PM Modi And His Government Must Help Themselves To Some Street-Smart Tactics

I’m enjoying the latest Donald Trump outrage, wherein he has attacked a number of famous athletes (such as Stephen Curry of the champion San Francisco Warriors and Colin Kaeperncik, formerly of the San Francisco 49ers) while wrapping himself totally, so to speak, in the American flag. He seems to have succeeded in diverting the attention of the public (“It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Superman!”) and in driving his implacable enemies, the deepstate media, into a frenzy of impotent rage.

This has taken the wind out of the sails of the Democrats who have been doggedly pursuing allegations of Russian involvement (and maybe even conspiracy with Trump) in the US elections. They, and the media, which really hates Trump, have been hoping against hope to push him into an impeachment, based on the ‘truth by repeated assertion, without proof’ that Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin to defeat Hillary Clinton.

It is increasingly evident, even to diehard Hillary fans, especially after the release of her book What Happened, in which she blamed everybody but herself for her failure, that her sense of entitlement was jarring to much of the electorate, and that she defeated herself, even with the highly likely involvement of the deepstate intelligence agencies to interfere on her behalf.

But the media and the left cabal have continued to hound Trump on the Russia story as if their lives depended on it. Trump, on the other hand, has manufactured enough diversionary moves to foil them. The public is losing interest in the ‘Russia accusation’ because they are so many other causes to get indignant over: Trump just keeps manufacturing them, and the public may be overdosing on “outrage!”

I can’t even begin to list all the things that Trump has done that has got the media running off madly in all directions: that list is too long. Suffice to look at a few of the most recent gems. First, the media accused Trump of not caring for hurricane victims or meeting with them or doing anything for them. The outrage metre was going through the roof, but Trump outlasted them on that one.

Then there was the suggestion that his cabinet ministers were misusing public funds for travel. But that came a cropper when it was found that the Education Secretary was indeed using a private jet, but it is her own, and she’s not charging the US government. She is a billionaire: her husband is the heir to the Amway multi-level marketing empire.

Then there have been all these bloodcurdling threats Trump unleashed against Kim Jong-un of North Korea, and the general possibility that there will be a nuclear war, or at the very least an atmospheric hydrogen bomb explosion by North Korea over the Pacific – which by the way would be bad news for any electronic devices in the vicinity as it would create an electromagnetic pulse that would fry them.

Then comes the latest row over the alleged disrespect shown by the athletes – often black – who refused to stand up when the US National Anthem is played. It is a form of protest that goes back a long way: I remember the Black Power salute at the 1968 Mexico Olympics by two athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos. They were – and so are the athletes now – protesting against human rights violations, particularly against black Americans.

The flag and the anthem and national pride are highly emotive issues in the US, and despite leftist derision, a large number of people may actually agree with Trump. This puts the media in a dilemma: they cannot indulge their biases openly because it would clash with the prevailing narrative. Trump has pushed them into an uncomfortable place, and kudos to him on the limited point of managing that positioning: rather clever, street-smart marketing tactics.

This is in stark contrast with what is going on in India. The Indian government is getting rattled and railroaded into doing suicidal things. Here too, the leftist media, in cahoots with certain political parties that shall remain unnamed, has invented a whole slew of frivolous memes with the sole intent of obstruction. Again, there are so many, I will only list a few: beef, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s monogrammed suit, deaths in bank queues after demonetisation, the ‘acquittal’ of the killers of Pehlu Khan, Junaid being killed for carrying beef, Kanhaiya, the disappearance of Najeeb, Modi being responsible for the lynching in Dadri, as for the stalking of a woman, and so on ad infinitum.

Some of the most recent I can remember have been (in no particular order):

-Those whom Prime Minister Modi follows on Twitter

-The murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh

-Petrol prices

-GST

-Jobs

-Rahul Gandhi’s pilgrimage to American campuses

-Freedom of speech under attack

-GDP growth slowing

-NDTV’s alleged takeover

-Rohingyas

And I am sure you can remember many more. But the common thread is that they are all nine-days’ wonders. For instance, despite all the initial sound and fury about the murder of Gauri Lankesh, now it’s rather apparent that it wasn’t helping the leftist elements in the media build their narrative . Especially after talks of Naxal involvement in the crime started gathering steam. Tellingly, there were hardly any #Awardwapsi this time around.

