide-spread corruption. So, greasing palms of all kinds of people in government jobs, from a beat constable to a clerk to higher ups, is the story of the second tenure of Nitish Kumar.

Surrounded by sycophants in Patna and encouraged by adulation of New Delhi media, Nitish Kumar apparently thought of himself as Navin Patnaik of Odisha, that there was no alternative to him in the state.

But his belief was utterly out of place. And he chose to self-destruct by snapping 17 years alliance with the BJP. That he did because he was convinced that weakening of the Congress meant revival of the idea of Third Front, and the BJP not being a pan-India party could at best get 180 Lok Sabha seats.

And, therefore, the JD (U) had supported Pranab Mukherjee in Presidential elections even while the BJP backed Purno Sangma. "After next year's elections, there will be instability at the Centre and, hence, we need someone like Pranab Mukherjee in Rashtrapati Bhavan," JD (U) chief Sharad Yadav had explained why his party was not going along with the BJP.

The 2014 verdict shattered all hopes of instability at the Centre. Nitish Kumar misjudged people's minds. And that he did, because he was disconnected. Incidentally, he's repeating his mistake, that of thinking that key to power in Bihar is through the caste arithmetic.

Those who do not learn from their mistakes are condemned as fools of worst orders. And Nitish should know that Indian politics has left behind arithmetic and is now flying with wings of hope.

To catch this ride he needs a mighty leap of faith, but he has chosen a mighty slump instead. 

Turning of the wheel of time

A decade back India's most admired politician Atal Bihari Vajpayee could not believe that the people had rejected him. That six years of "good works" could not impress people seemed beyond his comprehension.

In his moments of disbelief, his friend and colleague Sharad Yadav visited him one evening in 2004 just after the Lok Sabha elections. "Aap bhi haar gaye (you too lost)," Vajpayee sighed at the sight of the socialist. 

"Aapko to maaloom hai ham kis liye haare...(you know why we have lost)," gushed Yadav.

Vajpayee, with a sense of rejection, sat down to chat with his former Cabinet colleague. They concurred, that the NDA government would have retained power in 2004 had Gujrat chief minister Narendra Modi been punished for the post-Godhra riots in 2002.

"This country did not re-elect Vajpayee because he could not act against Modi. People forgot all the good works of Vajpayee and punished him for the (mis)deeds of Modi. Yeh desh Modi ko kabhi PM nahi bana sakta (this country can never make Modi a PM)," Yadav told this blogger last year, after his party, JD (U), had snapped 17 years long relations with the BJP.

Yadav has lost another elections from the same Madhepura Lok Sabha seat in Bihar.

In 2004 he had lost to RJD's Lalu Prasad. Now, he has lost to Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav of the RJD. And, Madhepura where Yadavs consider themselves to be too intellectual to elect a muscleman has exactly done so.

But Vajpayee is no more in his senses to receive Yadav and ask him why he lost another elections. India's most admired politicians for many decades no more recognizes people and at the most he smiles at those who go to meet him.

However, if Vajpayee had been in his senses, he would have again been bewildered to see that India has elected Modi for Prime Ministerial job. That too with a number so stunning, that the whole Opposition may stay in shock for quite longer time.

And with his insight he would have known that his belief in 2004 of having lost re-elections due to post-Godhra riots and his inability to act against the "rogue" chief minister was so off the mark.

That the 2004 NDA defeat had much to do with arrogant "India shining" campaign and sheer arrogance of Pramod Mahajan were lost to majority of media, who were blinded by stereotyped campaign against Modi and now hopefully seeks to rediscover their sight, after the people have given their verdict. 

The wheel of time has turned.

Now, India's most demonized politician for a decade is all set to be sworn in as Prime Minister. He inspires so much of hatred in his rivals, that Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi do not consider proper to take his name on their lips. And true to the character of the Congress, other leaders of the party ape the mother-son duo to the hilt.

But India has moved much beyond the comprehension of Sonia Gandhi and her son. And by the time they would realize that India is no more a country of people seeking free rice and wheat, Modi would have delivered fatal blow to the very roots of the Congress.

An unemployed educated in Bhagalpur, Bihar.

Last two and a half decades of Indian democracy saw willy politicians  putting fetters of "secularism" to the people.

