Has Modi Learnt Nothing From Election Result?

On June 26, for the likes of me, the music died.

Any impression of potential change held forth by the outcome of the 2024 general election, was vaporised, states Shyam G Menon.

As in the song, it was the day the music died.

Twenty-two days after the results of the 2024 general elections, on June 26, the sense of relief, I felt thanks to majoritarianism disciplined by the poll verdict, evaporated.

The Modi government's ways seemed little altered.

Within days of the results, hints were available in the form of a ministry sporting pretty much the same old faces with even portfolios retained unchanged.

For those anxiously watching the third Modi government for signs of change, the final nail in the perception coffin was courtesy the ruling dispensation's choice for the post of Lok Sabha speaker.

It was the same person under whose watch record number of elected representatives were suspended and important laws passed without proper discussion, in the previous Lok Sabha.

That last bit -- laws passed without adequate discussion -- is a terrible worry, for laws set to take force so include some that have implications on human rights.

By the evening of June 26, it seemed apparent that the country may be heading into yet another period of political confrontation with the only panacea offered by the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies being a test of endurance to see which side outlives the mutual taunting and disagreements.

Speaking for myself, I am fatigued by the BJP's talent for distraction and obfuscation.

As the party revived its criticism of the Nehru-Gandhi years and commenced attacking the Emergency imposed under Congress rule 49 years ago in 1975, one wondered for a minute if the Parliament of this country had been reduced so swiftly post-polls into an advertisement for a film on said 49-year-old subject due for release later this year.

Otherwise, who cares for Prime Minister Narendra D Modi's spiel on the Emergency in 2024, when his decade-old rule and the penchant for one-sided decisions, witch hunting and the authoritarianism it betrayed, survive more immediate and rawer in memory?

Or for that matter, what about all that transpired in this country as a consequence of what happened in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992?

Is there no cumulative cost to any of that, which the political Right-Wing must acknowledge?

One could only hang one's head in shame; not merely at the level of intellect displayed by the BJP and its allies but also the Opposition, for the defeated and conciliatory tone it seemed to show in the early days of the first session of the new Lok Sabha.

The latter, which did not seek a count of votes in the election to choose the new Lok Sabha Speaker as a gesture of conciliation, would be failing in its duty if it doesn't recognise the blunt truth that the BJP won't change its ways.

In fact, in the interval between June 4 and the commencement of new Parliament session, there were attacks on minorities, which reportedly, neither the government nor the Opposition condemned suitably.

Questions have been raised if the Opposition is too lost in its new found importance post polls, to notice these developments.

For a proper picture of what the BJP has done to itself, one needs to set politics aside and take an aerial view of how the 2024 poll verdict provides the party a misplaced sense of security.

On the map, India's political colours (as decided by elections) have altered since 2019.

While the colours from assembly elections still favour the BJP, the more peripheral layer of parliamentary colours have shifted thanks to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

On June 26, while Modi was lecturing the country on the Emergency, outside Parliament, the case against alleged corruption by Delhi's elected government was dragging on.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, has been in jail since April 1 for an alleged excise policy-linked money laundering scam, save a brief period when he was out to lead the Aam Admi Party's election campaign.

This probe was initiated by the Enforcement Directorate, an agency closely identified with the Modi regime's investigation of its opponents.

The same day the Emergency became a heated topic of discussion in the Lok Sabha (right down to a resolution presented on the same), Kejriwal was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

His application for bail, initially approved by the lower Court was stayed by the high court after the ED sought the same.

The arrest by the CBI was a further embellishment to proceedings.

By the evening of June 26, news reports cited Kejriwal's wife Sunita saying that the whole system was working to make sure her husband stayed in jail and that the situation smacked of 'dictatorship' and 'Emergency'.

Delhi has been a major political battlefield for the BJP. Control of Delhi has remained a prestige issue for the party.

In the 2024 general elections, Delhi delivered the BJP a clean sweep of all the Lok Sabha seats on offer from there.

It is quite likely that the BJP hopes to have a resounding win in Delhi's next assembly elections, which must be held on or before February 2025.

What a victory in Delhi -- including the Lok Sabha election sort -- affords the BJP in times of push-back elsewhere is that it lets the party sit securely in the national capital, protected by a BJP stockade and engage in pointless acts like lecturing the country on the Emergency and continued attack of the Nehru-Gandhi era.

Not to mention -- the BJP's signature alchemy of polarising themes.

This architecture of stockaded comfort in Delhi harks of trends witnessed globally in the planet's politics.

If viewed through the lens of the Capitol stormed during Donald Trump's presidency in the US, non-BJP members in our Parliament would seem reminded daily of its encirclement by saffron territory.

On the other hand, if viewed through the lens of what happened recently in Kenya -- coincidentally, the same day as Modi and his party were lecturing us on the excesses of Emergency -- the BJP in Parliament would seem protected by aforesaid BJP dominated territory outside.

Whipped in larger country, the BJP seems to draw confidence from its muscularity in the capital.

Neither of these images attract an ordinary citizen like me, who expects Parliament to decide policy wisely and administer this country; not provide a protected venue for any party to hijack the collective power of India's 1.4 billion people and hang on to it.

Still, shielded by Hindutva, sycophancy and Delhi's saffron-washed electoral verdict, the BJP with its fixation on distractions like the Emergency, appears to rule from Delhi like a Nero who doesn't know what is happening on the Roman empire's streets.

As it battles itself more and more into a corner, the ruling dispensation's avenues of information will shrink to telegraph lines owned by the government and the party's cohorts.

Will the BJP be informed about what the public feels? Yes, it will be; a battery of informants will ensure that.

Will it engage with the public for said information?

I doubt it; because aside from the party's many clubs of sycophants ever eager to praise and please, nobody else will welcome it.

That is the future foretold for BJP and Modi.

They risk being shut out. What's a government if it gets shut out?

Problem is -- such a script playing out at its own pace with expenses paid by the national exchequer is an absolute waste.

Any set of people should be able to understand this.

Sadly, not the current ruling dispensation.

They continue to bait, taunt and revive ghosts from the past having handed themselves and country over at the same time, to a future decided by the cold pragmatism of capital.

As if we formed this country for a victory by tradition, religion and money!

Very simply put -- the BJP has no idea what a modern country is, except in caricatured forms like GDP, G-this number and that, superpower and. of course, majoritarianism.

On June 26, for the likes of me, the music died.

Any impression of potential change held forth by the outcome of the 2024 general election, was vaporised.

The BJP has nobody to blame but itself. But then quite likely, it doesn't even know if anything is wrong.

Why should it try to know, when there's always the Emergency and Nehru-Gandhi to point fingers at?

Shyam G Menon is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com