Before he showed us how to be ‘meditative’ at the Kedarnath temple in Uttarakhand, Mr.Narendra Modi didn’t forget to remind us that he could not forgive Pragya Singh Thakur for her remarks on Godse and Gandhi. Well, Mr Modi–particularly, when the corporate media houses have almost reduced themselves into advertisement channels for propagating our Prime Minister’s ‘heroic’ performances–knows the art of ‘impression management’. When it is about sharing a cup of tea with Mr.Barack Obama, he is the ‘prophetic’ statesman; when it is about the ‘surgical strike’, he is the ideal ‘macho nationalist’; and when he ‘meditates’ or shows his ‘anger’ over Pragya Thakur’s valorization of Godse, he is a ‘saint’. Yes, we are led to believe that he is everything–hyper-masculine, yet ‘pro-Gandhi’; militant nationalist, yet ‘cosmopolitan’; and aggressively abusive and Machiavellian, yet ‘meditative’. So what do we do? Possibly, the mysterious ‘exit polls’ have already created the ‘festive’ mood.
MODI–MODI–MODI. Yes, the nation, it seems, is preparing itself!
Let it be so. Yet, as an unknown/ordinary/vulnerable mortal, I would urge Mr. Modi not to bother about Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. As a matter of fact, Pragya Singh Thakur is not alone. The ideology that Mr. Modi’s politics embodies negates everything that Gandhi believed in and practised. Hence, Pragya Singh is not an aberration; she is truly committed to her ideology as far as her condemnation of Gandhi is concerned. Mr. Modi is only pretending. In fact, their poltico-economic project–a mix of militaristic nationalism, anti-egalitarian policies and inherent scepticism towards the minorities–takes us to a world that Gandhi–through the art of satyagraha, swaraj as a project of egalitarian decentralized polity, spiritualized politics, cross-religious conversation, and the ethics of care filled with love and compassion–sought to overcome. And Nathuram Godse – a proponent of militaristic/Hindu nationalism–could not bear Gandhi. Godse’s bullets represented an ideology, a worldview, a project of nationalism. And today Mr.Modi is leading this project. Let there be no confusion about it.`
Believe it, Mr Modi, Gandhi, for the politics you represent, is an embarrassment. So why do you pretend that you love Gandhi? You can’t. Well, the team of media advisers and managers that sell you as a packaged product might have advised you to use Gandhi as a ‘brand’; and occasionally, you might refer to him as a ritualistic act. But then, Gandhi was killed in 2002 in Gujarat; with the celebration of the militaristic consciousness, you essentially laughed at the ‘feminine’ Gandhi; and with your close affinity with the corporate bosses and market-driven interests, you eliminated even the slightest trace of Gandhian socialism.
However, in this age of imageries and ‘performances’, who can prevent you, Mr. Modi? With the ‘spell of magic’, we seem to have lost our agency and critical thinking. We are mere consumers. We would love to consume your diverse manifestations–a warrior, a tea vendor, a prophet, a yogi, a visionary.
MODI–MODI–MODI.
The nation, as exit polls indicate, seems to have fallen in love with Mr. Modi. So why do we bother about Gandhi?
