
On the occasion of the celebration of Republic Day on January 26, let me pay my humble tribute to our beloved Prime Minister Narendra Modi. We are proud to have a non-biological Prime Minister, born out of God’s direct contribution of sperm – a unique phenomenon in world history. We are also proud to hear that he earned an MA degree in Entire Political Science from Gujarat University, the only university in the academic world to have such a course of studies. We are equally impressed by his weekly message called Maan ki Baat, which can only be described in the words of Shakespeare: “A tale told by an idiot signifying nothing.” Which Indian politician, whether in the past or present, could claim to reach such Shakespearean heights ?
We should also praise him for managing to enchant the electorate with promises which lead them to vote him back to power again and again. We must congratulate him on his magic of making them forget those old promises which he kicked away during the past two decades of his rule. We should also pay credit to him for successfully combining two political dressing styles. At the domestic level, he wraps himself up in the comfortable shawl of Hindutva to churn up obscurantist feelings of loyalty to his personal ego among the populace leading them to believe that he is an incarnation of God who is making Bharat `atma-nirbhar’ (self-dependent). Yet, at the same time at the global level, he changes into the jacket of neo-liberal capitalism to woo and appease US and other Western powers to invest in India, thus depending on them. But is his game working ? Modi’s one time admirer and chief economic advisor Arvind Subrananian has recently expressed his disenchantment with Modi by stating that his government has gone “stale and bereft of ideas..” (New York Times. January 21, 2025)
Narendra Modi as Bharat Guru in the domestic sphere
Let us also pay (a left-handed ?) tribute to Narendra Modi for reaching the unprecedented goal of dragging down the Indian economy to the most spectacular depths during his second term in office. Here are some illuminating examples of his success in promoting his message of `Made in Bharat,’ and his steps on the path of his loud-sounding programme of `Viksit ’ ( often mispronounced by the anti-national urban Naxalites as Bigshit). The Gross Fixed Capital remained below 29% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the last ten years. High inflation has led to low consumption, especially among the urban middle classes. This has adversely affected the manufacturing sector. The spectre of unemployment is haunting thousands of well-qualified youth. Real wages for even the employed people are fast falling down. As for incentives from abroad that are expected to boost the domestic economy, they have turned out to be disappointing. The net foreign direct investment (FDI) fell to a twelve-year low in April-October, 2024 – indicating an increasing disdain of these foreign investors for Modi’s invitation, however much he may try to allure them with his publicity stunts. Following Narendra Modi’s advice to spread India’s image as Vishwa Guru (the term he invented at the G-20 summit in Delhi in September 2023 to assert India’s leadership in global affairs and thereby merging his personal egoist ambition with that nationalist claim), Indian firms decided to leave India and invest abroad. Young techies are leaving for greener shores in the West, to spread their talents there. Thus Narendra Modi’s road to the goal of prosperity (described as Viksit) is turning out to be a furrow on the forehead of imbecility. His populist promise of offering mumkeen (opportunities) during election campaigns, has ended up in namkeen ( the popular snack) that is chewed up and its remains spilled out. His much touted 56 – inch chest has shriveled into the shape of a dormant organ, slipping down and lying prostrate between the two domains of home and abroad.
To turn from the economic to the social sphere of influence, let us have a look at Narendra Modi’s contribution to our society. During the last one decade of his regime, he can claim to have reached the highest point in the record of massacre of Muslims and Dalits, carried out by his lumpen agents running all around India. He should be proud since this has made him a global figure, drawing attention from international human rights organizations which have accused him of presiding over the killing of members of religious minorities and depressed castes. Such killings by the Modi-led BJP’s gangster outfits like Bajrang Dal, Vishva Hindu Parishad among others have also woken up his patrons in Washington, who occasionally gently rebuke him for what they euphemistically call `excesses’. They know that Modi is intellectually deficient and depends on his moronic followers to run the Indian state, but at the same time they have to protect the stakes which the US `tech-industrial complex’ (the term used by the departing US President Joe Biden used in his farewell address) have in Indian economy.
Meanwhile, Narendra Modi has made a successful move by buying over the media. Vast segments of the audio-visual channels and the print media – members of which are required to follow the professional code of being watch dogs to reveal the truth while reporting – have become lap dogs, cuddling up to the Prime Minister, thus earning the name Godimodi. They have turned the TV channels and the newspapers into echo chambers of malicious propaganda that is spewed out from Modi’s official chamber. So, that is another feather to Modi’s cap – or the saffron coloured turban that he often wears when attending important occasions.
Narendra Modi as the Vishwa Guru – preaching peace abroad and presiding over a civil war in his backyard in Manipur
Let us now turn our attention to our honourable prime minister’s achievements abroad beyond our borders. He has been trying to morph into an upmarket global retailer of recipes to solve all problems. Presiding over the world (vishva) as its guru (religious preceptor), he has been touring the world claiming to put an end to the two major global wars – in Gaza and Ukraine – while in his backyard in Manipur he has been turning a blind eye to the continuation of an ethnic conflict that is claiming hundreds of lives. While pretending to be neutral in the Israel-Gaza conflict, Modi keeps on supplying Indian labourers to Israel to man its economy, which suffers from lack of manpower because of desertion of Palestinian workers. Thus, despite his public rhetoric of support for the Palestinians, he keeps on bolstering their enemy Israel. The Modi government is also reportedly exporting armaments to Israel that are being used to kill Palestinians. Similarly in the case of Ukraine, Modi has allowed the emigration of Indian workers to Russia, where his friend Putin use them as mercenaries to fight his war against Ukraine. Only recently, reports have come out about the killing of these Indians who were cheated and trapped by Moscow.
Dancing on the tight rope of balancing between appeasement of Washington and Moscow, Narendra Modi has emerged as the tallest standup comedian on the global stage – evoking laughter from diplomats all over the world. But, poor Modi ! This time, his entertainment talents went ignored when his old pal Trump forgot (or deliberately snubbed him for some yet to be revealed fact ?) to invite him at the ceremony of his inauguration as the US President, which was attended by all global dignitaries.
But despite that slap on the face of our dear Prime Minister, we as nationalists are required to stand behind him. We must defend his abysmal failures on all fronts – domestic economy, internal conflicts and foreign affairs – by blaming some people or others, urban Naxalites, foreign human rights groups for conspiring against our dear Prime Minister. At the end of it all, Narendra Modi will remain an invincible godman in Indian politics – worshipped by the Indian people and blessed by Washington.
He faces no rival. The only one who dares to challenge him is Rahul Gandhi. Modi claiming to be his opponent, has dismissed him as the “sheh-zada (prince) of the Congress Shahi family.” But then, according to traditional norms, the opponent of sheh-zada must be a haram-zada.
Sumanta Banerjee is a political commentator and writer, is the author of In The Wake of Naxalbari’ (1980 and 2008); The Parlour and the Streets: Elite and Popular Culture in Nineteenth Century Calcutta (1989) and ‘Memoirs of Roads: Calcutta from Colonial Urbanization to Global Modernization.’ (2016).