Prem Panicker - Modi's Unwillingness To Listen To Criticism Has Knocked The Halo Off His Head

The crowds that thronged Delhi to celebrate Narendra Modi’s swearing-in breathed that purified air through the Modi mask that had during the election cycle been elevated to a fashion statement. And in response to Modi’s triumphant speech, they responded to his call of "Achhe Din" with chants of "aa gaye", in a symphonic chorus of sycophantic adoration. The crowds responded to Modi's call of ‘Achhe Din’ with chants of ‘aa gaye’. Those were heady days. The air was perfumed with faith – "the substance,” says Hebrews 11:1, “of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” A nation saturated with a carefully constructed narrative of UPA non-performance, endemic corruption, and policy paralysis had found faith in the mythological "Gujarat Model"; it now sought evidence of turbocharged performance in the headlines.
On May 28, 2014, Modi talked tough to his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif. Also on May 28, the Modi Cabinet in its first formal act constituted a Special Investigation Team to bring back the black money stashed abroad. On June 5, he shook up the bureaucracy, told them their leisurely golf games were a thing of the past, and said they should clean up their offices and their act. His tough love energised the bureaucrats, we learned. The decisions flowed thick and fast; the contrast with the paralytic UPA2 could not have been starker. June 10: Poverty was to be eliminated. June 11: The Supreme Court was asked to take a quick decision on the question of MPs with criminal back-grounds. July 30: Through a “lab to land” policy, steps were taken to increase agricultural output, producing “more crop per drop”. August 7: FDI in defence and railways was increased. August 20: A new irrigation scheme was announced. August 28: Every citizen was to get a bank account.

On September 17, Modi sought his mother’s blessings on his birthday. September 20: Modi batted for Indian Muslims and spoke of the injustice done to them. October 11: Each MP was told to adopt a village. October 23: Modi spent Diwali with the troops in Siachen. October 26: In three quick meetings, defence projects worth a total of Rs 1,20,000 crore were cleared. November 22: Modi spoke of his affection for the people of Kashmir and promised to restore democracy and humanity to the region. November 30: The police force became SMART.
The decisions flowed thick and fast; the contrast with the paralytic UPA2 could not have been starker. The government had its eyes, and its mind, everywhere. Focus areas were identified with speed and profusion. On June 24, the focus was on redressing public grievances, improving Centre-State relations and meeting the needs of the armed forces. Making his first ever Independence Day speech on August 15, Modi focused on ridding the country of its noisome trash, giving every citizen access to a toilet, improving the lot of women, and boosting manufacturing through a Make in India scheme. On August 22, Modi focused on the Digital India scheme designed to boost the education and healthcare sectors. October 16, Modi focused on improving the business climate and ameliorating the lot of labor.

He charmed the United States and wowed Madison Square Garden. Even the gaucherie of wearing a suit with his name embroidered on it was quickly forgiven when it raised Rs 4.3 crore in auction for the cause of cleaning the Ganga, and we cheerfully lapped up eulogies to his "hotness quotient". He roamed the world in pursuit of India’s energy future, and was hailed as an international rock star. Australia, charmed, returned two antique statues that had been stolen from India. Appropriately enough, Modi won – by a distance – the reader poll for Time Person of the Year.

The markets loved him; shops from Delhi’s Sadar Bazaar to Bangalore’s Malleshwaram reaped windfalls from the sale of Modi merchandise. We heard of five reasons why Modi was special; we learned he had a 10-point plan to improve India in 100 days. “We are going to win so much you may even get tired of winning,” Donald Trump was to say on the stump in May 2016. In India, it felt like we were already living Trump’s boast two years before he articulated it. Who was going to say nay?

Modi, working 18 hours and more each day in pursuit of the promised "achhe din", grew weary of all this winning, tired of all this praise. “I miss criticism,” he lamented. “Democracy is alive only if there is criticism.” Back in 46 BCE, when Julius Caesar entered Rome in triumph, he had at his left shoulder a man whose job it was to lean over every once in a while and remind him, over the cheering of the crowds, “This too shall pass.” The Modi of 2014 seemingly had everything – except a voice to remind him that praise is fleeting, that it is accomplishments, not accolades, that are worth pursuing.

And thus, on October 4, 2017, 1,005 days after he lamented the absence of criticism, a querulous Modi was reduced to fudging figures and lashing out at a “handful of people” for “spreading pessimism”. “The BJP is on the back foot” is the word on the streets. Dissenting voices are proliferating across sectors ranging from agriculture to industry to entertainment and beyond. Previously voiceless sections of the media are finding their voices, and these voices are sharp, they are critical, they excoriate. The opposition has upped its game on social media, once the hegemony of the BJP, and reduced party bigwigs to warning of a tool they once gleefully appropriated to their ends.

Fact-checking is the new growth industry. One-time cheerleaders are turning apostate. Allies – the Shiv Sena, to cite the most obvious example – have turned fractious. And even members of Modi’s own party – Arun Shourie, Subramanian Swamy, and Yashwant Sinha to name just three – have voiced their astringent criticisms publicly, openly, almost daring the party to take action, in full knowledge that the now-beleaguered BJP cannot afford to have its own people outside the tent pissing in. Three years is a very short time in politics – seemingly too short a time for a messianic figure to so thoroughly lose his sheen. To understand why this has happened, turn to the story of Shalya from the Mahabharata… read more:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/prempanicker/modis-unwillingness-to-listen-to-criticism-has-knocked-the?utm_term=.afW5mAdDo#.uxv5gdqzA


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