India's disasters, Modi's failures and the threat of total dictatorship

India is going through disasters, one after another, without any recovery under the leadership of Modi's BJP regime. The disasters are of many kinds - Economic depression that began even before the pandemic induced slowdown. The pandemic public health crisis itself which has created tremendous humanitarian tragedy in the country. The defense & foreign policy crisis with China & other countries. And underlying everything is the collapse of middle class, massive rise in poverty and sharp decline in living standards of people.

The Modi Govt exercised power disregarding constitution, norms, legality and political traditions. It was 'my way or the highway' style of governance. It crushed political opposition, overthrew State Governments of opposition political parties, fired critical civil servants, jailed opposition politicians, independent journalists, activists, students etc. Modi Govt was practically an elected dictatorship. Underlying Modi's dictatorship, there were two main themes. First was the fear and power of Modi Shah themselves. In their political career from Gujarat to New Delhi, they destroyed everyone & anyone who got in their path of quest to power. 

 

But there was another thing which gave acceptance to Modi regime and enabled its victory. That was the moral decline and intellectual bankruptcy of the institutions and society that approved Modi's dictatorship. India's political system was decaying since last several decades, economy was stagnating, and there were long standing structural problems that various Governments failed to resolve since long time. Somehow our institutions and society developed a subconscious belief that traditional liberal Democracy and rule of the law have become obsolete. This is where we started to wish for a political leadership that will "make trains run on time". A leadership that may not be Democratic in nature by the book but which will get things done, which can put economy on track, which can solve the socioeconomic problems of poverty & unemployment, someone who can stand up to China and provide stability to the country. Modi & Shah masterfully captured these subconscious desires of India.

Its an interesting study on how Democracies fall into Fascism and dictatorships. Something like that happened in India in last decade. Now the fear & brute power of Modi BJP still remains but Modi regime is losing its acceptance and popularity among the people. The institutions & society who once thought that Modi will bring stability, security and prosperity to country are starting to see the true face of Modi regime. Apart from being highly corrupt, Modi and BJP regime are morons, textbook idiots & grossly incompetent. Modi is like India's Donald Trump. He has complete lack of vision, understanding, scientific thinking and skill set for national governance and policy making. Surely, Modi & Shah are very capable in other areas like silencing political opposition, breaking opposition political parties, instigating communal riots for political gains and using investigating agencies to neutralize its opponents. These skills of Modi & Shah are exceptional. But what about policy making?  How to run the economy? What economic recovery program is needed to pull India out of depression?  What will be our pandemic response policy?  What should be our vaccine policy?  What kind of trade & industrial policy we need?  What will be our foreign policy on China & other countries?   Modi regime has no answers to these questions.  

For couple of years, Modi Govt was able to cover up all the disasters & its policy failures with diversions, propaganda and PR management. The public was regularly infused with opium of religion, Hindutva, pseudo-nationalism and Islamophobia. While the society and country was getting ruined, the people were daydreaming and chasing the abstract notions of Ram Rajya and Hindu nation etc. But the pandemic was a tremendous shock to the society & nation. The society got a rude shock of reality of country - A country without a functional healthcare system, a country where Govt sleeps while citizens die without oxygen, a country where Govt won't come to help its citizens in the time of greatest needs and in more general terms, people realized that India is becoming a failed state. The economic misery goes along with all this as millions of middle class are pushed into the poverty and millions of poor people further sink into the abyss of hardships & suffering.

 

There are various signs that Modi regime's popularity has greatly shrunk. Even in the best of the times, Modi BJP were only able to garner 30%-40% of electorate support. But now that is changing. Despite having infinite funding to throw in election campaigns & unleashing the full force of politically motivated investigations against his opponents, Modi still cannot win over critical state elections. Several allies of Modi's BJP ruling party are breaking away like in State of Punjab & Maharashtra and there are tensions in BJP ruled state governments due to internal frictions like in state of Karnataka and UP. All is not well in BJP right now but Modi Shah so far maintain an iron grip over the party. There is anxiety in the top brass of BJP due to is its sinking popularity and inability to produce desired election results. There is mass revulsion against the ruling Modi BJP in the public due to pandemic & economic gross mismanagement of Modi. If this mass revulsion transforms into political arena and into electoral field, BJP will loose big time. 

 

The anxiety of Modi regime is clearly visible with its moves on internet censorship and attempt to shutdown social media companies like Twitter.  While Modi has already installed pro BJP stooges in regional offices of social media companies, Modi wants to consolidate further by mischievous new IT rules that will give unlimited authority to Modi Govt over social media platforms and create a surveillance state to target Govt critics, political opposition and activists. Modi is setting up to takeover these social media companies with blatant threats - either they come under the complete authority of Modi or they will be forced to shutdown their operations.  India is getting close to China in internet censorship and isolation from global community. One of the critical features of dictatorships is that they isolate their country's people from each other as well as from rest of the world. The internet censorship under Modi deserves a dedicated report which i will do in future.

 

Modi's control on judiciary is also seems to be diminishing. Recall that Modi regime controls many of the Judges in Supreme court. The tenure of Chief Justices Deepak Misra, Gogoi, Arun Mishra and Bobde is known to everyone. Up to now, Modi got a free pass from Supreme Court & judiciary on various unconstitutional, foolhardy, destructive and blatantly illegal policies. SC approved & gave clean chit to Modi on various corruption cases & nefarious policies like in Rafale Jet scam, PM Cares fund, Ayodhya verdict and Judge Loya case. And on other hand SC indefinitely delayed the most important constitutional matters & habeas corpus cases like validity of CAA and Kashmir detentions.  But now things seems to be changing. The big push against Modi Govt is coming from various high courts against BJP's gross mismanagement of the pandemic.  Modi Govt failures in pandemic response are dealt very sharply by various high courts.  The high courts in various states have come down heavily on Oxygen crisis, shortages of drugs, vaccine policy and other mismanagement of BJP Govt.  

