Dark days for the Centre. NaMo and his gang are finding themselves in dire imbroglios every day. First was ‘Vote Chori’ (sic SIR); next came ‘Chanda Chori’ (sic Ram Temple funds embezzlement); close on its heels came the NEET paper leak which, thanks to the timely agitation set off by CJP, forced the infamous, incompetent Education Minister to resign.

As if all this was not enough, the Election Commission Chief was exposed by the other two commissioners when they told the nation that there had been no meetings of the triad for almost a year and their written disagreements were shown the wastepaper basket by another infamous operator, Gyanesh Kumar, the CEC. This provided the trump card to the otherwise disorganized opposition parties who had failed in exploiting the Gen Z agitation in July-August to their advantage like Kejriwal did with the Anna Hazare-launched anti-corruption drive a decade and a half ago. They were quick to catch the bus this time and seem determined to take this initiative to its end, as the mammoth march on the Supreme Court showed. Had some quick opinion polls been taken, they would show that the invincibility of the NaMo administration is going downhill as fast as its graph has soared in the last decade. NaMo and Co are in a dark tunnel with no light at the other end.

Knee-jerk firefighting has not worked. 'Chori chori aur seena jori' tough talk has badly bommeranged for the SIR muck. Attempts to crush Dipke and his Gen Z following only earned national and global ill fame! Even the RSS, which generally plays second fiddle to the good-bad-ugly doings of the NaMo gang, had to publicly denounce the Ayodhya goons and assure the country that they would suffer. Mohan Bhagwat showed the decency to face questions from Gen Z and accept that they are as much patriotic as the NDA supporters! A task force to do a thorough overhauling of UPSC and MPSC competitive selection tests was appointed with Nandan Nilekani (NN) at the helm and is considering ‘last-moment question papers’ with AI help to be sent to candidates all over the country via some 150k online centres as a preventive measure. The plan looks big enough to be practiced countrywide and is in tune with the Gen Z mindset. We will duly know where the test/taste of the pudding lies. There was some talk of the BJP-NDA youth wing setting up a national campaign to thank NaMo for the gains of his 12 years at the top, but it remained on paper. What did it lack—content or conviction?

Apart from the exceptional courage of Smit Machchar and a slightly improved performance at the Asian Games, this NN formula is the only positive development over the last three months.

Why did the Centre allow all these issues, except perhaps Chanda Chori, to snowball, political analysts wonder. Paper leaks were happening all over the country: why didn’t the Centre immediately ask to stand Dharmendra Pradhan aside and invite Nilekani to look for a remedy? Vote Chori was being thrown in the Centre’s face right after the assembly elections in Bengal and Bihar, and the top echelons of power would be aware of the 1:2 split in the EC. Why was no action taken to check if something really rotten was underway in SIR and put it back on track? Prima facie, I think, a thorough revision of voters’ lists at regular intervals is not illegitimate. Worse still, why is it being postponed until the UP elections after such nationwide uproar? Gyanesh Kumar could be sent on long leave; the two other ECs could be heard before they shared their frustration with the media. Similarly, a committee of retired Supreme Court judges could be asked to look into the judicial developments of the issue and determine whether the EC lied to the apex court. All this would be democratic, an observant citizen knows. The Centre can’t be short of advisors to suggest diversionary steps to procrastinate and allow tempers to cool. Instead, there is a cacophony dubbing those who ask for explanations 'Arajakata Wadi'—anarchists. This only shows that the NDA only has the power of numbers: there is no collective wisdom!

If NaMo, after 12 years at the top, is still in Robin Hood mode—the noble do-gooder of the needy—it is a misfortune for the country to have a PM who has no notion of diplomacy in inland politics. International politics is simple by comparison, where India is expected to respond more. But inland diplomacy requires those in charge not just to dispense administrative functions but to understand situations, initiate measures accordingly, and create a general agreement over them. A step like SIR, if necessary, at all, could not be shoved down the throat of the country without first creating a favourable atmosphere for it. Implementing such a sensitive policy, which is a conspiracy to which just the PM, the Home Minister, and the CEC are parties, is the limit of uncouth politics! It seems that Modi and Shah did not take even their own party members into confidence; as a result, while every Tom, Dick, and Harry from the opposition is crying foul over SIR, there are no BJP stalwarts taking them on. All that the BJP propaganda unit is doing is just calling them Arajakata-Wadis!

Also Read: या निवडणूक आयोगाचे उत्तरदायित्व जनतेशी आहे का? by आ. श्री. केतकर

Truly, the constitutional issues involved in the SIR muddle are beyond the understanding of the layman. Whether the EC exceeded its brief with regard to Form 6 and whether the EC lied on oath in the Supreme Court is being astutely pondered by senior lawyers and retired judges; now some working judges too have joined the debate. Both the EC and the CEC have been abandoned by the SC and the two other ECs. If he has some sense of decency, D. Kumar should step down or at least go on leave on the pretext of ‘strengthening democracy’ like D. Pradhan did: there is no harm in learning from the previous sinner. If he does not go on his own, Modi-Shah should tell him to go: their smug frigidity in this is only adding fuel to the already raging fire and encouraging the speculation that the SIR is the brainchild of Modi-Shah. The Robin Hood-like cowboy has almost entangled his own horse in the lasso which is meant to keep the herd under control!

Unfortunately, he is not alone in that!

Rahul Gandhi, around whom a lot of people are centering their hopes for an alternative, is not far behind NaMo. Look at his recent speeches: he says that those who destroy the country’s democracy will be punished. Fair enough, Rahul, but your own Granny and no one else nearly did it five decades back! I know that the grandson cannot be punished for the Granny’s sin, but he should know that public memory is not that short or weak. “Jantar Mantar belongs to the people and shall be restored to them,” Rahul roars! Don’t be so uninformed, young man: the tide that threw Indira into political isolation—for a short while, arguably—had started from the same premises! Rahul should, in the middle of his life, realise that democracy in India is threatened when there is a fractured mandate; but it is more threatened when there is a mammoth mandate in favour of a party (or a leader who is a megalomaniac). That’s the irony we have to save our democracy from.

Abhijeet Dipke, the rising Gen Z star, has challenged the PM to enforce an emergency straightforwardly instead of doing it indirectly. The phrase ‘emergency-like situation’ has been around for almost a decade. Some have gone ahead and called it worse than an emergency. I pardon all those who were born after 1977—my generation is responsible for their ignorance! But no great argument is needed here. The very construction ‘emergency-like’ is self-explanatory. Also, the fact that such charges are being made round the clock and reported by the media is proof by itself. Thirdly, there was no social media like the present one 50 years ago. We only heard gossip and rumours—those too, distantly.

Finally, NaMo is certainly going the Indira way, but I wonder whether he will be so naïve as to take the last suicidal step: he may not be a diplomat, but Nature has gifted all with the survival instinct!

- Vinay Hardikar
vinay.freedom@gmail.com 
(The writer has been working in the public sphere of Maharashtra for the last five decades. His versatile personality has several dimensions, but the primary ones remain to be that of an established writer, journalist, editor, critic, activist, and teacher.)

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