The Prime Minister makes so many speeches that it is impossible to analyse all of them. So, two important speeches that he made last week have not been given the attention they deserve. One in which he identified the rot that has crept into our political culture, and the second, in which he indicated clearly that the campaign for the Lok Sabha elections has begun. For me, personally, it was something that he said in the first speech that had real resonance because I agree with Narendra Modi.
He was speaking at an event that marked the diamond jubilee of the Central Bureau of Investigation and urged the officials he was addressing to not be afraid of catching corrupt politicians. He said corruption was not an ordinary crime, it was an obstacle in the path of development. “Corruption promotes nepotism and a dynastic system which erodes the nation’s strength, seriously hampering development.” As someone who has long believed that the disease destroying all our Opposition parties is dynastic democracy, I found myself wondering if our Opposition leaders realise that Modi is right.
Our Opposition leaders would like us to believe that it is they who are fighting for democracy in an autocratic time. This is not true. All our major political parties, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, are private limited companies in which only members of the leader’s family sit on the board. This is feudalism, not democracy. And what it has mostly done is weaken these parties at a time when they are up against the most powerful political party that India has seen in decades and a leader whose popularity is so overwhelming that it is scary.
If no single Opposition party can challenge Modi, it is because of the feudal nature of these parties. Parliamentary constituencies have been handed down by leaders to their children like they were private estates.
It is not as if the disease of dynastic democracy has spared the BJP. There are many BJP leaders who waste too much time on ensuring that their heirs find a place in politics. This is something that Modi has not been able to entirely put an end to, but because he himself is not personally promoting any member of his family, it is common to hear the average voter say that they like him best because he is “the only one working only for the good of the country”. I hear this said in one way or another every time I conduct my personal vox populi to gauge the country’s political mood.
Opposition leaders whine constantly these days about how they cannot compete with Modi because they lack the funds that the BJP has and because they are under constant attack from intelligence agencies and tax inspectors. This has indeed gone too far. Proof if needed is evident in the worrying statistic that 90 per cent of the raids conducted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the CBI are against Opposition leaders. There is also the valid charge that the reason why so many political leaders are joining the BJP is because there is a ‘washing machine’ that washes away all corruption charges once you become a member of the BJP. It is hard to name a major Opposition leader today who is not being investigated on corruption charges.
The problem for these Opposition leaders is that the average voter seems totally uninterested in whether they end up in jail or not. The reason for this is that the average voter has known for a very long time that most political leaders bring their children into politics only because there is no easier way to make easy money in our ancient land than through politics. The average voter keeps his eyes on the people he votes for, so he knows that right from the village level, the first change that happens is that their elected representatives suddenly start travelling in expensive cars and living in expensive homes. They know that this is money that does not come through hard work or legitimate means.
It seems clear from the Prime Minister’s recent speeches that parivarvaad or feudalism is going to be a big issue for him in the next general election. So far, the Opposition leaders have responded by throwing the charge back at the BJP and listing senior leaders in Modi’s inner circle who are guilty of trying to promote their progeny. This may be true, but it is not a charge that they can pin on Modi. He is coming to the end of his second term, and in nine years, there has been no time when any of his family, other than his mother, have been spotted lurking about the Prime Minister’s residence. This is a strong point in Modi’s favour and one that he is likely to use very effectively in next year’s general election.
There is no challenger in sight. But Modi is not one to take things for granted, so he warned BJP workers last week that they better not become complacent. He told his ministers that it was time that they spent a month in their constituencies. He reminded them that nothing must be left to chance. The only issue that the Opposition has for now is the dubious charge that Modi is corrupt and has handed the people’s money to his friends. This did not work in 2014 or 2019.
