Some say these past few days have probably been the most embarrassing ones for Mr Narendra Modi. Well, it may have been so. And looking at it from terra firma, it seems a fair comment too. But if you say it to a bhakt and are an “outsider”, your personal embarrassment would be the greater: “hogwash”, that would be the answer to any suggestion of embarrassment of the leader the rude comment invites. Everything about Modiji is nice and dandy, including (no wonder) the “Modi Jacket” which seems to have become a favorite among the international elite, including the South Korean President. Looking up from the ground below at the gravity -defying heights of the world’s tallest statue inaugurated only the previous day by Modi himself, dwarfing the pride of the Americas, the statue of Liberty in New York, and that great art work Jesus Christ in Argentina.
The whole of 189 metres tall Sardar Patel statue, costing approximately just Rs. 3,000 crores and put together by our ‘skilled’ friend to the north, China, as if in gratitude to India for having blessed their land with message of Buddha, a memorial to which is also in the offing, both in atheistic China as well as in Buddhist pilgrimage centres like Gaya in Bihar. Unfortunately local Hindu priests in Gaya aren’t too keen to welcome the Buddhist. But Sangh culture vulture believe that Gaya and its neighborhood must remain closely associated with the Buddha story, as much as the Nepalese want the birthplace of Siddhartha who became the Buddha to be an inseparable part history. But then Sardar Patel, for whom the BJP has often tried to show a soft corner – overlooking the fact that with Gandhi, Nehru and Azad, Patel formed the backboneof the late Congress Party (unrelated to the Gandhis of today) and the freedom movement launched by it. Mr. Modi like his other colleagues also chooses to forget that Patel, the Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister of free India, had suspected the RSS among Gandhi’s assassins. Sardar may have had his quirks, as any individual would, but his role in quelling the anti-Muslim riots in 1947 in Delhi is worth remembering, his visits to camps where departing Muslims were gathered to depart for Pakistan, have been recorded with pride — and not by the Hindu right. V D Savarkar, an accused in the Gandhi murder case, the Sanghathan would have one believe, was the greatest freedom fighter of them all, and they did prove their muscle in this regard when they had a picture of his installed in the Central Hall of Parliament alongside some of the most dramatic figures of the freedom struggle. Mr. Modi, likewise, is immensely influenced by the RSS version of history and you don’t need my telling that to you. After all he was an RSS pracharak for years before taking over power as the Chief Minister of Gujarat for nearly three terms which indeed was converted the State into an experimental lab for Mr Modi to evolve and practise what is now called the Gujarat model which thanks to his perseverance has since become the loadstar of his government in Delhi.
If it becomes difficult to tell the Prime Minister’s personal office from the officially designated Prime Minister’s office it’s no surprise. It is virtually a closed shop with none but the trusted and trained personnel in know of the workings of the Modi mandal. And you also have the ever present hand of Nagpur and its Sarsangchalak, the more visible Mr Bhagwat, to help course correction whenever required. So turning Sardar Patel into some kind of a Guru Golwalkar shouldn’t come as a surprise because it does fit into his plans.
Modi looked quite the monarch of all he surveyed in that vast acreage as he inaugurated that sky-licking statue of the Sardar, never allowing room for any misunderstanding over what all this was about – yes, with all those helicopters and assorted flying machines showering flower petals on the statue, a dramatic prelude to the predictable Modi-hyperbole worthy of such occasions; he expounded exaggeratedly on the achievements of the Sardar, suggesting along the way that he himself was not lagging behind in his quest to make Bharat Mahan. Sadly for the ruling party and the Prime Minister, the Patel show seemed to have coincided with the most embarrassing times the Modi government has faced in a long time. Not just because the highest intelligence and crime-busting outfit in the country, part of the Gujarat model of administration, was involved in a not so private dog fight. With top dogs publicly tearing each other apart, enacting a midnight drama that brings no credit to Mr Modi nor his picked points men for select jobs.
The Central Bureau of Investigation, rarely known for probity, outdid itself to an extent that another major watchdog appeared to have opted rather willingly to get embroiled in a ruckus; the upshot – he diminished the esteem in which the office of the CVC should normally be held. If this was not bad enough dog-fight turned into cat-fight as assorted senior Bureau officials sought to settle score, moving various courts, not to mention the unseemly maneuvering that followed The Supreme Court too has gotten into the act, nothing unnatural in a situation like his. And mind you Modi government has barely escaped, at least for the moment, the indignity of forcing an unprecedented discord with the Reserve Bank of India – an institution which no government has thus far tried to tangle with, aware as they are that RBI should continue to function without interference. If Modi believes that by remaining silent and letting his Ministers do the talking on his behalf he remains untouched by controversy, he is wrong. Neither can he disown disasters like the one that has befallen his tool of vengeance – the Central Bureau of Investigation. My worry is that Modi may continue to keep mum for the moment and let the hounds of hate ram every nook and cranny of India, bringing Ram Temple, centre-stage even as his satraps continue howl their guts out on issues like National Register of Citizens (some 44 lakh plus citizens being disenfranchised the east), the temple issue in Kerala, the anti-Muslim rhetoric in the cow-belt, the disastrous turn the anti-terror operations in Kashmir have taken with Security Forces intruding into residential colonies, not to speak of the battle-like situation staring ordinary people in the eye, civilians and forces both getting killed or hurt and homes being blown up on suspicion of harbouring militants/terrorists. Yes, we all do want peace in Jammu and Kashmir. Certainly I do… but not of the graveyard.