Modi Raj @12: India’s Hindus Are Paying a Heavy Price for the ‘Blessings’ of Hindutva Rule |
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Preparations are afoot for a fortnight-long orgy of self-praise, self-congratulations and a heavy doze of boasting as Narendra Modi completes yet another year in his prime ministerial innings. The fizz has definitely gone out of the Modi project, but the ingrained habits of loudly blowing the Hindutva trumpet do not allow for any reality check.
But a reality check is way overdue and it produces a grim picture: India’s Hindus (and other non-Muslims), have also been paying a heavy price for a decade of trenchant Hindutva. The Muslims have reconciled themselves to licking their wounds but a very heavy cost is being extracted from the majority (i.e. the Hindus). And, the phenomenon of the Cockroach Janata Party can only be understood as the revolt of this majority for the price they find themselves having to pay for a decade of shabby governance.
Like an exceptionally brilliant demagogue, prime minister Modi has, since 2014, been making grand promises and, more often than not, failed spectacularly in delivering on those tantalising dreams. Delivery is confined to glossy advertisements.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.
It is part of the authoritarian playbook to blame predecessors for present difficulties and imperfections; but after 12 years of unchallenged rule, no king or dictator or autocrat can escape the onus of accountability for underperformance, colossal incompetence or organised corruption.
All these years, the Modi regime seems to have proceeded and prospered on an assumption that it need not attend to the tenets of good governance because the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) have the backing of the majority........