Columns
Prime time news television thrives on the idea of a daily enemy, someone who can be court-martialled every night and then pronounced guilty by the news anchor playing the double role of judge and prosecutor. Politicians are the staple accused, but in the last 18 months our netas have had competition from a cricket official. In news television’s imagination, N Srinivasan has come to exemplify the rot in the country’s number one sport and there have been loud calls for his removal from the cricket board.
A simple tweet, all of 140 characters, can be hazardous to one’s health as I have discovered to my cost yet again. Last Sunday, as Narendra Modi went in for his first Cabinet expansion, I tweeted: “Big day for my Goa. Two GSBs, both talented politicians, become full cabinet ministers. Saraswat pride!” I was referring to the induction of Manohar Parrikar and Suresh Prabhu in the Union Cabinet.
My 26-year career in journalism has parallelled the journey of two individuals who have achieved iconic status. The first front page article I got a byline for was Sachin Tendulkar’s maiden first class century in December 1988. The first major outstation assignment I got a chance to track was the Ram Janmabhoomi Rath Yatra where I met a certain Narendra Damodardas Modi for the first time in 1990
Daughters can be unusually prescient: Taking a first look at my book, 2014: The Election that Changed India, she asked why the cover had pictures of both Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi. “Shouldn’t you just be showing Mr Modi, he is after all the big winner, why do you need a Rahul picture also?” “Because,” I replied, “For every winner, you need a loser!”
Political judgements based on opinion polls are hazardous at the best of times, but when there is a five-cornered fight like in Maharashtra, pollsters are often whistling in the dark. There were almost 50 constituencies in Maharashtra in 2009 where the margin was less than 5,000 votes, making any conclusive poll prediction a nightmare. And yet, let me stick my neck out on my home state: The BJP will be almost certainly the single-largest party and, in fact, should get a clear majority.
Indian voters have a knack of surprising political pundits. Just a few weeks ago, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah could do no wrong; now, after a series of byelection reverses, the Modi-Shah duo is being blamed for losing the Midas touch. Neither is the euphoria nor the harsh criticism valid: No two elections are the same and the extreme responses that accompany every election result are perhaps uncalled for.
Politicians are notoriously schizophrenic: I have met any number of netas who can be wonderfully warm and polite when they are off camera but turn into rabble-rousing venomous public figures the moment the camera is switched on. A Raj Thackeray, for example, is very generous with his hospitality when there is no camera in the vicinity. But the moment he is on air, he transforms into a different political animal: He can be rude and abusive, almost as if he is compelled to perform before a wider world. Mani Shankar Aiyar is another. He will make personal attacks in a television debate and then next morning, almost mysteriously, transform into a genteel man of the world.
We live in an age where a Hindi film is declared a hit if it has a strong opening on its first weekend: The era of the silver jubilee is well and truly behind us.Politics too, is experiencing a similar compression in time. So, Narendra Modi’s first 100 days are already being seen as a verdict on his government. A 100 days is just over 14 weeks.