Modi's disastrous vaccine policy did not go down well with the Supreme Court. The Supreme court said that Modi's vaccine policy is arbitrary and irrational. When it looked that Supreme court might even declare the policy as unconstitutional, Modi came on national TV and announced critical changes to the vaccine policy. Supreme court struck down of vaccine policy would have been a big embarrassment for Modi regime. Hopefully, SC will take a tough stand against all other irrational, arbitrary and unconstitutional policies of Modi Govt.  Another resistance coming from Judiciary against the ruling Modi Govt is on the front of illegal detentions of activists. Recall the Modi's way of dealing with peaceful public protests and civil society mass movements. The students, activists and Govt critics were charged with anti terrorism and sedition laws and thrown into prisons indefinitely without any bail.  The judiciary was too afraid to take a stand against these illegal detentions and blatant use of regressive anti-terror laws against peaceful protesters.  Now Delhi High court has taken a stand against these detentions by granting bail to some student activists which were booked by the Police on frivolous cases and trumped up charges.

Delhi High court has questioned the use of anti-terror laws against people who were peacefully protesting government policies. Of course, the Police under the control of Govt, has created all kind of fictional theories and made peaceful activists as conspirators of last year's Delhi riots. In my opinion, these riots were orchestrated by none other than the ruling Modi BJP regime in wake of their Delhi state election losses. To deal with insurgent Judiciary, if it tries to strike down illegal, unconstitutional and nationally destructive Mohammad Tughlaq policies of Modi Govt, Modi regime may orchestrate some scandal in Supreme court to tarnish the image of dissenting judges. Old dirty laundry of some judges can also be dug up to blackmail and manipulate courts for extorting favorable judgements. Its also possible that some Judge can be made an example out of like Judge Loya to instill fear in the judiciary. 

Modi has also enjoyed a strong support from military and deep state establishment of India. But now Modi's popularity with the Army and other institutions may also be diminishing. I have written about corrupt hardline Pro BJP officers in military and investigating agencies that are used to control these institutions. But there are pro Modi officers & bureaucrats in institutions who once genuinely believed that Modi is working in 'Greater national interest'. After failures and blunders of Modi on all fronts, Modi's image as a 'man who makes trains run on time' has been greatly tarnished. The LAC crisis of last year, China's aggression and Modi's bungled foreign policy towards China has also dented his image in military and establishment. Up to now, Modi could pass any controversial orders to military and institutions and they followed it believing in concept of 'Greater national interest'. But with Modi losing substantive legitimacy and popularity, will military and institutions stand and support illegal and controversial orders of Modi's BJP regime?

What will happen when Modi and Shah realize that power is slipping from their hands? Modi and Shah are not typical politicians who came to power to govern for their mandated tenure and depart when their mandate ends. Modi's BJP regime is a dictatorship masquerading under a Democracy. Modi aspires himself as Russia's Putin and Turkey's Erdogan - Prime Minister for life. The election mandate and legal tenure doesn't really matter to him. Modi and Shah will use all extra legal means to stay in power.  Arun Shourie once said that when Modi & Shah will get cornered, they are one trick ponies and use their favorite trick - Communal riots and social division.  

 

The polarization and social division is constantly infused in the public through various routes like Beef controversy, mob lynchings, anti-love Jihad laws, Ram Mandir, daily media propaganda etc.  But a grand spectacle of communal riots in multiple cities may be orchestrated to flare communal sentiments in public for immediate electoral gains. The communal riots of Delhi last year can be emulated by BJP in multiple cities if Modi Shah believes that its needed to secure their power. While the riots can garner Hindu votes, the riots can also be used to crush domestic political dissent and opposition of activists, civil society and critics of government.

Another old strategy of BJP is creating tensions on LOC with Pakistan and false flag attacks within India. The Pulwama attack was likely a false flag attack by Modi & Shah to reap maximum political gains in 2019 elections.  The false flag attack can be followed by circus of surgical strikes or some low intensity conflict with Pakistan to inflame nationalism sentiments in Indian electorate. But now the situation in region is complicated. If Modi tries to start a low intensity conflict with Pakistan for his political gains, the situation with borders may get out of control if China gets in foray on eastern LAC. It would also be interesting to see how will military react to any illegal and dangerous orders from Modi & Shah. Will Indian military take the risk of starting an all out war with Pakistan & China just so that Modi Shah BJP can salvage their political careers?

For now, BJP's focus is on next year's UP elections and 4 more states. Recall that BJP is emulating its Gujarat model in UP and trying to build UP as its permanent base of operations. UP is also the center of religious populist heritage, its the most populous state of India and also has the largest share of seats in parliament. The hindu cleric chief minister of UP is also groomed to be the next Prime minister and possible future replacement of Modi. Its also worth mentioning that opposition political parties have so for not lived up to expectations. But if opposition gets its act together, the popularity of BJP continues to slide, then Modi regime may do anything to secure its power. 

 

In November 2016, Modi announced Demonetization policy just before UP elections.  From economic viewpoint the, the policy was an insane self imposed national disaster but it created an appearance in minds of ignorant population that Modi is a bold leader, ready to clean up corruption in India.  Its possible that some new insane policy may be announced before UP elections to salvage the crumbling image of Modi and BJP.  Communal riots, rigging of electronic voting machines, an orchestrated false flag attack and tensions at India's border with Pakistan - anything & everything is possible. Maintaining the control over power will be the only goal and nothing else will matter.