In the garb of protecting India's secularism, these willy politicians institutionalized dynasty in Indian politics. And to perpetuate their "secular" politics and safeguard dynasties, they took an ultra-Left turn for worse. 

The game-plan may have lasted a little longer if not for P V Narsimha Rao opening up India's windows to the world.

That Manmohan Singh was such a gifted Finance Minister under Rao and such a wasted Prime Minister under Sonia Gandhi should surely be a matter of another commentary, but he did help India see enormity of opportunities, which lied on the path of development.

In those frosty years of 1990s, India and its people had seen and read progress made by South-east Asian nations. And they rightly thought and aspired that India too could do much better than the smaller South-east Asian nations. 

Furthermore, Vajpayee gave wings to dreams of teeming millions of people. And then the A P J Abdul Kalam phenomenon happened. This dreamy man made Indians not only dream but even chase them.

And he made a lot of people believe that India would be a developed nation by 2020.

But Vajpayee was ousted, and, with the support of the Left, the Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came to power in 2004. The Left painted the UPA in deep red colour.

The dream of India becoming a developed nation by 2020 was thrown into a dust-bin and the country returned on the path traversed in 1980s.

If the Left was not enough, Sonia Gandhi packed her National Advisory Council (NAC) with ultra-Leftists and jhollawaalas who ran NGOs here and there.

And they believed that ensuring almost free rice and wheat to 75 per cent population of the country was the job for which there should be a government in New Delhi. 

A village in Itawa (UP)

A whole decade was lost. A generation soaked themselves in anguish at the lost opportunities.

The colleges graduated skilled professionals, who sought jobs to sell soaps.

Government stopped recruiting and corporate began laying off.

And India soon had an army of unemployed and under-employed and improperly employed mass of youth cursing each and every one on government and politics.

India had been such a paradox from 2004-14, that the posterity would ask, how could so many fools ruled the country at the same time. And the younger generation knew better than the most, that they could not afford to waste another decade chasing the discarded Russian ways of governance.

In Modi, India has seen a hope to redeem itself. And, he as a true politician had the measure of the pulse of the nation before any one else had. He knew that there is a lot of anger in India, which is aspirational. 

And, the "culprit" who cut short the innings of Vajpayee presented himself as the man who could empathize with anger of the nation and yet jacked up aspirations manifold. But he carried the track-record, which made the people believe each word that he uttered.

"A business house based out of Kolkata had applied online to Gujrat government for setting up a plant in the state," said a senior Samajwadi Party leader, who tried to drive home the point why Modi was connecting with the people.

A couple of days later, mobile phone of the businessman rang and to his hello, the man on the other side said, that he was Narendra Modi speaking. Still in shock, the businessman heard Modi asking him if he could come to Ahmedabad next day for a 2.30 PM appointment.

He readied a suitcase of files to make presentation and met the appointment. As he spread out his files on the table, with Modi sitting on the other side, Gujrat CM told him, that the papers could be put back in the suitcase. 

"This is a three-page MoU, which we have prepared, wherein we have mentioned what all support the state government would provide for your proposed plant. If there is anything missing, you can let us know," Modi told the businessman, who found that there was nothing missing. And the MoU was signed there and then.

"Now, tell me which chief minister in India works like that and if he is able to connect with the people, why should any one complaint," the SP leader told this blogger.

Arguably, 2014 verdict is a body blow to practitioners of politics of secularism in Gangetic plains of UP and Bihar. The only other state where this brand of politics could survive even after the Modi Tsunami is West Bengal.

That the mercurial wonder lady of Indian politics has survived Modi onslaught is true, but is surely not going to be her permanent feat. And she will have to face a much bigger push of developmental politics in 2016 state elections, which is written clearly on the wall. 

Some dreams never die.

The wheel of time has turned and has turned against all those who take people for a ride in the name of saving India's "secularism". 

And not only Vajpayee was wrong in diagnosing defeat of NDA in 2004 even his comrade L K Advani has been utterly out of sync with time.

You can't flog one man all years for one riot irrespective of the fact whether he was complicit or not. There has been 179 communal riots under the watch of Akhilesh Yadav in UP since 2012 and still this chief minister is "greatest custodian of secularism".  

Hypocrisy has an expiry date. And it lasts a little longer only in places, where people are hell-bent to commit suicide.

Gandhian folly to herd

History has keys to many riddles of modern times. 

