PM Modi’s The Most Powerful Leader: His Style of Governance
Asia News Agency
Indian politics are now at their adversarial worst, according to Mohan Guruswamy (policy analyst studying economic and security issues, held senior positions in government and industry; also specialises in the Chinese economy). “We seem to be in constant electioneering mode. Which means that political rivals work most on trying to define the adversary’s image. Which is what the Congress is trying to do to Narendra Modi and the BJP to Rahul Gandhi.”
The latter is implying a “no-holds barred personalised style of attack, not very different from the tactics Mr Modi employed when he was PM-in-waiting. So, in a sense, Mr Modi is getting back some of what he dished out. But is it working another time?
The fairness of each others’ comments isn’t the issue. “But what merits a discussion is Rahul Gandhi’s statement: ‘Wherever the PM sees an institution that is constitutional, that people have faith in, he wants to end it as he wants all power with himself and corporates’.”
This is a charge, states Guruswamy “that is not just made by the Congress Party’s hereditary leadership, but one that is increasingly heard from the bureaucracy and even from within the BJP. While this has much to do with Mr Modi’s personality, made larger than life by highly-personalised poll campaigns…….”
There is no number 2 to PM Modi
Unlike his predecessor, “the Modi PMO is very different. There is no number two in it. The PM is number one and the organisation is flat after that. Management experts often think of this as the most effective institutional structure to deliver results, as a flat organisation will have relatively few layers or just one layer of management. This means the chain of command from top to bottom is short and the span of control is wide.
“The circle of bureaucracy immediately around him comprise self-effacing individuals and few have easy access to them. Except for Nripendra Misra (now in charge of building the Ayodhya temple), the others have been with Mr Modi since the Gujarat days. The NSA is quite visible, but businessmen and other bureaucrats have no relation with the job he does. Or maybe some like Anil Ambani do? So, it seems to be a Modi show all the way. But this PMO was not this PM’s creation. It evolved that way as the central decision-maker. The only difference is that Mr Modi allows very little access to it. Hence the gripes about centralising all power."
Like Indira Gandhi, Narendra Modi is “his own man. He makes decisions and they are his decisions, like demonetisation, and mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic. He wants us to believe he has no obligations. But that we will know only in the days ahead, when the next elections loom overhead….”
With ‘yes-men’, BJP is in a ‘BB’ syndrome
The yes-men culture in the BJP is now engulfing the world’s largest party, writes Sunil Gatade (Delhi-based journalist; was an associate editor at the Press Trust of India). He calls this the ‘BB syndrome’. “This syndrome makes state leaders irrelevant and willing tools in the hands of the high command to run the states according to their wishes, whether it is good or bad for the state.
“Only a Yogi Adityanath or possibly a Himanta Biswa Sarma may be different. They are confident and don’t need spoon-feeding from the Centre or homilies from top leaders…..”
Karnataka: But former Karnataka BJP chief minister Basavaraj Bommai is not. He takes the blame for the election loss. Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, CM for the fourth term, is in the same category. As he leads the state into elections, Gatade states “he is not oozing confidence. It seems as if he is losing. This is happening because, in the last nine years, the Modi-Shah duo has always tried to convey to Mr Chouhan that he is not his own boss. Big Brother is watching…..”
Rajasthan: In Rajasthan, former CM Vasundhara Raje, the BJP’s most powerful woman leader, “was sought to be demolished for four long years. Ms Raje’s fault was that she successfully led the BJP twice to power in the desert state and wanted to do so a third time. It was also her fault that she is independent and crossed swords with Mr Shah when she was CM. After Karnataka, she is being given prominence by a weakened Modi-Shah duo, lately realising that if the BJP goes down in the states, it cannot come up at the Centre.”
Maharashtra: In Maharashtra, “an emerging leader like Devendra Fadnavis is being cut to size as he could become a rival later at the Centre for Amit Shah…..”
Dissidents within the BJP are in silent mode, and if they remain silent, they will do their ‘job’ silently, writes Gatade. The RSS mouthpiece Organiser has recently declared that the BJP cannot win elections on the basis of Mr Modi’s charisma and Hindutva alone.
Modi vs Modi-ism
Nine years after Modi came to power, writes Charu Sudan Kasturi (senior journalist who writes on foreign policy and international relations) as India’s democratically-elected prime minister, PM Modi “receives the respect and pageantry that the leader of the country deserves. Yet it’s a mistake to see that as acceptance of Modi’s politics. On the contrary, the prime minister still feels compelled to use soft, almost Nehruvian, language while speaking about his government’s vision abroad even as it practises policies…. that reveals a different focus.
“Consider Modi’s address to the US Congress: ‘Democracy is the spirit that supports equality and dignity,’ the prime minister said. Or his detailed emphasis on his government’s development programmes, from homes to health insurance for the poor, and free Covid-19 vaccines and financial inclusion schemes. There was no mention of his government scrapping Article 370, building a Ram Mandir where the Babri Masjid once stood…….”
In his response to the tricky question at the press conference with Biden, Modi repeatedly stressed India’s diversity. ‘We have always proved that democracy can deliver. And when I say deliver, this is regardless of caste, creed, religion, gender,’ Modi said. ‘And when you talk of democracy, if there are no human values and… there are no human rights, then it’s not a democracy.'
There’s plenty of daylight, writes Kasturi “between these words and the reality of India….”
