By Harish Khare
Then a ‘man of the masses’, Modi now is a prisoner of his office; Rahul, once disinterested in the family’s presumed sense of noblesse oblige, has today discovered the liberating power of the crowd and the street.
Till 25 years ago, Narendra Modi was a free man. He could move around freely, mingle with the crowds and no police officer had the incentive to concoct a ‘threat’ to his life. He had the reputation of being a practitioner of principled politics, a man with a clean slate and a clear conscience.
Then, one fine morning he got himself anointed a mansabdar, thanks to the indulgence of a powerful patron in the Delhi Darbar. Intrigues and conspiracies and factionalism had overwhelmed the imperial court at the Centre. And Narendra Modi created an opening for himself.
Life changed for Narendra Modi. He had the responsibility of authority and the commensurate obligations of a wise ruler. Before this clever man could get into his strides, he allowed himself to be befriended – in the classic tradition of a Mughal court – by influential traders, time-serving officers and groveling darbaris. And, then the Feb-March 2002 killings began, and he fell far short of performing his rajdharma.
Suddenly, a man of the masses became a prisoner of his “security detail”. He was deemed to be a very threatened man. He became dependent upon ‘trusted’ advisers, who were happy to add to his ingrained self-centeredness.
Yet Narendra Modi-the-street-smart found innovative ways to ‘communicate’ his ‘message’ to the masses. From a mansabdar’s perch, he positioned himself to be a semi-autonomous subedar, not unwilling to challenge the imperial centre. He skillfully put together a formidable coalition of powerful vested interests to make a bid for the Delhi gaddi. He moved in for the kill in 2014.
His rival for the Delhi gaddi was also a young man named Rahul Gandhi. The contrast between young Gandhi and not-so-young Modi could not be starker and total: one with a famous family lineage, born in a prime minister’s house, over-fed with a dynastic sense of entitlement – and the other with all the handicaps of a backward caste.
Rahul Gandhi disliked people, despised his Congress party bosses and was disinterested in the family’s presumed sense of noblesse oblige. His rival, Narendra Modi, wallowed in his ‘chai wala’ mystique, pretended to be at ease with those who wore ‘hawai chappals’ and otherwise positioned himself as a principled opponent of the very idea of a ‘Lutyens elite’.
The 2014 electoral battle was a done deal much before it began. The received wisdom was that Narendra Modi’s greatest advantage was that his principal rival was Rahul Gandhi. One was a fakir and the other was a prince.
Dial forward to October 2026. Narendra Modi has all the trappings of an emperor; no ministerial colleague dares hope for a share of the imperial space and spotlight; the emperor walks alone; he has the overwhelming and unfettered power to make anyone and everyone in his realm to submit to his desires, whims and fancies. He used the authority of his office to denude the Gandhis of their special privileges like SPG protection.
That act of petty vengeance on the prime minister’s part liberated the Gandhis of an unreal sense of specialness and soon they were going across the land on a ‘Bharat jodo yatra’.
And then in July, the Delhi police was nudged to rough up Rahul Gandhi. Once again, the man who was privileged and pampered all his adult life experienced the pain (and the joy of defiance) of physical coercion. It must have been a transformational experience for this not-so-young man. Rahul Gandhi (and his sister) has now discovered the street. There is a certain intoxication to the idea and act of climbing atop a police barricade.
A man who only a few years ago was ridiculed for his sense of entitlement has now discovered the liberating power of the crowd and the street. Rahul Gandhi has been on the road of defiance and protest for days; he has been detained twice by the Delhi police in two days, and his determined insurgency has successfully shown Prime Minister Narendra Modi up as heading a coercive regime. The slogan heard at Jantar Mantar last month – jab jab Modi darta hai, police ko aage karta hai – has begun to resonate beyond the national capital.
Twenty-five years later, the roles are reversed: Narendra Modi is a (willing and joyful) prisoner of his office; he is surrounded by crony capitalists and compromised advisers; power is no longer a matter of purpose or principle; he is hobbled with organised corruption and incompetence; and, like with all failing arrangements, he is unable to see the creeping delinquencies, leave alone do anything to change his regime’s stripes.
The perception of a nobility of niyyat has now evaporated in thin air. The king no longer hears the anguished murmurs of an impoverished populace.
On the other side of the equation is yesterday’s prince, Rahul Gandhi, exuberantly talking of notching up 100 FIRs; his current account is at 45. Once, the likes of Subramanian Swamy believed that putting Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the dock in a courtroom would dissolve the myth of the Gandhis; today, Rahul Gandhi and his sister are themselves out on the street, advertising to the whole world that they have sufficiently re-aligned themselves with the masses.
Twenty-five years later, the optics have changed because power has taken its toll and powerlessness has infused its own zest. In this ancient land, we had long ago been warned against such a denouement of kingly indifference and the resulting dissatisfaction. Book IV of Kautilya’s Arthashastra: “When a people are impoverished, they become greedy; when they are greedy, they become disaffected; when disaffected, they voluntarily go to the side of the enemy or destroy their own master.” So, it is written.
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