But history bores most, as it has mostly been written by red-clothed men, who owe their intellectual sharpness to propaganda publications shipped from Russia and dumped in various varsities of India.

Most haunting riddle of contemporary India is its over 16 per cent population holding on to the belief that their "religion is in danger".  This danger seems perennial.

And as curtain comes down in another one week over long drawn out election campaign to elect members of the 16th Lok Sabha, there is no denying the fact that Muslims have been used as canon fireballs against BJP's PM candidate Narendra Modi. Nonetheless, a tiny lot among the Muslims have bolted and become Modi supporter; but they are too few to matter at all.

Muslim boys playing cricket in Bhagalpur (Bihar)

The Likes of Mamata Banerjee, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati, Rahul Gandhi  and his mother Sonia Gandhi among others have tried their best to make Muslims believe that Modi would "butcher" them if he were to come to power in New Delhi. That the seemingly "massacres of Muslims will be all around" campaign slogan of non-BJP political parties surely seeks to milk "religion in danger" psyche of the minority community. 

Long into the past, it was a local battle fought and lost by Muslim Nawab of Bengal , Siraj-ud-Daulla, on June 23, 1757 at Plassey, that seeded, arguably, for the first time, "religion in danger" psyche in Muslim minds. Incidentally, Mamata Banerjee finds Mir Jafar literally on her tongue if she has to bash any political dissidence within his Trinamool Congress.       

One hundred and sixty two years later, "religion in danger" was institutionalized in Indian political discourse. And, it was none other than Mohan Das Karam Chand Gandhi, later Mahatma Gandhi, after he became an icon of India's freedom struggle, who made it happen. 

In his eagerness to win over Muslims to freedom struggle movement at a time when Sir Sayyed Ahmed had indoctrinated minority community to become pro-British to help them get government jobs, Gandhi gambled to mix religion and politics to spearhead Khilafat movement (1919-1924) for a cause, which had nothing to do with India and even Turkish Muslims thought otherwise. 

The movement flopped and Gandhi proved himself to be a political novice. Even though the red-clothed historians would see only virtue in that failed experiment, India paid heavy price in just 23 years time, as  Britain ran its surgical knife to dismember the country. What the Greats like Ashoka, Chandragupta Mourya and Akbar had passed on as legacy was squandered off by the deeds and misdeeds of awfully slow freedom movement of India and incompetence of those leading it.   

Ironically, Gandhi may not have seen far into the future to know that a few years later Pakistani Army and numerous militant organizations groomed by Rawalpindi would wreak havoc with their "religion in danger" weapon by allowing and executing massacres of people on a scale never seen in the world history. Gandhi may have just lit a flame, but Muhammed Ali Jinnah first and Gen. Zial-ul-Haque later turned that into a raging fire.

Jinnah with Gandhi

It's important to slip into history for a while, because contemporary politicians seem an ignorant lot.  By keeping alive apprehensions of riots, Muslims in India have been herded, first by Jinnah and later by all and sundry. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign, it has been made like that Narendra Modi is a "rioter par excellence". 

A year back, journalist and playwright, Tehseen Munawer, wrote an open letter to Uttar Pradesh chief minister, Akhilesh Yadav, asking if he could take his kids to his ancestral village on Eid. That he had to write the letter had to do with over 50 communal riots having taken place in Central and eastern UP by them. But that was much before the ever peaceful western UP where Jats and Muslims shared quite symbiotic relations too became hunting ground for blood thirsty men.  

And with so many riots in the past two years under the watch of a "secular" government in Lucknow, mood of Muslims was worthwhile to explore. So, off the Agra-Firozabad highway, Haji Jallo Aloowaale, 75., had a lot to share. 

He claimed that he had been voting for Mulayam Singh Yadav (SP) since 1984. "Mulayam ko vote karna Allah ki marzi hai (it's Allah's will that we vote for Mulayam)," said Haji Jallo. But the same Mulayam allowed quite a few riots to take place in UP, did not he?  To this he said: "Mulayam ne Masjid girne nahi dee (Mulyam ensured that the mosque was not demolished)," said Jallo.

Haji Jallo

When asked about who will the Muslims here vote for, Jallo stopped a few young people, including burqa clad women, and demanded to know, whom they would vote for. With one hand resting on the waist and a young burqa clad woman for the company, a young man said "BSP". "Get out, you scoundrels," screamed Jallo, and the young men and women made a hasty retreat, with glare in their eyes.

