Classic fascism

Although the vast majority of the nation’s citizenry which includes captains of industry eagerly awaiting President Pranab Mukherjee’s invitation to Narendra Modi to form the next government in New Delhi, has missed its implications, the sensational exposé  of the Modi-led Gujarat government’s stalking of a Bangalore-based woman architect is a chilling preview of things to come in the likely event of a BJP-led government assuming office at the Centre. On November 16, websites released audio tapes of conversations between Amit Shah who served in Modi’s cabinet as home minister for eight years and G.L. Singhal, a senior Gujarat state police officer. These tapes whose authenticity is not disputed, indicate that in 2009, Gujarat police shadowed the woman in Bangalore and Gujarat in shopping malls, restaurants, ice-cream parlours, gyms, cinema halls, hotels and airports and tapped all her telephone calls on ‘saheb’s’ instructions. Since then, it has been acknowledged by BJP and Modi’s spokespersons that the unidentified saheb was Narendra Modi. Disparate pieces of evidence seem to indicate that Modi who reportedly deserted his wife several decades ago, was enamoured with the lady and was either jealous of a rival’s attentions or fearful that the latter would blow the whistle on his infatuation with her. But the salacious details of this triangle are not as important as the issues of public policy, in particular the flagrant misuse of state agencies i.e the Gujarat police and ATS (Anti Terrorism Squad) to mount a 24×7 surveillance of the woman for several months. This is additional evidence — supplementing the anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002 in Gujarat and suspicious ‘encounter killings’ by the police of alleged terrorists Ishrat Jehan and Sohrabuddin Sheikh — that Modi has no compunctions about using official machinery in pursuit of  personal prejudices and agendas. Although it’s politically incorrect to say so, the plain truth is that shaped by patriarchal, authoritarian RSS culture and given his minimal formal education, Modi is ill-equipped to appreciate the finer points of democratic practice and constitutional propriety. And if the BJP is voted to power at the Centre next summer — as seems likely — its prime minister will use the full weight of the Central government, police and investigative machinery to stalk critics and rivals and pick them off, one by one. For the great majority who care little for history, that’s classic fascist modus operandi.   Airs & graces With monotonous regularity, jumped-up rustics who have had political or bureaucratic greatness thrust upon them by India’s democratic system, make outrageous monetary and material demands upon the national treasury. Worse, they get their way. A recent example of brazen conversion of public property is provided by bejeweled Dalit queen Mayawati, leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), three times chief minister of Uttar Pradesh — India’s most populous and backward state — and an experienced practitioner of this emerging art form. According to an Indian Express news report (November 17), the Union urban development ministry has allotted three bungalows in Delhi’s Lutyens Bungalow Zone (LTF),…