by BS Murthy
What is more, with his formidable oratorical skills embellished with an inimitable rhetoric, he managed to foment public aversion against Sonia for her proxy regime's 'grafty' ways, which by then became the talk of the town; in short, it appeared that in an electrifying campaign, he seemingly captured the Indian nation's imagination. Nevertheless, he had to contend with the undying hostility of the umma towards him, courtesy the falsity of 2002 Gujarat riots legacy sans Godhra prefix, and an unedifying allergy of Lutyens' media that saw in his potential rise its inevitable fall in the corridors of power. Even as his sab ka sdth, sab ka vikds, [(I'm) one with all, to further all,] fell on the deaf ears of the jaundiced umma, the inimical media pitched its M odi misgivings to feverish pitch in its idiot boxes. So, all his admirers, moreso his detractors, kept their fingers crossed as the ballots were being tallied on that fateful 16 M ay 2014, and by the end of the day, as he scored 282 on his own steam, one more than VVS Laxman's celebrated cricket score against Australia thirteen years before, India seemed to have turned a new bend. As with Laxman, so with M odi, it was a case of making history.
Yet there was a flip side to that momentous election. Sonia, who was obsessed to see her son ensconced in 7, Race Course Road, in short 7 RCR, the official residence of India's Prime M inister (rechristened by M odi as 7, Look Kalyan M arg) and thought that the moment was finally at hand, was at a loss at the magnitude of her party's defeat - 44 seats, down from 206. In the televised press meet to 'accept people's verdict', while she looked crestfallen and her daughter Piranha appeared gloomy, the real 'loser' Rahall seemed unconcerned. But still, even as he took the mike after his mother has done with it, she not only peremptorily stopped him from speaking but also pulled him by his hand signaling their exit. While the entire nation saw the mawkish 44 year-old meekly submitting to his haughty mother, none, as Sherlock Holmes would have put it, had 'observed' the abnormality of his personality.
It may be appreciated that when Sonia lost her man to Dhanu the suicide bomber, she was barely 44, her son was nearing 22, and her daughter crossed 19. What with her own flock back in Italy and not a friend to name in her in-law's family, not to speak of detractors aplenty and leeches no less, in an alien country, where her political ambition made her stay put, she had to fend for herself and her children. So, as any widow would do in such a situation, she too succumbed to the urge of clinging to her son, at once providing support to him, and getting it in return from him, in the psychological sense that is. While that naturally made him a mama's boy that his genes or fate and / or both rendered half-witted, only made it worse for him in his growing up. But that's not all as there's more to his apparent 'personality disorder'.
While his mother's faith ensured that he was christened as Raul Vinci and privately reared as a Christian, his grandmother's political compulsions labeled him as Rahul Gandhi. No denying the craven media was overindulgent to the family in not exposing this cynical reality to this day - in contrast with western media's penchant to turn every Hindu fault line into an anti-Christian chasm - but it would be beyond any kid, least of all a dim-witted one like him, to change his religious cap to a political titfer and vice versa, at the drop of a hat, that too for years on, without disturbing his head. Surely, that did affect as is evident from his confused (Raul-Rahul) thought-process that runs on a course of contradictions - his words tend to be incoherent and his acts would be seemingly disjointed. Added to that is his confused demeanour, awkward behaviour and intelligible expression, and that leads to the supposition that Sonia willy-nilly enabled her unfortunate son to imbibe Dr. Dud 'n M r. Fraud split personality.
Added to his psychic dichotomy was the inimical influence of his mom's moral turpitude, first brought to light by Bofors Kickbacks, and his exposure to the assorted skeletons in the family cupboard. It's thus; his grow up afflicted his mental makeup and stunted his personality development; and so, in whatever he does or does not; his 'personality disorder' manifests itself in all its awkwardness, earning him derisive sobriquets such as Pappu 'n Buddhu. If anything, his vain attempts to portray himself as a janeudhori Hindu to varnish his and his party's, anti-Hindu image for political marketing, made him seem a buffoon to boot.
Thus, on the Hindu political ground, slowly but surely, the Congress party that began catering to the Islamic whims of the Indian umma in the guise of secularism had started losing its electoral hold. M eanwhile, the backward classes with a pie in every sphere of the national activity began foraying into the nationalistic political arena owned by BJP; though their elders habitually defaced the Congress symbol on their now defunct ballot papers, some irony in that.