With contradictions on display, it was prudent to check with others and Ajgar Hussain Quraisi, 45, seemed quite eager to talk. "We will vote for Mulayam, but young Muslims seem tilting toward BSP. The older generation among Muslims are sticking with Mulayam," said Quraisi.

When Modi's name is dropped, it becomes quite evident that Muslims are extra careful this elections not to allow the BJP run away with most number of seats in UP. "Gardan kata sakte haen par Modi ko vote nahi de sakte (We can lose our lives, but can't vote for Modi," said Muhammed Momeen in Agra. 

There are also a few Muslims who are opting for BSP, because of their unhappiness with the Samajwadi Party government in Lucknow. "We do not get any benefits: no jobs under MGNREGA, no elderly pension, no health care. We will vote for BSP in this elections," said Dilawar Khan, 35, in Konchhi village in Mainpuri (UP).

Dilawar Khan in Mainpuri (UP)

 A few conversations here and there gave a clear picture that the Muslims are identifying strong candidates against BJP across UP. "In Agra, we will vote for BSP; but in Firozabad our votes will go for SP," said Akbar Khan, 40. In Mathura, Muhammed Saleem, 45, said that Muslims would largely be voting for RLD (Jayant Choudhary against Hema Malini). 

Incidentally, UP, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam are states where "religion in danger" plank has helped political parties to herd Muslims for many decades. Shahid Siddiqui, a former member of Rajya Sabha and editor of Urdu weekly Nai Duniya, came openly in favour of Modi, and argues against "herd" behaviour of Muslims in elections. 

"My timeline on Twitter is flooded with abuses, but I don't care. If Muslims want to progress, they will have to come out of this herd mindset. If they start voting for the BJP, cadre of the party will also accordingly change their beliefs and outlook about Muslims," said Siddiqui.    

 

Ram Sewak Yadav, 55, a keen political observer in Etah (UP), noted that Muslims are in a position to stop BJP in at least 40 Lok Sabha seats. But, he adds, a sharper polarization of non-Muslims and non-Yadavs in favour of the BJP would nullify all tactical advantage that the minority community had been enjoying in previous elections. And that appears to have happened in UP and also taking place in Bihar and Assam, with a beginning in West Bengal as well. 

Clearly, Muslims, egged on by a host of political parties, appear to be on front-line of the cross-fire against Modi. And, that suits Modi well, as is noted by Nirendra Dev, whose book "Modi to Moditva: An uncensored truth" was first to hit the stand among a few more . "After the post-Godhra riots, Modi during campaign for Assembly elections told me that the more he was bashed being anti-Muslims the more he got stronger; and he does not feel the need to counter that image as projected by his rivals," Dev notes.   

India surely awaits Muslims to bolt. It's animals who herd, not humans. And two hundred and fifty seven years are awfully long time to take a leap of faith. 

Mainstreamed

Last two decades of Indian politics undeniably belonged to regional parties. The phenomenon, which began from south of Vindhyanchal, swept through North and East India after 1990s.  And the political march of regional parties gained force with weakening of the Congress was another tale of a weaker Centre in New Delhi.  

Arguably, massive surge in negativism in Indian politics should be singularly blamed on the weak Centre. A politically weak Prime Minister in Manmohan Singh for 10 years derailed the India story, which a surging youth population yearned for. 

But it will be short-sightedness if only Manmohan Singh was singled out for all the ills of the country. Because, regional parties largely remained slave to their poverty of ideas too. 

The story of Tamil Nadu is that of shoddy governance irrespective of the fact whether DMK or the AIADMK ruled the state. In Andhra Pradesh, beneficiaries of "good governance" of former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu were, arguably, entrepreneurs and landed gentries. Later, YSR Rajshekhar Reddy, with his thrust on foodgrains dole out, took the state further backward even though lakhs of engineering and medical graduates yearned for better lives.     

In North, Bihar under the rule of Lalu Prasad saw "dark age" for two decades. In Odisha, Navin Patnaik, enjoying legacy of his father Biju Patnaik, took refuge in cheap foodgrains dole out for his political security. In Jharkhand, misdeeds of regional parties took the state to worse days.

