PM Narendra Modi must learn the art of handling hot potatoes

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi completes one year in office to laudatory appraisals and good poll ratings overall, he could do well to see if there are any lurking dangers. He should also figure out if there are any Sage Vridakshatras around to help him if and when any danger posed by the schizophrenic nature of his follower base appears. Forget every ministry's distinction-pass-fail report card for the moment and just look at the challenges of style and substance that greeted Modi a year back, before we come to why this obscure one-scene sage from Mahabharata may be relevant to Modi.

In terms of bureaucratic style before 2014, Lutyens' Delhi and Modi’s Ahmedabad, and possibly many other state capitals including Congress-ruled ones, belonged to different hemispheres. Modi as a 'Can-Do' man had over the years made a generally efficient state bureaucracy razor sharp. By way of contrast, no one has ever accused the Delhi bureaucracy of being even rusted razor sharp and it had over the years perfected the art of 'Cannot-Do'. Then there was the Centre/state practical working style – states tend to believe that even a peon in any Central Office believes that he is entitled to lord over it. Modi had been at the receiving end, so to speak, of this phenomenon for a long time so this repair work must have been on his ‘to-do’ list. Not just the bureaucracy, but Ministerial practices must have been a worry too. 

So has Modi been able to change Delhi’s governing style? Decisions like the abolishing of the Groups of Ministers (GoMs) and the Planning Commission can be said to have heralded a change and anecdotal evidence suggests that at the superficial level of punctuality and office decorum, there has been some progress. But at the fundamental attitudinal level, well, Dilli door ast. But if a journey along the right path has begun, there is a good chance of reaching the destination some time.

In terms of political style, in Gujarat, by early 2014, Modi was the master of all he surveyed. He had marginalised all opposition within the party, he had a strong majority, Congress was weak and divided. Modi could be authoritarian and get away with it. But Delhi was a different world. Technically, BJP may have an absolute majority in Lok Sabha, but its limitations in the Rajya Sabha were always obvious. The situation cried out for the government to be more accommodative where legislative business was concerned, but an outright majority can be dangerously intoxicating. Who knows, perhaps a little generosity of spirit in matters like the Leader of Opposition post in the early days of this government may have oiled the subsequent passage of crucial bills and reduced the government’s recent diet of a humble pie. Even so, this can be called an addressable issue, it is in no way a threat to the government and with a little more deftness in floor management, the government’s legislative agenda can be back on track.

The real challenge for Modi is internal and comes from the schizophrenic nature of BJP’s voter base. First, there is the traditional, loyal BJP vote base accounting for roughly two-thirds of its votes. These include the trading classes and many middle of the road, law abiding citizens but also include what are often called the fringe elements. They are anchored to BJP’s historical platforms: Hindutva, Ayodhya,, partition baggage, sadhus, sadhvis and so on. 'Saffron Plus' might be a better term to describe them, since ‘fringe’ suggests small numbers, comforting to the English-speaking classes, but which might not be quite accurate.

By itself, this category of voters could never have brought BJP to power. Modi and his election managers were smart enough to recognise this and crafted their appeal solely in developmental terms to attract the additional votes they needed. They succeeded brilliantly in attracting the upwardly mobile, young, urban, stock market following voter. Since most of them are Hindus, they could be called the 'Saffron Lite'. The fine-print with Saffron Lite voters is that they are vocal, social media savvy and can be fickle. These Saffron Lite voters, accounting for possibly one-third of BJP’s votes, helped Modi cross the finish line a year back and BJP can be forgiven for ignoring the fine-print in the first flush of victory.

The divergences between the Saffron Plus and Saffron Lite are too many to list and can be viewed as the schizophrenic base on which BJP’s edifice rests. It is great when the stresses are manageable and the going is relatively harmonious, as it is for the present, but the threat could be existential if there is a major flash point. Both Saffron Plus and Saffron Lite believe they won the election for Modi, both want results NOW and sounds of impatience can be heard from both blocs on issues like the temple or the pace of reforms. So far, BJP has managed to paper over the cracks but one of these days, an issue will come along where band-aids may not work. It will be an existential question where Modi may have to make a choice. To go against the Saffron Lite may undermine the ‘development’ promises he made to the electorate and threaten his political future; to go against Saffron Plus may threaten the very existence of the government. That is where some Sage Vridakshatra may need to be around to provide an escape route for Modi and the BJP, as the original one did to Arjuna and the Pandavas when an identical choice confronted them on Day 14 of the Mahabharata war.

Abhimanyu had been killed by the Kauravas on Day 13 and Arjuna had pledged to kill Jayadratha, the perceived villain, by sunset the next day or jump into fire. With Krishna to guide him, Arjuna sliced through the Kaurava army and after the false sunset play by Krishna, finally had Jayadratha in his sights. Jayadratha had one final protection though. His father, the great Sage Vridakshatra, in a burst of filial love had granted him the boon that ‘anyone causing his head to fall on the ground would have his skull shattered into a thousand pieces’. So Arjuna could kill Jayadratha and let his own head be shattered or let Jayadratha live and choose to die by fire instead. As usual, Krishna pointed out the solution by asking Arjuna to kill Jayadratha in such a way as to carry the severed head to the forest to the meditating Vridakshatra, basically dumping the problem in his lap. 

Assuming that Modi has been sincere about his development pledge, he may need to keep a short list of candidates marked and handy to lap-drop the hot-potato issue into, if and when it appears.