While it was Annie Besant, the English woman, who helped the Congress form, Antonio Maino, the Dame de Italian, could cause its eventual liquidation. If not the maturity of the Indian electorate, at least the public allergy for the Congress' insensitivity to the national ethos that she infused into her party apparatus could ensure that, and as and when that happens, it could be one of the many ironies of the chequered history of Hindustan. And for her part, even though Sonia has been unwittingly carrying on her man's 'work in progress' of making the congress coffin for years, but yet, seemingly, it is their uninspiring son, who is probably destined to finish thejoband put the final nail in it as well.
Let it be, but what about the man, who had unashamedly served Sonia's devilish cause as her proxy premier for a decade?
In his belated address to the nation, as its Prime M inister, while dealing with the populist measures ushered in by him, ostensibly ordained by Sonia to pave the prime
way for her son, he had no qualms in appropriating to himself the 1991 economic reforms that were indeed fathered by his mentor PV Narasimha Rao.
If anything, that was true to his character.
But for Rao, who fostered him, by now he would have been a forgotten ex-governor of the Reserve Bank of India, one amongst many before him, not to speak of those who succeeded him. What a decent man's morality would demand when his patron saint falls on bad times? Maybe, to leave the sinking boat is fine for a careerist politician but desertion wouldn't be the in thing for any decent guy in his position, and that's human morality is all about.
But what did the wily Sardarji do? With his mentor in dumps, he visualized greener pastures for himself in the shade of Sonia's Bofors-tainted pallu. Well, it calls for no genius to foresee that the political dispensations of NDA 'n UPA would have alternate reigns on the musical chair of the Dillii kursi and that when the latter's turn comes; Sonia's'foreign origin' handicap would force her to concede the prized seat to someone else from her party ranks.
So what did the great survival artist do?
Not only did he distance himself from his lost out mentor but he unreservedly played the second fiddle to Sonia. Having privately ingratiated himself to her in every conceivable manner; he publicly declared that he's not a 'prime ministerial material' in an idiot box interview, not once, but twice that was in case her ears fail to pick that up in the first instance. By the same token, Pranab M ukherjee paid the price for throwing his hat into the prime ministerial ring, presumably owned by the pseudo-Gandhis, not once but twice.
But then, what to make out of all that?
If he was secretly coveting the gaddi while publicly averring that he was not up to the mark, then he was cunningly self-serving. And if he genuinely believed that he was not a 'prime ministerial material' and still grabbed the job, then he was morally dishonest. Either way, he's not a man of intellectual integrity or someone with moral conviction and /or both for which India has paid the price for having had him as its spine-less head for two decades. M aybe, he wouldn't have coveted money for himself but all the same he served Sonia's covetous causes and shamed the position of the Prime Minister, of the largest democracy on earth. That what made Modi famously characterize him as the one blessed with the art of bathing with a raincoat on him!
That's not all; besides being servile to Sonia, the way he clung to his powerful seat, rend
ered powerless by her, disregarded by his own bureaucrats, disobeyed by his cabinet members, and humiliated by Rahul, he has ensured a premier place for himself in the Indian Hall of Infamy. But as he never seemed to have minded about his selfinflicted fate; he only should have known to what avail.
And to cap it all, when his mentor's mortal remains were being abused by the vengeful Sonia, who never forgave Rao for daring to cut her dynasty to size, he turned his shameless head the other way. Such was the personal character, political ethos, and the morality of mind of this cunning man, who had conned India as the benign face of Sonia’s rdkshas regime.
Hence, Sanjaya Baru should have known better not to name his book on his times with him as The Accidental Prime M inister, which title befits only PV Narasimha Rao, for when the call came from the just-widowed Sonia, he had already packed his bag and baggage to move into his political vanaprastha, and not his ex-deputy, who had been cunningly paving his servile path to 7 RCR.
