Last week when Rahul Gandhi spoke in Lok Sabha Monday and Narendra Modi in both Houses over the next two days — during the motion of thanks to the President’s address in Parliament — it seemed that, after a decade in which a winner-takes-all majority had pushed out different and differing voices, the highest forum of debate was opening its doors wide again. It would let in more light, and air.
But the optimism was not unmixed. Because anyone looking for a glimpse of the contours of the new government and the new Opposition in the two speeches would also have been a little disappointed. The Prime Minister’s speech disappointed more.
Rahul spoke as if Congress had won the election outright, not merely improved its tally. He repeatedly rubbed the BJP’s diminished numbers in its face, held up pictures of different gods to make an unsubtle point, and reprised themes of his election campaign. Only at the tail end of his speech, he reached out to the government — as Leader of Opposition, he was a “constitutional person”, he said, who had to set aside his personal likes and dislikes; the Opposition was not the government’s enemy, he said.
But while Rahul’s strident tone and his carry-on pugnacity may be an opportunity wasted to introduce the people to a more mellow Opposition, conscious of its larger responsibility after the election in the House, it could also be explained as a cathartic outpouring. After all, for 10 years, the Congress-led Opposition was constantly reading its own obituaries on the wall and Rahul himself was targeted singularly by the vast and well-resourced BJP machine. Rahul’s arc — from “Pappu” to LoP, two arduous nation-wide yatras and one disqualification as MP thrown in between — has been tumultuous. At the end, in a moment of vindication, why grudge him a bit of parliamentary grandstanding?
It is more difficult, however, to find extenuating circumstances for the lack of lift-off and absence of large-heartedness in Modi’s speech. His first address in Parliament in his third term as PM was unduly weighed down by anger and resentments, grievances and gripes against the Congress and the Congress-led “eco-system”, which, according to him, promotes “arajakta” or anarchy.
There were other accusations, allegations and labels — Modi called the Congress anti-Hindu, anti-Dalit and a parasite or “parjeevi” that feeds on its allies, and accused it of “balakbuddhi” or immaturity. Even as he alleged that the Congress was promoting “nirasha” or negativity, he himself painted spectres of an endangered “desh ki suraksha (national security)”, and of a wide-ranging “saazish” or conspiracy. “Satark rahne ki zaroorat hai”, it is necessary to be vigilant, he said, as he warned the Congress and Congress’s eco-system: “Har saazish ka jawaab usi ki bhasha mein milega (you will be paid back in your own coin)”.
Combined with the expunging of large sections of Rahul Gandhi’s speech by the Speaker, PM Modi’s words seemed to underline more of a dismal same-oldness — a government that hasn’t tired of painting itself and the nation as besieged from within, one that is re-raising walls between “us” and “them”, and attempting again to banish dissent. This, even as the voters have brought it down a peg, and in spite of a verdict that nudges it to talk to the other side.
This unwillingness or inability or both to be generous in victory has become an unfortunate motif of the Modi governments. It can be partly explained by the fact that long before it won a single party majority in 2014, the BJP painted itself as a victim of the Congress system and drew energy from that self-image. As challenger, the Modi-BJP’s war-like postures have provided it a propulsive force even as they have signalled the breadth of its ambitions. Yet, now into its third term in power, they speak of something more unflattering — a fundamental reluctance to acknowledge and engage and respect the opponent.
In Gujarat and then at the Centre, Modi has led several dispensations that, cushioned by their numbers, could afford to turn their back on the very existence and institution of the Opposition. The 2024 mandate, however, is less indulgent of such wilful denial and arrogance. The Modi-BJP will need to change because of what happened on June 4, and that is the challenge that the PM’s speech did not reflect at all last week in Parliament.
It’s a challenge it continues to ignore at its own peril. Because if there is one thing that Verdict 2024 has underlined it is this: India’s democracy is not slowing down. It is still capable of springing a surprise and renewing itself.
Till next week,
Vandita
