Narendra Modi, round two

BJP 303 seats, NDA 351. Next biggest party, the Congress, 52, the third and fourth, DMK and AITMC, 23 and 22 respectively. Very clear, decisive mandate. Even the Congress has immediately conceded defeat without petty carping and bickering. To that extent, democracy is still safe, and all disgruntled elements must accept the janaadesh, live with it, and, if they really, strongly dislike the current dispensation, try their utmost to change the public mind by open, legitimate means over the next five years.

The era of Indira Gandhi has returned. This election was not really about the BJP but about Narendra Modi. We are definitely going to become a far more Presidential rather than parliamentary state.

The upsurge of the BJP in Bengal is quite as surprising as its virtual non-existence in all but one of the southern states. This is polarization with a capital P! And Ms. Mamata Banerjee has slipped up very badly, seasoned and canny political player as she is: the future might be grim indeed for her and her party unless she can very quickly put her house in order and go on the warpath with a far better strategy in mind.

All inconveniences over things like Aadhar, demonetization and GST have apparently been forgiven or forgotten by the masses. Nor did the Dalit discontent or the farmers’ matter in the end. Whereas Pulwama and Balakot, tragedy and theatrics notwithstanding, have certainly helped a very great deal. Let lessons be learnt from this by all parties concerned.

The political discourse has turned very definitely towards a far more jingoistic and religion-oriented outlook (Rahul Gandhi has been visiting shrine after shrine, and all Didi could do was to keep reiterating that we don’t need Ram and Hanuman, because we have our own Durga and Kali to bow to). Simultaneously, leftism as we have known it has been definitely wiped out. We must not only accept that, but ponder over the why, and over the likely consequences in the medium- and long run.

If politics has always been far more about perception than about hard facts, the opposition must learn, if it wants to survive and bounce back, that its image needs a complete overhaul. The parties involved, barring perhaps Patnaik’s BJD in Odisha, have etched such a deep-seated image in the public mind about being venal, incompetent and fractious, that they never had a chance against the BJP bulldozer. Above everything else, the Congress Party will die as the Left has unless it can shed the albatross called the Gandhi family from around its neck.

The young – educated in science, aspiring to be doctors and engineers – voted BJP in droves. That too, needs to be understood by every party which is hoping to have a future.

Will our Constitution and our higher courts survive? That will be one of the biggest questions that need to be answered. As for the media, I have no hopes – as was said when Mrs. Gandhi declared an Emergency, ‘they were asked to bend, and they crawled’. Especially when I know, from very painful and intimate experience, what kind of scum have become mediapersons over the last twenty years.

Would it be wise for me to don my upabeet (sacred thread) again?

I wrote a post here about the massive BJP victory back in May 2014 with a broadly congratulatory and hopeful attitude. It was titled Dawn of a new era, but there was a question mark at the end. The last five years, the most levelheaded and non-partisan observer will agree, has been a mixed bag at best. The BJP has worked a miracle at the hustings this time, no question about that: as so many have already noted, it’s the first time a ruling party has beaten the anti-incumbency factor so resoundingly since the early 1970s. Surely it would be churlish to deny that Team Modi-Shah have won a thumping approval from the electorate. And certainly, although they have been greatly helped by luck – as all winners must be – they must be admired for their determination, steadfast vision, organizational skill and incredible campaigning energy. Now it remains to be seen what they will do with this huge mandate. There have been bigger ones before which were largely wasted: Rajiv Gandhi’s 1984 victory comes to mind. And no position at the top of the pole can be held for very long, especially in broadly democratic setups: contrary storms rise sooner or later and sweep the most impregnable fortresses away. The PM knows this. He has said, immediately after learning of the victory, that his responsibility has increased manifold. And I believe it is true that he does want to turn India quickly into a really big and powerful economy, so that she can emerge as one of the global leaders on his watch. If only because that would allow him to strut as much as he wants to on the largest of all stages. If so, he will know better than anyone else, that the government needs to focus ferociously on an agenda of domestic peace, stability as well as all-round and inclusive progress. Therein lies the hope for the likes of me.

If I do vote in the general election of 2024, I shall be a senior citizen then!

[P.S., May 26: I should like to link this editorial in The Hindu for reflecting my own mood of cautious hopefulness. On the other hand, here is a harshly critical and grim criticism of the state of affairs in India. If and when the incumbent government takes steps to shut the writer up or worse, I shall know that my worst fears are beginning to come true.]  

SHAME! ....?

Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar’s statue has been contemptuously demolished – again, fifty years on.

The last time it was ultra-left ‘intellectual idealists’ who did it; this time the blame has been pinned on ultra-right lumpens, no doubt egged on by their masters who incidentally lay no claim to either knowledge or wisdom of any kind beyond blind worship of what they call ‘tradition’, and are actually motivated by the only thing that has ever motivated rightwingers: naked lust for unbridled power.

