Saturday, April 13, 2013

The Modi Man and Mr. Money Bags in Indian politics

I can see the first few droplets of the ensuing general elections on my TV screen. The main political parties are lining up to impress the industrialists to garner money support. Once the election begins to pour cats and dogs, the fat cats dive deep and the cattle class comes into prominence. 

Narendra Modi, BJP Prime Ministerial hopeful, was the first to kick-start the season by making an attempt to seek the blessing of the 1% super rich elite through the Wharton Business School route. When Wharton did not succeed, Modi applied “economy of effort” principle to reach out to both the businessman and their budding confidants through one single speech. He chose, SRCC (Sri Ram College of Commerce) that prepares young talent to go out and serve the global financial elite. He did a repeat performance in At the India Today Conclave. 

In order to avoid looking laggard, Rahul Gandhi, Congress’s reluctant heir apparent has also chosen to address the annual general meeting of lobby group Confederation of Indian Industry on 4th April 2013. 

The very idea of Narendra Modi as a leader of Indian democracy is reprehensible. By admitting Modi and his criminal coterie into its parliamentary committee, the BJP has rubbed salt into Guajarati Muslim’s wounds. The same BJP that finds it difficult to utter the word ‘pardon’ when it comes to Sanjay Dutt’s crime has no compunctions in condoning Modi who himself claims to be sleeping on his watch while thousands of Muslims were being lynched and burnt alive in Gujarat. 

BJP’s open display of selective mourning- obliterating Muslim misery from the nation’s collective consciousness and pasting masochist Modi’s image instead, is fraught with grave dangers for India’s well being. 

Those who support Modi are saying it loud and clear that the death of an India Muslim just doesn’t matter. This regressive agenda is pushing our social relations back towards the same old “paranoid-schizoid position - the struggle to eat or be eaten”. It is under such a state that divisive figures like Jinnahs’ begin to take shape and nations enter a state of civil-war. 

Modi may have managed riot-evidence in his home state and in the Apex court, but he knows that dealing with the Americans is difficult and that is his main fear. The international forces that are currently propping up Modi may pretend to overlook his weak spot, but they are quiet adept at exploiting it an opportune moment. So Modi as a Prime Minister will not only be weak but also pliable. 

Modi and his opportunistic party are stuck in a time rap. To look modern, Modi projects the image of a development man - a leader who can build roads, canals and lay the internet cable. But aren’t these the job of an able manager? 

Why do we need a tainted figure to perform these jobs for us? We have scores of professionals like E Sreedharan do give us the top class infrastructure and systems. 

A leader inspires people to take positive steps towards progress. Sadly, Modi’s performance in this arena is dismally pathetic. The developed world is tired of capitalism and is looking for viable alternatives and Modi is busy giving us lessons in profit making and ‘entrepreneurship’. 

Modi cannot talk inequality, because that is what he is being used to promote further. Modi has no transformative idea to present. All he can offer is fear of authority and that is exactly what the sixty odd Indian dollar billionaires are looking for in the leader that they need to anoint. 

The top-most Indian elite have lost trust in Congress leadership to protect their properties, it is for this reason that Rahul too is attempting to appease the captains of Indian economy, and pleading before them not to abandon the Congress ship. For the Indian Bourgeois, both the Congress and the BJP with similar economic agenda, but slight variations in their emphasis on the ‘national’ and the ‘social’ are best suited to maintain the semblance of democracy. 

It is for this reason that no alternative political thought is allowed to come up and the coroprate media makes sure that the Congress, BJP duo continue to maintain monopoly over “national popular collective will”.

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