Raju Korti
Three decades after she received the Sahitya Akademi Award, it has occurred to writer Nayantara Sehgal's perceptive wisdom that the country's plural fabric is getting torn apart. That in all probability is a red herring when you know she makes no bones for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's studied silence on the Dadri lynching incident. Having made her anguish vocal on Modi's "fascist dictatorship" she has decided to return the award.
Whether out of selective amnesia or political expediency, as part of the Nehru family, Sehgal has chosen to overlook that the pluralistic nature of Indian polity was torn apart repeatedly right from the country's partition days to the anti-Sikh riots and the Gujarat riots if you discount the countless fractures it has suffered from time to time. But of course, this blog is not about Sehgal per se. It is how Modi routinely lends himself to extreme worship and extreme revulsion for the same reasons -- whether it is his 56-inch chest or his sartorial sense.
I do not see much change in Modi beyond certain cosmetic protocols since he continues to be obstinate enough not to change from the days I met him as a state leader in the mid-eighties. Calling him stubborn and inflexible might amount to dictatorship if we indulge in semantics. And yet, Modi is not in the same league as Pol Pot of Cambodia, General Pinochet of Chile or the more despotic Idi Amin of Uganda all of whom presided over military juntas. Modi is just a speck in comparison if you make concession for his unbending leanings. But he never hides his self-righteousness anywhichway.
In his spate of tours abroad in recent times, Modi has thrown all protocol to the winds and poked ridicule at his political rivals which of course has been countered in similar measure. Whether a prime minister's foreign visits should be aimed at creating international goodwill and bring investments to the country or use it as a platform to spew venom against his rivals back home is a debate that will never end. Modi is not known to be a protocol fetishist. We all know the protocol. But more powerful than our protocol is our grooming to believe in something more. The Indian Prime Minister seems to have more conviction in the latter, take it or leave it.
Years ago, Shiv Sena patriarch Bal Thackeray had stirred a hornet's nest by making out a case for a "benevolent dictatorship." Having officiated over a monolith party for well over four decades, Thackeray sought to create a Teflon-coated dictator who had a vibrant democracy and people's welfare at heart. Thackeray, like many others of his ilk, had little to do with the fact that the difference between democracy and dictatorship is in the former you vote first and take orders later. In the other, you don't have to stand in serpentine queues for voting. Modi's case appears to be that of "I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator."
Without sounding fair or unfair to Modi, let me say this: When Liberty becomes a license, there is a dictatorship at your doorstep. All leaders from Gandhi to Modi have been licentious if you realize what I mean. The gullible have a Hobson's choice.
Three decades after she received the Sahitya Akademi Award, it has occurred to writer Nayantara Sehgal's perceptive wisdom that the country's plural fabric is getting torn apart. That in all probability is a red herring when you know she makes no bones for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's studied silence on the Dadri lynching incident. Having made her anguish vocal on Modi's "fascist dictatorship" she has decided to return the award.
Whether out of selective amnesia or political expediency, as part of the Nehru family, Sehgal has chosen to overlook that the pluralistic nature of Indian polity was torn apart repeatedly right from the country's partition days to the anti-Sikh riots and the Gujarat riots if you discount the countless fractures it has suffered from time to time. But of course, this blog is not about Sehgal per se. It is how Modi routinely lends himself to extreme worship and extreme revulsion for the same reasons -- whether it is his 56-inch chest or his sartorial sense.
I do not see much change in Modi beyond certain cosmetic protocols since he continues to be obstinate enough not to change from the days I met him as a state leader in the mid-eighties. Calling him stubborn and inflexible might amount to dictatorship if we indulge in semantics. And yet, Modi is not in the same league as Pol Pot of Cambodia, General Pinochet of Chile or the more despotic Idi Amin of Uganda all of whom presided over military juntas. Modi is just a speck in comparison if you make concession for his unbending leanings. But he never hides his self-righteousness anywhichway.
In his spate of tours abroad in recent times, Modi has thrown all protocol to the winds and poked ridicule at his political rivals which of course has been countered in similar measure. Whether a prime minister's foreign visits should be aimed at creating international goodwill and bring investments to the country or use it as a platform to spew venom against his rivals back home is a debate that will never end. Modi is not known to be a protocol fetishist. We all know the protocol. But more powerful than our protocol is our grooming to believe in something more. The Indian Prime Minister seems to have more conviction in the latter, take it or leave it.
Years ago, Shiv Sena patriarch Bal Thackeray had stirred a hornet's nest by making out a case for a "benevolent dictatorship." Having officiated over a monolith party for well over four decades, Thackeray sought to create a Teflon-coated dictator who had a vibrant democracy and people's welfare at heart. Thackeray, like many others of his ilk, had little to do with the fact that the difference between democracy and dictatorship is in the former you vote first and take orders later. In the other, you don't have to stand in serpentine queues for voting. Modi's case appears to be that of "I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator."
Without sounding fair or unfair to Modi, let me say this: When Liberty becomes a license, there is a dictatorship at your doorstep. All leaders from Gandhi to Modi have been licentious if you realize what I mean. The gullible have a Hobson's choice.
No comments:
Post a Comment