Apparently the ageing ‘naxalites’ who perpetrated the horror fifty years ago are deeply ashamed now, (same day, same newspaper) as their inheritors today just might be, fifty years later. Thank God the sublime greatness of someone like Vidyasagar does not depend one whit on what they think and value.

But – a little, shameful reminder. Have average Bengalis (even the formally educated among them) ever really known and respected Vidyasagar? Remember how he who struggled to enlighten and succour them for most of his life ultimately gave up in disgust and despair, turned his back on them and went off to vegetate in his old age among Santhal villagers far away from the big ‘happening’ city? Yes, too shameful to remember, perhaps. Having been a teacher myself all my life, having worshipped Vidyasagar in the same breath with the likes of Socrates and Confucius, and having found out exactly how much we (including the teachers among us) respect this profession, I don’t think what has happened really matters. We couldn’t show more disrespect to a man like that merely by smashing a statue of his. Who are we, obsessed with Messi and Deepika and Virat, and GoT and PubG, and Amazon and Zomato and Apple and Uber, to either respect or disrespect someone like him? Do candles matter to the sun?

P.S., June 12: Look up this link in today's newspaper. As I was saying.

Waiting

The father of a little girl who has very recently been admitted to my class was saying this evening that one my ex-students, who later became his student at a local engineering college and is now working in Germany, has said, and not once, that he owes everything good in his life to me. I have heard such paeans again and again over a long life of teaching, but the pleasure never palls, especially because Providence has so arranged things that every now and then – once in a few years, at least – I will also hear about vulgar ingrates who remember me only to vilify me with fantastical accusations of neglect and worse, and every time that happens, it sours up a lot of good memories.

A few girls who went to Carmel School and have become my ex-students recently came over to see me, and pointedly said, ‘Look, Sir, you said Carmelites never visit, but we have!’ I smiled, though I know they’ll fall permanently out of touch soon enough. ‘Take the cash, and let the credit go’.

‘Some are born to endless night’, wrote Agatha Christie, quoting William Blake, and I know exactly how it feels. You know what fate has been like to me? Only yesterday I stepped out of my house to find a little boy waiting after my class for his father to come and pick him up, so I gave him company and shared a bit of jhaalmuri with him from the streetside vendor who whips up a very tasty snack. Ten minutes later I felt that I wanted a bit more, having had only a fistful, so I stepped  out again to ask the same vendor to make another packet for me: and he was winding up for the night! I only thank God over and over again that He in His infinite wisdom has let me off with myriad such minor irititants, and allowed me to avoid a lot of far worse things that happen to a lot of people…

My old boy Swarnava, who is reading Physics because he loves it, has written a blogpost on Richard Feynman. I hope a lot of people will read it and write encouraging comments.

The election results will come out in two weeks’ time, and whatever kind of government is cobbled up in Delhi, I believe the outlook for the India that our Founding Fathers dreamed of is grim. Are we eventually going to become a Hindu version of Pakistan, and mired in everything that was bad about the middle ages, because that is what we democratically desire?

At around this time every year, I wonder in a very crabby mood why hundreds of millions of people made this God-forsaken country their home and then bred into a billion. Does muggy heat attract humans as much as it does lizards and roaches? To love India is hard, and nobody understands that better than someone who has quietly tried to do it all his life.

I last went to Delhi for three days on April 01, and I’m going again this Friday. Can’t wait.

Cyclone Phani and after

Well, cyclone Phani came and went, and here in West Bengal - especially in my district - it was a gigantic non-event, though the scare had been spread so widely, intensively for so long (a whole week, whereas at the time of Ayla back in 2009 we hardly got two days' notice, and far more lowkey at that) that the whole state went into holiday mode, so several million mandays of work were lost for nothing. I must admit, though, that if that rainstorm had struck Kolkata head-on the story might have been quite different.

But Odisha bore the brunt, and came out with flying colours. The last time a supercyclone struck - that was in '99 - ten thousand died; this time, thanks to early, strenuous and intelligently coordinated government efforts (how we blame them for every little peccadillo, yet are strangely stingy with our praise when they do wonderful things!), just three people died, and one of them of a heart attack. Shows we can do wonderful things when we really want to, and I certainly want to insist that this is a far more significant and praiseworthy achievement than sending a Mangalyaan up into space - honestly, which of us ordinary Indians have benefited a busted nickel from that non-event: something that the Americans did more than forty years ago? (our PM's boast is that we did it far more cheaply. He forgot to mention that that is largely because Indians are paid a tiny fraction of what Americans, laborers and scientists alike, are paid for the same work). Even the most advanced countries cannot do better when really big natural disasters strike.

Two other good things to note. In our state our CM personally supervised all planned relief and rescue operations all through the anticipated crisis, and it went like clockwork - so I am cocking a snook at all those envious idiots who keep ranting after her eight years in office that she was a very good opposition leader but is hopeless as a ruler. And secondly, I was delighted to read that in the face of a vast looming natural disaster, the BJP officially called a truce in the midst of the election season and joined hands with the TMC government to do their best for the people. Maybe there is still hope...