WHY 2018 FEELS VERY MUCH LIKE 1988
In November 1988 I moved from Bangalore to Delhi, to take up a job at the Institute of Economic Growth. The next general election was a year away, and the incumbent government was in trouble. Investigation into the Bofors scandal was gathering pace, and fingers were being pointed at people close to the Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi. Just the previous month, Rajiv’s confidant-turned-rival VP Singh had formed the Janata Dal, seeking to bring together all Opposition parties on a common antiCongress platform.
Earlier this month I was in Delhi, this time as a visitor. The mood was eerily similar to that in November 1988. Once again, with a year to go before the general elections, a majority government headed by a once admired PM was mocked and derided by those who had once supported it. A scholar who had enthusiastically welcomed Narendra Modi’s victory in May 2014 had now turned very hostile to the government. He thought it had lost its legitimacy so completely that it would not win more than 120 seats whenever the elections were held.
Narendra Modi and Rajiv Gandhi belong to different generations. They were reared in very different social circumstances. And no parties could have more different and indeed opposed histories than the BJP and the Congress. And yet, in terms of India’s democratic history, there are some significant similarities between these two PMs.
The first similarity is that both tried to carve a distinct space for themselves in their party’s history. This was easier for Rajiv, who of course had joined the Congress only three years earlier. After becoming PM he critiqued the cronyist culture of the Congress, and went so far as to indict previous Congress governments for corruption (as in his remark that only 15% of development funds actually reached the poor).
Modi, on the other hand, had to work much harder to re-brand himself, since he had been in politics for decades already. Yet he did so with quite spectacular success. The longer the time that elapsed since the Gujarat riots of 2002, the more easily was he able to persuade potential voters that (a) he had no personal culpability in the violence; (b) he had since focused relentlessly on development and development alone. Given Modi’s own past and his party’s own history, it is noteworthy that the 2014 election campaign did not foreground Hindu pride. Further, because he had spent so long as chief minister of Gujarat, Modi was able to present himself as an outsider to the world of intrigue and innuendo that is Lutyens’ Delhi.
The second similarity is that both appealed above all to the young. Once more, this was easier for Rajiv since he was so young himself. Although he was past 60 himself, Modi adroitly targeted the much older PM, Dr Manmohan Singh during his campaign, and by focusing on job creation was to able to bring many young voters to his side.
The third similarity is that, by offering themselves as candidates who exuded hope, both were able to achieve comfortable majorities in the Lok Sabha. Rajiv got more than 400 seats in an election held soon after Indira Gandhi’s When I did my first response was to do something to thank him. So I decided to buy him a present. Anyone else in the world would have accepted it. Not Nitin.
“No Sir,” he said when I tried to give him a small bottle of aftershave. “Please don’t do that. It’ll spoil everything.”
“I only want to say thank you.” “But you’re putting a price on it” he replied. “I’ve had fun. I’ve enjoyed myself. This will make me feel different.”
Initially, I thought he was shy. He’s a well brought up young man and I assumed he did not want to accept presents. So I tried to persuade him.
“This way you’ll remember me,” I said, trying to be crafty. “That’s why I want you to have this.” assassination. Modi had no such sympathy wave to help him; but he was able to get his party 282 seats, and with the allies providing him some 50 more, his government likewise had a comfortable cushion in Parliament.
The fourth similarity is that, once they were elected PM, both Rajiv and Modi centralised almost all power with themselves. Examples of this in our current PM’s tenure are numerous and easy to remember; but for the young and those with fading memories I might recall how Rajiv effectively sacked both a foreign secretary and the chief minister of a major state at press conferences. More substantively, like
“Sir, this way I’ll remember the aftershave” he replied smiling. “And that also means that if I don’t give you anything you’ll forget me!”
No matter what I said Nitin wouldn’t budge. Ultimately I conceded defeat and we returned the aftershave. Yet as we walked out of the shop I couldn’t stop admiring Nitin. In his position I would have responded very differently.
I don’t think I’ve ever said no to a present. Occasionally I may have made the odd polite fuss but I’ve never adamantly refused.
Far more importantly, Nitin’s behaviour reminded me of an aphorism I repeatedly heard as a child but never really understood. It’s the sort of thing parents parrot at every conceivable opportunity but kids largely ignore. Nitin’s behaviour brought it meaningfully to life.
“You know the problem with you?” I could hear Mummy saying in my mind’s ear. “You know the price of everything but the value of nothing.”
On that Saturday in Dubai, during the heat of the afternoon, Nitin taught me what this glib saying actually means. It was humbling, no doubt, but it was also uplifting. of the Trump administration, it’s clear the US Coast Guard, Southern Command, and the Drug Enforcement Administration all believe that Cuba is an important barrier to crime.”
This isn’t capitulation to Washington’s agenda, but the same strain of pragmatism that has driven Cuba to embrace some reforms of its shambolic economy. “As Cuba reintegrates into the global economy, it understands the growing risks of money launderers and international crime groups,” said Thale. “So it’s in their interest to rein this in.” Some clear-thinking officials in Washington also have taken note. “There’s a growing awareness that a stable, functioning Cuban government is an important force for hemispheric stability,” sociologist Bernardo Sorj, a Latin America scholar at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, told me. “Though there’s little love lost between the two countries, the question is what will happen tomorrow if Cuba destabilises.” More than neighbourly good will, US-Cuban cooperation speaks to a broader awareness of the challenges of hemispheric security — one that has weathered years of the brute diplomacy that so many of the region’s ideologues have favoured, and which threatens to rear up again.
Beating world-class criminals will be just as daunting as reinventing the New World’s oldest command economy. But the US and Cuba share too many interests and vulnerabilities to indulge the hoary antagonisms of last century’s quarrel. Rajiv, Modi largely (and often wholly) disregards his own MPs and his own Cabinet in the framing of policies of vital importance to the nation. Rajiv tried to run the country with the help of a set of old friends and loyal officials; Modi has followed pretty much the same template.
It is this lack of a wider consultation that helps explain why Rajiv fell so fast from such a high perch. It is said a week is a long time in politics; and much can happen in the weeks that remain until the next general election. It will be for future historians to judge whether Kathua and Unnao will be to Narendra Modi what Bofors was to Rajiv Gandhi. But there is no doubt that the halo around the PM has been decisively punctured. For months already he has been subject to satire on social media; and now, after the complicity of his party’s legislators in the making of these terrible tragedies, satire is rapidly turning to anger, even in circles considered to be the BJP’s core constituency. A young entrepreneur told me recently in Coimbatore that in his professional WhatsApp group, at least 80% were critical of Modi.
From 400-plus seats in 1984, Rajiv’s Congress fell to a mere 197 five years later. No one can predict how far, the fall will be for Modi’s BJP from its 2014 tally of 282. Yet the parallels are striking indeed. Many people who were not traditional Congress voters saw hope for Rajiv in 1984; many past critics of the BJP voters saw hope for Modi in 2014. With so much goodwill behind him, Rajiv threw away the chance to take the country forward; and it increasingly seems that Modi has done the same.
ON THAT SATURDAY IN DUBAI, DURING THE HEAT OF THE AFTERNOON, NITIN TAUGHT ME WHAT THIS GLIB SAYING ACTUALLY MEANS. IT WAS HUMBLING, NO DOUBT, BUT IT WAS ALSO UPLIFTING.