Opinion Vandita Mishra writes: A week of the Modi government’s dreams
What’s not to like in a week like this one for a government that has made no secret of just how much it enjoys being feted abroad, and throwing curveballs at home?
Modi government will draft both its G20 successes and domestic controversies into its strategy for 2024. (PTI) 
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Dear Express Reader,
For the Narendra Modi government, this could well come close to being the week of its dreams. At week’s end, was a G20 New Delhi Leaders Declaration that framed a hard-won consensus on the world stage, India in the spotlight. Other days of the week were dotted with disruptions at home, the Modi government at the centre.
What is more, after a week’s break, just as applause for the successful hosting of the G20 dies down and the new flare-ups take their place in the lengthening line-up of the old, there is a political gee-whiz moment for the government to look forward to — it will lift the curtain on the Special Parliament Session, on which everyone else is in the dark, and which it therefore fully controls.
What’s not to like in a week like this one for a government that has made no secret of just how much it enjoys being feted abroad, and throwing curveballs at home?
The G20 has ended with all members agreeing to agree, despite differences, especially on Ukraine. A common language was found, which had a lot to do with Delhi’s deft diplomatic tightrope walk between the Russia-China bloc and the West, and its ability to bring countries together while increasing the space for manoeuvre for the Global South. The African Union was given full membership of the group, making it the G21, and the consequential India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor was unveiled.
At home, this week saw the deepening of two controversies that began late last week — after the lone Opposition member in the newly constituted committee to examine the idea of one-nation-one-election, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, walked out of the one-sided panel, and Union Home Minister Amit Shah targeted the INDIA alliance over DMK leader Udhayanidhi Stalin’s remarks against the inequalities of “Sanatan Dharma”. Meanwhile, invitation cards by the “President of Bharat” to visiting G20 dignitaries set off a row over a possible national name change, and a renewed bout of speculation over what is to come in the special and secret Parliament session.
That’s an over-full plate of controversy and congratulation for any dispensation. Not for the Modi government, though, which will, in all likelihood, draft both the successes and controversies of this week into its strategy for the 2024 election.
The G20 achievement will add greatly to the India-in-the-world photo-ops and slogans that are already part of its domestic pitch and arsenal. Here, the Modi-BJP, with the help of new technologies, saw and filled an empty space — so far, foreign policy was treated as above politics or apolitical. It seldom figured as an election issue and discussion on it was mostly left to MEA mandarins and esoteric others.
For the first time, the Modi-BJP started using images of its leader abroad in its election campaigns — the claim that his government was burnishing India’s image in the world began to be heard not just in the metros but also in the small town and village. The BJP’s narrative dominance has meant that the claim was projected frequently and forcefully, while the Opposition’s general lack of agility and vigour, and resources, has meant that the challenge to it has been scattered and sporadic.
Of course, it is not as if it was foreign policy that was being popularised by the BJP, as much as its feel-good photo-op. At the same time, this does not take away from the fact that its government has made some eye-catching foreign policy moves, and some breaks from the past, that have paid off.
The new points of friction and polarisation that the Modi government has opened up at home in the week in which it laboured over the G20 consensus abroad have to do with its one-ness project and related campaign of decolonisation.
In a country of India’s diversities, the push for “one nation one election” and the privileging of “Bharat” over “India” stoke similar fears and insecurities — in addition, the Sanatan Dharma controversy, which was handed on a plate by the DMK to the BJP, also raises spectres of coercion and uniformity in a country of multiple faiths and identities.
The simultaneity of polls involves imposing an artificial fixity on the tenures of legislatures, and the flattening of differences in format and issue and leadership that have evolved over the last several decades between states, and between the Centre and states.
The attempt to sever “Bharat” from its twin “India” — both have been used together in Article 1 of the Constitution and interchangeably outside it — seems part of a decolonisation project that appears too much to be a project of exclusion.
It consists of making the lines thicker between Indians and Outsiders, between Hindus and Others, between an India at ease with itself and at home in the world, and an India that is feverishly disentangling all that is “Indian” from its mixed ancestries and complicated histories.
The Modi government’s decolonisation rampage and oneness project at home do not square with its consensus-seeking abroad. But both elements swam into sharp focus this week, and while they may or may not show up in the secret special session ahead, they are bound to reappear and recur on the way to 2024.
Till next week,
Vandita
Must Read Opinions from the week:
-Editorial, “With due respect”, September 7
-Suhas Palshikar, “Who’s afraid of Basic Structure?”, September 5
-Aakash Joshi, “Don’t look away”, September 4
-Paromita Chakrabarti, “The translator’s promise”, September 8
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