The year 2017 ends on a peculiar note. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which enjoyed success in state assembly elections and government installation efforts through much of the year, enters 2018 with a queasy feeling building within, while the opposition, outsmarted for the most part, has a spring in its step. Three factors that were not in evidence a year ago, explain this somewhat counter-intuitive situation.
One: Prime Minister Narendra Modi looks fallible. The image of a leader who knew exactly what the country needed – and would ensure that it happened, as he had done in Gujarat – has suffered.
More than three years into its term, the Modi Sarkar looks clueless on several fronts. It has struggled to deliver jobs, address technology, infrastructure and market issues in the farm sector, and find durable solutions to internal and external security challenges.
Some of the above would still have been looked at charitably had Modi demonstrated turnaround capacity.
However, his most ambitious policy measures have only raised doubts around whether his ‘know-all, can-do’ aura is deserved. Demonetisation, despite the initial enthusiasm manufactured around it and some frantic goalpost shifting, turned out to be the disaster every sane person predicted it to be – and led to the first widespread wonderment on whether Modi has the foresight and empathy his adherents see in him, and whether he prioritises the headline-grabbing gesture over the substantive. The hastily-introduced Goods and Service Tax regime has reinforced those questions.
So much so that Modi was loath to mention the Gujarat Model during his campaign and was compelled to resort to diversionary personal attacks and conspiracy theories instead.
Two: Rahul Gandhi has emerged in a new avatar. A year ago, he was perceived a gaffe-prone, reluctant politician, lacking both ambition and tools to take on the formidable Modi. Not so anymore.
Crucially, the new Rahul asserts himself in a manner markedly different from Modi. He is not abrasive, appears to carry no personal animus, makes no attempt to milk his personal struggles, and avoids divisive pitches.
Importantly, he openly invites engagement with dissenting positions, and his themes suggest a steadfast focus on issues concerning the unemployed, farmers, unorganised workers, and small businesses.
Given his party’s sizeable (if truncated over time) pan-India footprint, Rahul may well emerge as the rallying point that anti-BJP forces have been scouting for if he maintains present energy levels.
Three: The BJP’s project of socio-cultural hegemony has created dissonances. Attempts to impose Hindi and vegetarianism, introduce Sanskritic flavors in local celebrations, and meddle with local histories in a bid to open up politically advantageous cleavages, have hurt regional pride. This, together with crude attempts at political appropriation of official events and long-held concerns over discrimination in resource transfers, gives the regional parties much ammunition against the BJP.
The embarrassment in the RK Nagar bypoll, the limited traction its protests over political killings in Kerala drew, and a clear disconnect between pre-election hype and post-election reality in various polls in West Bengal, all point to the BJP’s flawed approach to winning hearts outside the Hindi heartland.
Their non-privileged background and lack of political affiliation adds to their credibility, and their energy and irreverence could spark off wider calls for change. The BJP, which has used similar voices before, should know better than dismissing them as flash-in-the-pan freelancers.
Mevani, in fact, may have opened the floodgates for sharper attacks on Modi, with his recent advice to the PM to stop boring the public, apologies for his failures, and consider retirement.
After all, of all the names a public figure can be called, the most damning is ‘boring’. It suggests they have lost the ability to excite, and what good are sportspersons, film stars or politicians if they cannot engage their audience anymore.
That then is the big story of 2017. The superstar’s escapist output is not as engaging as it once was; his rival and other fresh faces are drawing audiences with realistic, edgier fare.
The footfalls for the latter are obviously not enough as the Gujarat experience has shown – that the Congress rattled the Modi-Amit Shah combine in home conditions, but finally found itself short of the numbers, should alert the opposition both to the possibilities and limitations of its presentation – but the box office jackpot does not appear elusive anymore. A better-knit script could do the trick.
(Manish Dubey is a policy analyst and crime fiction writer and can be contacted @ManishDubey1972. This is a personal blog and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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