A Modi come Jaitley

Don Quixote.

Why is Jaitley enslaved to Modi? The answer goes to the heart of the BJP8217;s dilemma. The BJP faces a crisis of modernity. It has no idea how to pull off the balance between being 8216;Hindu8217; and being 8216;modern8217;. It doesn8217;t know how to make possible the emergence of the 8216;modern Hindu8217; or indeed the 8216;modern8217; Indian. The BJP 8212; obsessed with blind nationalism and anti-national elements 8212; is opposed to the very thing that millions of youth, women and Dalits are craving: modernity. Modern human rights, modern debate and a modern education. Instead of creating modernity, even supposedly forward looking politicians like Jaitley are waltzing with anti-modernists like Modi.

Take the example of Arun Shourie. Outward looking, disinvesting, foreign educated Arun Shourie. Yet why is it that Shourie, who is 8216;modern8217; in his economic plans, becomes primitive in his political beliefs? Why does he advocate some cuckoo cultural philosophy when he is trying so valiantly to make the economy more modern and rational? Shourie8217;s economic plans stand in sharp contrast to his rather patriarchal and conservative social agenda.

Take the computer savvy Hyatt hotel patronising Pramod Mahajan. He too has not understood the true meaning of modernity. Modernity, after all, lies not just in technology and sharp suits. Surely modernity also lies in creating a progressive society. Surely modernity lies in creating a diverse society where women, Muslims, Dalits and youth are given equal opportunities and all our talents are not buried in a plethora of empty high Hindu rituals and foolish prejudices. But because even the best politicians like Jaitley are so paranoid, prejudices have become newly fashionable.

In the days before he became a Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat, Jaitley was a highly successful lawyer who had strong feelings about the Emergency and who was occasionally used by the BJP to fight its cases. Jaitley was always a brilliant lawyer. He is exceptionally well informed. Yet it was he who found himself clutching the short end of the stick when the cabinet was reshuffled a few months ago. It was he who was stripped of his cabinet portfolios and asked to go back to the party precisely at a time when it was believed that there was no one in the BJP government like him. Why? Because Jaitley was seen to have limited use compared to more ferocious 8216;grassroots8217; leaders.

Jaitley8217;s enslavement to Modi emerges from a collective enslavement to 8216;authenticity8217; and to the perceived 8216;Voices Of Real India8217;. In contemporary politics, the electoral irrelevance of the educated and metropolitan is so brutal that those possessed of vocabulary and education will easily bend their brains to those who they perceive can muster the largest possible crowds. A hundred thousand will turn up for Modi8217;s gaurav yatra in Ahmedabad. And how many would come if Jaitley tried to whip up a yatra in South Delhi? Not even a hundred perhaps. No wonder then that Jaitley becomes a subordinate of Narendra Modi. He feels he needs to get in touch with the 8216;masses8217;. He feels he has to connect with those surging 8216;communally polarised8217; crowds. Jaitley will not denounce Modi for his retrogressive rhetoric. Jaitley will not use his education to argue for a progressive society. Instead, Jaitley will add his own voice to Modi8217;s rhetoric because he is so convinced of his own irrelevance and the irrelevance of modernity.

Alas! Modernity is becoming irrelevant at the time when we most need it. All over the world, after the French revolution, those who called themselves bourgeoisie spoke up for universal rights. In our own history, upper caste reformers of the 19th century campaigned for widow remarriage, to ban sati and rescue Hinduism from obscurantism. Where is the spirit of social reform in today8217;s educated leaders, particularly those like Jaitley who are uniquely placed to lead the younger generation? Why are they instead proliferating a social conservatism by which Hindu 8216;virtue8217; is to be measured by yardsticks like glittering rituals, the thickness of sindoor and a bewildering denunciation of Muslims? Why will politicians like Jaitley not rise in Parliament and instead of banging on about the foreign threat to the Hindu rashtra make a speech on how young politicians like him are committed to an egalitarian society? Jaitley will not make such a speech because his alter ego is Modi. Jaitley is economically progressive but socially conservative.

Jaitley8217;s alliance with Narendra Modi is indicative of a cultural revolution let loose by the present ruling dispensation. This is a revolution by which the affluent and the educated have become anti-modern. A revolution by which it is fashionable to have a mind as narrow as your trousers. Ekta Kapoor wears tiger skin miniskirts but produces soap operas venerating women as Hindu doormats. Matrimonial advertisements for scholarly IIT graduates demand brides from specific castes. Mumbai, citadel of new India, has been a prisoner of the Shiv Sena for well over three decades. College graduates model high fashion clothes but prefer to have their marriages arranged by their parents. An Infosys employee in the US, supposedly on the cutting edge of economic modernity had to go under a cloud of sexual harassment. In sharp contrast to Raja Rammohan Roy who used his education and his social privileges to reform society, Arun Jaitley is using his education to make Modi fashionable.

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