Chapter 34
Rama Rajya
When the euphoria of Modi's saffron triumph had subsided, the Hindu nationalists turned skeptical that it could be a flash in the Indian political pan, but not an enduring Hindu Rebound to bind Bharat's caste-divisive electoral ground. But Modi, who apparently came to believe in his destiny as the chosen one to retrieve Bharat Mata from the abyss the rdkshasa regimes pushed her into, had set a much higher and nobler goal - of Hindu renaissance - for himself, and what is more, began working in a mission mode to achieve that in a time-bound manner like a man possessed.
Just the same, he was no novice not to have realized the task on hand for the immoral mess that India became, which was best described by Rajiv Gandhi, its third generation dynast, in a famous speech at the Congress Centenary Session in 1985:
"M ost of us, in our daily lives, do not think of ourselves as Indians? We see ourselves as Hindus, Muslims or Christians, or Malyalees, Maharashtrians, Bengalis. Worse, we think of ourselves as Brahmins, Thakurs, Jats, Yadavas and so on and so forth. And we shed blood to uphold our narrow and selfish denominations. We are imprisoned by the narrow, domestic walls of religion, language, caste, and region, blocking out the clear view of a resurgent nation. Political parties, State Governments and social organisations promote policies, programmes and ideologies which divide brother from brother and sister from sister."
"The trader's instinct for quick profits prevails.... They flourish on sick industries.
They feel little concern of the creation of national wealth, only for a larger and larger share in it. Nothing is considered illegitimate if one marches under the right flag. Power without responsibility, rights without duties (have) has come to be their prerogative"
"Teachers seldom teach and students seldom learn. Strikes, mass copying, agitations are more attractive alternatives. ...Where there should be independence and integrity, there is the heavy hand of politics, caste and corruption.... M illions are illiterate. M illions of children have never been inside a school.”
"We have Government servants who do not serve but oppress the poor and the helpless, police who do not uphold the law but shield the guilty, tax collectors who do not collect taxes but connive with those who cheat the State and whole legions whose only concern is their private welfare at the cost of society. They have no work, ethic, no feeling for the public cause, no involvement in the future of the nation, no comprehension of national goals, no commitment to the values of modern India. They have only a grasping, mercenary outlook, devoid of competence, integrity and commitment."
"Our administrative machinery is cumbersome, archaic and alien to the needs and aspirations of the people. It has successfully resisted the imperative of change."
But more tellingly, as 'brokers of power and influence' have come to ride on the backs of congressmen, in Rajiv's own words elsewhere, 'out of one rupee spent by the government for welfare of the downtrodden, only 15 paise thereof actually reaches those persons for whom it is meant'. Nevertheless, while he had neither the will nor the ability to clean the Augean stables, his corrupt widow, in her decade-long proxy rule through her minions had made it stinkier.
Neither India was faring any better in its intellectual sphere owing to the Hindu cerebral laziness to grasp the antagonistic religiosity of the minorities - the Christian disdain for them as heathens and the Islamic dismissal of them as kafirs - whereby the debilitating phenomenon has been conveniently pushed under national secular carpet for Bharat's bane. Besides, maybe fearful of being branded as Islamaphobes, Hindu left
libs became Islamapologists thereby tending to be indulgent with the craving of the Musalmans to carve out exclusive Islamic enclaves in India, be it in Kashmir, Assam, West Bengal, Kerala or wherever they are in considerable numbers. Besides, the Indian State too has come to look the other way as the minorities were deliberately working to expand their demographic domain - the Musalmans through an unbridled procreation as well as illegal infiltration from Bangladesh and Christians by way of calculative conversions - without let or hindrance. Moreover, sadly though, even its constitution, besides thrusting a multi-faith feather on the Hindu egalitarian cap, has been enabling the Musalmans and the Christians to wear their exuberant religious colors on their sleeves.
But yet, the Musalmans have come to cry hoarse over the Hindu resentment over their apparent demographic designs by preaching them the virtues of religious tolerance, read secular values, a constitutional obligation at that! Lo, it's akin to the devil quoting the scriptures that is the good ones for there are many a devilish one therein in the Quran. So is the case with the Christian evangelicals, if anything as an intimidating tactic, albeit with a helping hand from the Indian left-liberals and their backers in the west, go to town over the 'reprehensible' religious intolerance of the Hindus. Though the mutually exclusive Christian and Islamic dispensations are antagonistic to each other, yet their protagonists worldwide have apparently ganged up in the spirit of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' against the vulnerable Hindus, perceived by both as their enemies.
