"Every country has the government it deserves"
- Joseph De Maistre, 1811
In less than 24 hours we are likely to have a new Prime Minister. His victory will also likely be as emphatic as the decimation of his opponents. Maybe in a few hours, and the leader of the largest democracy will get a congratulatory phone call from the leader of the most famous democracy. And the little matter of a denied visa some years ago would be forgotten. The great nation would elevate a chaiwallah of a low caste to dizzying heights of power, thus dislodging a famous family from an inherited throne not entirely earned.
Mr. Narendra Modi was not my choice for Prime Minister. I was hard pressed to put my virtual vote firmly in favor of a candidate who I could trust to take us to a better place. A candidate who could inspire by articulating a strategy who also has the public service credentials on execution. That candidate remained elusive.
As I watched the infamous Arnab Goswami interview with the famous scion, my takeaways were not uniformly negative. Mr. Gandhi kept his cool and averted some pointed questions which didn't have easy answers, or had answers unlikely to endear the masses anyway. He refused to be drawn into a chest beating fight with Modi. He recounted the many sacrifices of his family, explained who Rahul Gandhi was in the third person - with facts and anecdotes, mostly indisputable. He accepted responsibility for 1984 and had a mild demeanour through the tete-a-tete with a fairly aggressive interviewer. All in all, he was a gentleman. But gentlemanly conduct does not take you to the Lok Sabha. Votes do. In spite of his fine but uninspirational conduct throughout the election season - he had to contend with the baggage of incumbency,graft, nepotism and a brother in law.
Mr. Kejriwal was never really a contender. While his clean image has helped him inspire the urban middle class, his abdication of the throne in Delhi reminded me of the "historic blunder" of the Left in declining a lead role a few decades ago. Both shied away because they realized they could not, or would not, get their way in a coalition. The failure to navigate an unclear mandate was theirs, not of the people who gave them the opportunity to lead.
Modi's story is a fascinating case study in political ascendancy. Deeply rooted in RSS ideology, helped by a famous mentor who he would later discard,barely tainted by an infamous pogrom and management skills sharpened while running a state known for its entrepreneural people. Propelled by an admiring fourth estate, and a vocal middle class who saw in him a ticket to upward mobility, the juggernaut of the Chaiwallah has gone from strength to strength. Modi has electrified those you are likely to talk to.
In electing Modi to the throne however, India would be putting economics over humanity. Let me qualify that further. In electing Modi - the majority would be putting trickle down economics over the need to perfect a fractured union. The same nation, whose inspirational birth was based on secular and inclusive values - would suspend those intangibles for now. Maybe those intangibles do not mean much to the majority anyways. As a people, inspite of all we have achieved since our birth, we continue to fail miserably everyday in treating our fellow citizens with respect and discharge the social contract. Caste, religion, social class continue to divide us. Inexplicably those who apparently have had the privilege of getting an "education" are often culpable. We are willing to bend the rules in our daily life, push a little "speed money" to expedite their interests, sometimes refusing rent apartments to people who eat meat, or the meat of a different animal. Our toilets are cleaned by people we hire but do not touch, and our maids and drivers underpaid and treated with disdain even when they do twelve hour days. We raise our voices when a diplomat is strip searched for conducting a crime, but we are unafraid to strip a woman in the public square for sleeping with someone of a different caste. We celebrate the number of mobile phones we have, while more than half of the country defecates in the open. The legislators we choose to write our laws have far too many transgressions in criminal law of their own.
Narendra Modi and Amit Shah personify who we are, and in choosing them to represent us we are choosing one of our own. They are a manifestation of the imperfections already in us, warts and all, as their favourite Swami would say. That is the triumph and tragedy of our democracy.
He was not my candidate, but I accept him as my Prime Minister. Until I change, and I can change you.
