In 2014, when @narendramodi became PM, within a week he increased the bandwidth for irctc website. Access to online rail tickets became easy. Some time later he also ensured that self-attested documents would suffice for government regulations. As a supposed middle class citizen of this country, I felt that, for all their faults, many and manifest as they were, we cut ourselves a decent enough deal. Tragically, those were the only bright spots that I could encounter. It has been a downhill trek since then.
A resurgent hyper-nationalistic right wing, merrily trolling the near inconsequential centrist to left wing, left the opposition in abject disarray. In the ensuing flow of brute majoritarian discourse, the few reasonable voices were swiftly silenced by supposedly fortuitous chance, and the swift oppression of minority rights began in earnest.
From an isolationist PM, to an authoritarian one, to a complete autocratic megalomaniac, the transformation was swift. A narcissist purveyor of the luxuries, has been damagingly contrasted with decisions that impacted the life and livelihood of millions of his poor countrymen, starting with the demonetisation disaster, further exacerbated by the GST fiasco.
Carried to power on the squeaky clean carpet of righteous anti-corruption plank, the descent into a venal, corroding carnal animal of greed, power and desire has been its overarching hallmark, couched in dreamy nomenclatures of "Chanakya" and 56 inch. Over and over again, it has been made amply evident that the Gujrat mascot neither has the wisdom nor the gumption to govern a country of such magnitude or diversities. As long as conditions were favourable, he ran the country on auto-pilot and emotional pulling of heart -strings. He must have swiftly come to the realisation that the Gujrat model, or whatever miasmatic conjuring that existed in that name could neither be brought to the centre nor taken shelter under, without actual, acute and painful exposure.
You cannot fault him for not trying though. Essentially he got the entire Gujrat cadre officers to the centre in a desperate attempt at replication. Institutional integrity was corrupted in the flailing belief that the ends would justify the means. Constitutional edifices were sacrificed at the altar of convenience even if it meant a slow decaying plod towards irreversible damage to the body politic. However, none of that helped.
With the first term nearing an end, he machinated the Balakot response as some kind of a strong-arm response to his own dismal incompetence / conspiracy wherein 300 Kgs of RDX was smuggled into Kashmir and detonated killing a convoy full of CRPF jawans. Except for a lot of pious hand-wringing and ominous sabre-rattling, the only thing of consequence to accrue from this exercise was the more than successful return of Modi 2.0 to helm.
The covert salutation to his master's roots in the visible form of the transformation of the Central Vista would be the crowning glory to an inglorious indiscretion perpetrated on the people of India.
However, there are cosmic forces at work, it seems, to thwart such lofty upheavals. An invisible virus threatens to derail the single-minded focus to eviscerate the constitution, bring in CAA-NRC and subject the minorities to an untold fate of destitution couched in nationalistic colours and patriotic fervour. Coupled with a resurgent social media that seems to match knock for knock with a hitherto insurmountable adversary, it seems that a dreary opposition is getting its political act in order to challenge its self-inflicted role as political roadkill.
The subservient media is being poked and ridiculed to get its act together. While this may be a task for the long haul, the few spiny ones have found lungs to breath. An economy that has meandered into virtual nothingness gives the govt very less room to maneouvre its gameplan to suit its nefarious ends.
However, the verdict is still out there whether there is going to be any substantial change in either leadership or its style or functioning, even in the face of outright ignominy arising from a plethora of ridiculous statements that minister after ignorant minister continues to utter to the sheer embarassment of India's citizentry here and abroad.
Unless the citizens rise to demand answers from its 'minister' turned political aristocrats, our hazy run into oblivion is all but ensured. The future is troublingly interesting.
A resurgent hyper-nationalistic right wing, merrily trolling the near inconsequential centrist to left wing, left the opposition in abject disarray. In the ensuing flow of brute majoritarian discourse, the few reasonable voices were swiftly silenced by supposedly fortuitous chance, and the swift oppression of minority rights began in earnest.
From an isolationist PM, to an authoritarian one, to a complete autocratic megalomaniac, the transformation was swift. A narcissist purveyor of the luxuries, has been damagingly contrasted with decisions that impacted the life and livelihood of millions of his poor countrymen, starting with the demonetisation disaster, further exacerbated by the GST fiasco.
Carried to power on the squeaky clean carpet of righteous anti-corruption plank, the descent into a venal, corroding carnal animal of greed, power and desire has been its overarching hallmark, couched in dreamy nomenclatures of "Chanakya" and 56 inch. Over and over again, it has been made amply evident that the Gujrat mascot neither has the wisdom nor the gumption to govern a country of such magnitude or diversities. As long as conditions were favourable, he ran the country on auto-pilot and emotional pulling of heart -strings. He must have swiftly come to the realisation that the Gujrat model, or whatever miasmatic conjuring that existed in that name could neither be brought to the centre nor taken shelter under, without actual, acute and painful exposure.
You cannot fault him for not trying though. Essentially he got the entire Gujrat cadre officers to the centre in a desperate attempt at replication. Institutional integrity was corrupted in the flailing belief that the ends would justify the means. Constitutional edifices were sacrificed at the altar of convenience even if it meant a slow decaying plod towards irreversible damage to the body politic. However, none of that helped.
With the first term nearing an end, he machinated the Balakot response as some kind of a strong-arm response to his own dismal incompetence / conspiracy wherein 300 Kgs of RDX was smuggled into Kashmir and detonated killing a convoy full of CRPF jawans. Except for a lot of pious hand-wringing and ominous sabre-rattling, the only thing of consequence to accrue from this exercise was the more than successful return of Modi 2.0 to helm.
The covert salutation to his master's roots in the visible form of the transformation of the Central Vista would be the crowning glory to an inglorious indiscretion perpetrated on the people of India.
However, there are cosmic forces at work, it seems, to thwart such lofty upheavals. An invisible virus threatens to derail the single-minded focus to eviscerate the constitution, bring in CAA-NRC and subject the minorities to an untold fate of destitution couched in nationalistic colours and patriotic fervour. Coupled with a resurgent social media that seems to match knock for knock with a hitherto insurmountable adversary, it seems that a dreary opposition is getting its political act in order to challenge its self-inflicted role as political roadkill.
The subservient media is being poked and ridiculed to get its act together. While this may be a task for the long haul, the few spiny ones have found lungs to breath. An economy that has meandered into virtual nothingness gives the govt very less room to maneouvre its gameplan to suit its nefarious ends.
However, the verdict is still out there whether there is going to be any substantial change in either leadership or its style or functioning, even in the face of outright ignominy arising from a plethora of ridiculous statements that minister after ignorant minister continues to utter to the sheer embarassment of India's citizentry here and abroad.
Unless the citizens rise to demand answers from its 'minister' turned political aristocrats, our hazy run into oblivion is all but ensured. The future is troublingly interesting.