And the tales of Uttar Pradesh, which accounts for 80 Lok Sabha seats with a population close to 22 crore, are utterly saddening. "Mulayam ne londo (Akhilesh Yadav) no saara sadak kha gawo (Mulayam's son eat away all the roads". This is what the people in UP tell about the Samajwadi Party government, which came to power with massive mandate in 2012.

The mercurial Trinamool leader Mamata Banerjee had scripted history after decimating the 32 long years of Left rule in West Bengal. But she, after three years of being sworn in as chief minister, knows only one thing of her administration, that blame all for the ills of the state. For backwardness, the Centre and Left are responsible; for rapes women are responsible; for crime Left "goons" are to be blamed and so on.  

But these regional satraps are now feeling the heat as the 2014 Lok Sabha elections are near their last leg. They are finding much to their discomfort, that people in their states are expressing openly their views to vote for "Modi Sarkar". 

"Sab ko mauka diya...ek mauka to Modi ji ko bhi milna chahiye...Behenji to PM nahi banengi (Mayawati) naa...(all have got opportunities...Modi too should get one...Mayawati can't become PM," said a Jatav woman in Mathura, who gave her name as Dolly. Incidentally, Jatavs (Dalit) are the core constituency of BSP.   

Jatavs in Mathura

The road to the political power in New Delhi surely passes through the rugged terrain of UP. And this will be better known to no other but Manmohan Singh, who lasted two full terms on the magnanimous support of both Mulayam and Mayawati.

Incidentally, Akhilesh Yadav rode on massive support of all castes, barring Dalits, to power in Lucknow in 2012. He carried the hope, that he would bring in a change in "backward-oriented" politics of Samajwadis. And, hints in the form of distribution of laptops, tablets were there. But he lost all zeal for governance or may be just got overawed in the presence of too many party stalwarts very soon. 

So, children in Mainpuri study squatting on the floor, because they do not have government schools near their villages. Those who got laptop are still learning MS Office even after one year in the hope of getting a data entry job. A course worth Rs 2,000 would have trained them for the job they appear to be seeking.

A pvt school in Mainpuri

In Puri, an executive engineer of the state rural development department lamented that the poor just did not want to work, as they got almost free rice, and even there were no zeal among them to work under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). 

"Modi PM banega to Gujrat ke tarah yahan bhi tarakki hoga...yahan candidate se hamen matlab nahi...vote Modi ke naam par denge (If Modi becomes PM, even our place will develop like Gujrat. Candidates are not important, as we will vote for Modi only," said Vinod Ghiyar in Mainpuri in UP. Ghiyar was not alone, as most people on the campaign trails in UP, Bihar and Jharkhand, AP, etc., have to say the same about the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Incidentally, it was the Congress, which brought "welfarist" mode of politics at the fore of its governance model. Regional parties gleefully aped the Congress, for that made them to reap the windfalls by tapping into pilferage and seepage. Many ministers in Mayawati government were booked for National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scams by the CBI. The MGNREGA is a much bigger pilferage funded by tax-payers. 

"We are about 1,000 families here and none get jobs under MGNREGA, nor any elderly get pension," said Sarvar Khan in Konchhi village near Etawa in UP.

Muslims in Konchhi village in Mainpuri (UP)

The Modi campaign surrounding development easily swept through length and breadth of the country, as people grew tired of "welfarist" politics of the Congress and regional parties. And, so, Mamata Banerjee seems losing her nerves in West Bengal, while Navin Patnaik was pushed to the wall in Odisha. Mulayam is fighting for survival, while Mayawati seems clueless to the march of Modi bandwagon in her backyard. 

Even though Nitish Kumar did some amount of development works in Bihar during his first term, complacency took over him in the second term. And that set in an anti-incumbency wave in Bihar to the extent that it's a puzzle to find out which Lok Sabha seat in the state has his party, JD (U), in real contention. 

After the JD (U) had parted ways with BJP last year, Sharad Yadav beamed with confidence that regional parties would win half of the 545 Lok Sabha seats in 2014. In the winter of his political career, Yadav seems pushed to third position in his Madhepura Lok Sabha seat. 

And, writing on the wall is that regional parties are no more in a position to stop the Modi juggernaut. 

Narendra Modi bike rally in Etah (UP)

While the Congress went into the 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign in a defeatist manner, larger story is the wilting of regional parties. And that augurs well for Indian democracy, as the country appears set to leave behind the political legacy of the last two decades, that of the caste and linguistic identities weakening the march of the India story. 

