Wednesday, 19 December 2018


A tale of two handkerchiefs  

Narinder Modi is a leader of the grandiloquent gesture .Prime ministers  of the past, when they won unprecedented  victories in the parliamentary  polls,  did not make a big  song and dance about it . They went in meekly and when their turn to speak  came they   made an acceptance speech without displaying  their histrionic  abilities  to leave an indelible mark on the pages of history, be it Indira Gandhi  in 1971 or Rajiv Gandhi in 1984.
Not so friend Narinder Bhai. His first  historic moment  came in 2014,when  he led the BJP to win a massive mandate  in the  Lok Sabha. Now the thespian  in him decided  to make his entry into the Parliament  house  at the magical moment  that would be remembered for a long long time  . It was  as if he were  a  later day  Moses   entering the Dead  Sea  with his cohorts  thus displaying his great  powers  as  the  Prophet  of  Judaism .
When he arrived at Parliament  House  he  stopped  at  the  main  entry, a lonely figure chiefly responsible  for the victory . All his followers  also   stopped  but several  steps  behind  him, thus underlining the undeniable fact of his leadership . He bowed  down and  touched  the  entry  point  with his  forehead  as  if  he was  a devotee  seeking  the  permission  of  the  presiding  deity  to enter  his  divine  domain . Close observers  would  have, if  they  looked  sharply  enough,   seen his  lips  mumble  a mantra  to invoke the divine  grace  on  the  purely  mundane  act  of  entering  a  place  for transacting  political  business .
The same gestures of grandiloquence  invested two mundane handkerchiefs with magical bursts of  divine  energy . First occasion :  it was  the  15th of August  and  Modi was speaking from the ramparts of the Red fort  in his highly clipped language of  RSS worship and playing the tricky games of  Hindutva , while pretending  to  extend all the human rights  to the non-Hindus.
For the first time the huge audience , impressed  with  the  Band gala  jacket  over  a  56 inches chest  and an oversized  Maratha turban  reminiscent of  Chhatrapati  Shivaji  were suddenly  over  shadowed  by  a large  white  handkerchief . This new addition to the Prime Minister’s   sartorial  attire  was meant  to  dry  the  huge  beads  of  perspiration  that  were  constantly  forming  on  the  great man’s  forehead .This  large  white  handkerchief  emerged  again  and again  in Modi’s  protective hands, thus  becoming  a  visible  symbol  of  the  State’s  imperial  might and supreme power. 
Hardly had  the dumb  millions  recovered  from   this  open   display of  the  supreme  exhibition of the  Centre’s  authority  than the 16th August  supervened  and  Modi  was again  in  his  Divine Form, walking  beside  the  gun carriage  of  Atal  Bihari  Vajpayee  .  Again  the  handkerchief  was merely  a  reminder  of  his  Viratswarupa  that  compelled  the  incumbent  Prime Minister  to  walk several  kilometres  in   hot  and  humid  weather,  singing  the  hymn  of  people’s  Government.

Thus  we  have  now  New  Delhi,  the  city of   two large white  handkerchiefs,  ineffectually  trying  to  conceal the  basically  aggressive  agenda  of   Modi’s   brand  of  politics. 

                                        

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