There are two distinct strands to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s art of public communication: one, high-voltage fiery bombastic rhetoric; two, total silence. The first is the highly personalised style of the nationalist superman, harking to how he is ek akela kitno par bhari (one man taking on so many of the Opposition), pushing his own ‘victimhood’ and how he is the ‘victim’ of his rivals. But when it comes to realities that discomfit the government, whether protest movements or killing of soldiers or outbreaks of violence, the top leadership of the ruling BJP stays totally and completely silent.
Loud, personalised nationalist superhero-cum-victim-cum-action man, on the one hand; stony silence, on the other. Bombastic rhetoric on certain issues, deafening silence on other matters; high profile personality projection, but mute escapism and refusal to take responsibility. It’s the politics of a government with a split personality. Citizens are kept guessing, perpetually unsure about whether their problems will merit attention or gain sympathy from the ruler. It is a strange politics of schizophrenia in which citizens can’t be hopeful of redressal of grievances if those grievances don’t fit in with the ruler’s politics.
In the special session of parliament held to pass the Women’s Reservation Bill, Modi declared, “God has chosen me for this sacred task”, thus yoking the 25-year-old Bill to his own individual persona. A highly personalised style of communication adopted by populist nationalists across the world, and which chimes well with the needs of TV media, always on the lookout for compelling personalities. TV loves the Modi cult. It also brings the BJP rich electoral dividends. The PM’s persona towers far above his party.
The victimhood cult requires a range of enemies to tilt against, one day picking a fight with the rebellious students of JNU and Jamia Milia Islamia; the next day, with the farmers of Punjab; and the third day, with ‘Urban Naxals,’ a vaguely defined group of people ranging from journalists to activists to even film personalities who don’t toe the ruling party line.
Last month, at an election rally in Bhopal, the PM lashed out against ‘Urban Naxals’. Days later, the Delhi police swooped down on the homes of journalists working with the website NewsClick and arrested its Editor Prabir Purkayastha under the anti-terror law, UAPA. NewsClick’s journalism has been cast as a ‘pro-China conspiracy’ against ‘India’s sovereignty’ when today, Chinese investment flows into several Indian start-ups. In 2019, the PM similarly mocked a group of people the right-wing has dubbed the ‘Khan Market gang’ or the so-called westernised elite that apparently opposes the BJP.
India’s Prime Ministers have usually been inclusive figures who have reached out to all citizens, but today’s hyper-ideological BJP that Modi leads, requires perpetual and pugnacious confrontation with a long list of hate figures, from students to journalists to the political Opposition. The party faithful demand that bellicose statements are trumpeted from the highest office as an ideologically driven government seeks to whip up fervour against imagined enemies.
But on issues crying out for the Prime Minister’s voice? Citizens don’t hear that voice. The healing touch is missing. For five months, violence has continued unabated in Manipur. It required a no-confidence motion by the Opposition to get the Prime Minister to finally break his silence. A social media-savvy PM who uses X, the former Twitter, adeptly, failed to put out empathetic or sympathetic tweets about Manipur.
When the BJP MP for South Delhi unleashed a venomous communal tirade against a fellow MP on the floor of parliament, the Prime Minister, who is also the leader of the Lok Sabha, again stayed completely silent. While there is no visible empathy for those suffering violence in Manipur, there seems to be a high degree of tolerance for those indulging in hate speech.
When a DSP of the J&K police and top military officers were killed in Anantnag in a gunfight with militants, there was similar silence from the PM and other top leaders, who, when the deaths were announced, were busy felicitating the PM with showers of marigolds.
When the ex-chief of the wrestling federation Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, one of BJP's UP strongmen, was accused of sexual harassment by none other than India’s Olympic medal winners, the PM stayed silent then too. These instances have given the impression that no red lines will be drawn, no one will be reprimanded if the individual concerned -- whether Ramesh Bidhuri or Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh -- is politically important enough. Silence implies condonation, even approval. Ramesh Bidhuri was even given a reward of sorts, being made election-in-charge in the important Tonk district in Rajasthan.
When the Prime Minister hails the success of the G-20 summit, or of the Chandrayaan-3 landing as India’s success, or takes pride in India’s ‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ worldview, he speaks an inclusive language. Yet, during elections, the PM speaks in harsh, exclusionary, communally-charged tones. In UP, 2017, it was kabristan-shamshaan politics. In 2019, he played the communal card by announcing that anti-CAA protesters could be recognised by their clothes. When Rahul Gandhi shifted to Wayanad constituency, the PM spoke in religious terms and accused Rahul of running to a seat where the ‘majority’ is the ‘minority’.
Yet in the same breath, the PM speaks of sabka saath sabka vikaas. The question may be asked: Do ‘Urban Naxals’, ‘Khan Market gang’ and the minorities who can be identified by their clothes fit in the sabka saath… umbrella?
For the government to acquire greater coherence and rationality, this political schizophrenia -- of one day bombast, next day silence; of harsh hostile language followed by honeyed tones -- must end. For India to take its place among the world’s leading democracies, the government and its leader needs to speak in a more rational, balanced way. A high degree of careful choreography on personal image, yet at the same time playing fast and loose with constitutional norms; an unending “us” vs “them” politics of perpetually seeking out enemies or lapsing into chilling silence in the face of suffering -- these simply do not fit with India’s global role. In 1997, Atal Bihari Vajpayee was called a mukhota (mask). When he speaks in dramatically contrasting tunes and tones at different times, citizens are left wondering whether PM Modi, too, isn’t wearing a mask.
(The writer is a senior journalist and commentator based in Delhi)