Chasing Indira mirage

Political icons outlast their lives. They are more powerful even long after they are dead. 

John F Kennedy is still powerful in memories of Americans. That Bill Clinton during his first bid in the US Presidential elections got quite a leg up, after Americans found that he looked like Kennedy is being talked about far from Washington and in the unlikely land of mother of all democracy, that India is, should not come as surprise. Because what Kennedy was for America, Indira Gandhi was for India.

And the last hope of Congress and of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and also of numerous other dynasties in India seem pinned in Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Even before the noise in Congress for Priyanka becomes louder, her fans are growing in numbers among leaders of regional parties.  

That BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi has emerged as the numero-uno threat to dynasty is being admitted in the political corridor and with quite considerable concern. Modi seems to have taken BJP to such places where the party never existed and that makes him a foe of regional forces as well. 

Arguably, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has lost his political plot. And as if Indian politics is still that gripping soap-opera, his sister and occasional campaigner Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is showing quite an eagerness to jump into politics. 

It will be a mistake not to see a pattern, because there is a clear orchestration to prop up her into the political arena.

"Rahul kuch jyaada hi make-up kar liya tha...bilkul babua lag raha tha...16 ke baad ham khul kar bolenge ki Priyanka ko leading role lena chahiye (Rahul looks a kid...after 16th May, we will openly demand a larger role for Priyanka," said a top ranking Samajwadi Party leader, who liasen with top Congress leaders.

Regional parties have thrived with the weakening of the Congress during the last three decades. They built dynastic political parties on caste identities and survived even after they faced corruption charges. 

But the lurking decimation of Congress in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections is being seen as a clear threat to various dynasties. They apprehend that if Nehru-Gandhi dynasty can be politically made irrelevant, they will face the similar fate in coming months or years. And, hence, it makes a strong case for rallying behind Priyanka.

"India is full of emotional people. Priyanka styles on Indira's lines. People can flock to her if she jumps into active politics," confided a seasoned politician. 

From Jammu and Kashmir to Punjab to Haryana to Uttar Pradesh to Odisha to Jharkhand, Indian democracy tells the sorry tale of electoral politics being hijacked by dynasties. While Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru pushed his daughter Indira Gandhi into politics without a clear motive to establish a dynasty, she later did make it happen in 1980s. 

And since then the beneficiaries of the JP movement formed dynasties of their own. So, Mulayam Singh Yadav clan in Uttar Pradesh, Lalu Prasad in Bihar, Devi Lal in Haryana, Shibu Soren in Jharkhand established their hegemony in their respective states. 

But the rise of Narendra Modi has sent shock waves in these dynasties. "After decimating the Gandhi dynasty, Modi will next target dynastic politics in states. He poses serious threats to all those who have carved out political dynasties on caste identities. 

Therefore, all such leaders will make a beeline to demand a larger role for Priyanka after the verdict for the Lok Sabha elections is out," confided a senior Samajwadi Party leader.Arguably, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra could be an easy target for Modi to further crush the Congress. 

"Will she not being a Mrs Vadra prove counterproductive for the Congress?" To this, the reply comes: "This is a land where the likes of A Raja wins with record margin. So, being Mrs Vadra does not matter much. People are emotional and if Priyanka can reinvent herself as Indira, there could be a recovery," said one advocating a larger role for her.

Incidentally, a weak Congress gains a lot of friends. And in the coming months the Congress may be pleasantly surprised to find a lot of new friends. They may also like to do business together. And that will happen because when faced with an existential crisis, lesser foes do not mind joining hands together. 

Thus, Navin Patnaik can have an understanding with Congress, as BJP beings to make deep inroad in Orissa. Mamata Banerjee may also revive her relations with Congress, as ground reports suggest BJP likely to fetch a minimum 15 per cent vote share in West Bengal in the Lok Sabha elections. Also, Mulayam will have no choice but to seek help from the Congress to keep the rising BJP in UP at bay.  

But the Congress will not be in a hurry to launch Priyanka into active politics so soon. That Rahul will get another five years to re-build the Congress is acknowledged in the party. And, therefore, the Congress will like to titillate the people with Priyanka's name for a while. 

You don't run all your best horses in the same race.