It is in that setting Modi has started to set things right, and to start with, he has put the 'last man' first in his party ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyaya's antyodaya vision with the ingenious Jan-Dhan Yojana, whereby the poorest of the poor are made integral to the country's banking system through an individual 'nil balance' bank account linked to his or her Aadhar Card. Thus when M odi sarkdr began to put the 'money meant for the poor' into these accounts through the 'direct benefit transfer' route, the downtrodden got their due. And being a dyed in the wool sanghi, Modi would have been well aware that the laudable measure alone would hardly make his regime the Rama Rajya of our era, the cherished goal of Hindutva, which Sage Valmiki had chronicled in Ramayana for posterity thus:
Took care Ram of his subjects No poor cousin was ever ignored.
In his reign all lived full life None was ruined by Acts of God.
Died no infant in his reign Lived no dacoit to name one.
Reigned well dharma in his time Gone were faction fights of yore.
None was barren in his land In scores bore women there children.
Took his name all day and night Revered him all worlds to one man.
Climes all then put their best foot Dared not drought to visit his land.
Lived ail making best of life Shown was door to greed by all.
Sense of fairness ruled as minds Were there no mean in his reign.
So as to near Rama's role model, M odi, in his sab ka sdth, sab ka vikds spirit, had put in numerous public welfare schemes (yojands) to ensure that the 'last man' amongst the poorest rank, of every caste and creed, has his own home with electricity, water, a toilet, and a cooking gas cylinder. Well, intended or otherwise, his idea to be sworn in as Bharat's ruler, paraphrased as pradhon sevak by him, in the August presence of the heads of SAARC nations had the trappings of Rama's Coronation, as described by Valmiki thus:
Led by Vasisht high priest then Ram 'n Seetha reached high throne.
; One by one then twelve Vasus And those grand seers eight of them Perfused both of them with scents.
Then those elders let Brahmans Virgins, nobles and Generals Likewise perfuse them on throne.
Soon after were invited Angels ail to perfuse Ram Seetha too with heavenly scents.
The above are excerpted from the author's Sundara Kdnda - Hanuman's Odyssey
Whatever, even as he focused on things mundane, he hasn't lost sight of his divine mission to usher in the Hindu renaissance. That is besides setting out to retrieve the 'languishing' India from under the Islamic shadow into which Nehru-Azad nexus had willy-nilly pushed it by nipping its Hindu nationalistic impulses in the bud, perceiving them as offensive to the religious sentiments and detrimental to the political interests of the Indian umma.
So as to facilitate both, M odi proclaimed loud 'n clear to the world at large that India has been an unbroken civilization for over five millennia, spiritually nurtured by its rishis 'n yogis, and is not something that was born just in 1947 as the clock struck 12. Even as he took yoga onto the UN stage, he enabled the hitherto sidelined ancient Hindu monuments, along with the towering Statue of Unity, built by him for Sardar Patel, to share the Indian tourist stage with the Mogul era Taj Mahal. So as to instill in the Hindus - slighted by the proponents of Abrahamic Oder, who happened to lord over them in their own land - the pride of being Hindus, he afforded resonance to Swami Vivekanada's clarion call - garv se kaho hum hindu hai (proudly affirm that we are Hindus) - in the public domain in a way like none else before him did.
Whereas it has become fashionable for the politicians, of all hues and cries, to lace their parliamentary debates with incomprehensible Urdu couplets, Modi began espousing the egalitarian Hindu philosophical thoughts, enshrined in the Sanskrit slokas of the Vedas, Upanishads et al and also in the treasure troves in its native tongues. And to cap it all, come India's Independence Day, he made it a point to ascend the ramparts of Dilli's Red Fort to deliver the customary address to the nation as its head, in a flowing turban, in the style of the Maharajas of yore, which symbolism, even as it gladden the Hindu hearts, has become an eyesore to the Musalmans. It is rarely realized that the hostility of India's Musalmans towards BJP stems not from their feigned fear of its Hindutva moorings but owes itself to their - the ruling class for long - allergy to be governed by an unapologetic Hindu nationalistic dispensation.