Perhaps we’re reaching ‘peak outrage’ and going over the hump into ‘outrage fatigue’. Or you could call it ‘the boy who cried wolf too many times’. When the leftists scream at the top of their lungs 24x7 about the latest atrocity, it does get a little tedious for the rest of us who merely want some peace and quiet.

Unfortunately, the Modi government is not showing the same level of street savvy as Trump is doing. The fact is that, yes, there is a slowdown in the gross domestic product growth rate. Yes, petrol prices have gone up. Yes, there are not so many jobs being created as there should be, despite the high-decibel StartupIndia scheme designed to create entrepreneurs and startup jobs.

But look at the bright side. India is still growing at 5.7 per cent, and luminaries such as the World Bank and Jamie Dimon, boss of JP Morgan Chase are still supporting the India story. 5.7 per cent is a rate that most countries would give their eye and teeth for, given a general slowdown in trade and the possibility of a shooting war between China and the US (Thucydides Trap, anyone?). The visit of Shinzo Abe and the signing of the bullet train agreement and other deals show that India, too, has a friend in the world: Japan. The peaceful pullback by all parties from Doklam shows that India can, and will, stand up to Chinese bullying.

Despite all this, the government is being railroaded into taking drastic steps by playing into the hands of the leftists and abandoning its admirable fiscal rectitude, allowing the deficit to rise, all because it has been stung by the assertion that it is screwing the middle class. It may in fact be, because that is the easiest cohort to squeeze, but it was rather idiotic for a newly-inducted minister to stand up and say baldly, “if you own a car, you can afford to pay Rs 75/litre for petrol”.

I am not sure if this minister realised that in politics, it is not what you do, but it’s what you are perceived to do, that actually matters. Even if it’s true that you’re messing with the middle class, you’re not supposed to admit it in so many words. Marketing, my dear minister. You need to head out to one of the IIMs for a crash course on customer intimacy. You should have put it in terms of global warming, our soaring oil import bill, and reducing dependency on Organisation of Petroluem Exporting Countries (OPEC), as well as the coming era of electric cars. Anything that sounds good and complex and long-term.

And now, in a too-little, too-late attempt to plug the breach, there was talk that the Prime Minister and Finance Minister would announce a multi-billion rupee package that will allegedly fix everything. But that would have meant that the alleged barbs aimed at them by Rahul Gandhi were hitting the mark. Yes, you should not underestimate the enemy, but the likely deepstate managed circus at Princeton, Berkeley, etc. showed that Rahul is still not ready for prime time, and that he’ll cut a sorry figure in 2019.

The real problem that the Prime Minister will face in 2019 is not economic, but cultural and political. As seen in the remarkable fortitude with which people bore with demonetisation, it is clear that they realise the goods and services tax (GST) disruption will also pass. Besides, the Indian public is used to hardship: the Congress has taught us to grin and bear it. They will stand behind Modi in 2019 because they believe in his economic vision.

But where they will question him is in the astonishing fact that none of the major villains who bled the country and looted it are being punished. I define ‘punishment’ as not even jail time, but ‘clawback’. Their ill-gotten wealth has to be clawed back from them with penalties as a deterrent to the next person. Given that demonetisation has been sold to all of us as necessary strong medicine to cleanse the system of corruption, the natural question is, “Why are all these thieves still strutting about?” This the Prime Minister needs to have a cogent answer for.

An even more critical issue is that of the consolidated Hindu vote. The astonishing victory in 2014 was because, for the first time since 1947, Hindus of all stripes could hope for leader who would treat them fairly, and who could recreate the glories of the nation that linger in the collective memory. But serious hard-core Hindus are beginning to lose faith in the Prime Minister because absolutely nothing has been done in any of the core areas: such as the repeal of the terminally flawed RTE, the release of temples from the clutches of rapacious devaswom boards, nor the provision of religion-blind services such as scholarships without special treatment to Muslims and Christians.

It is hope, rather than the famous vikas, that has held a disparate coalition of Hindus together. I see ominous signs of this coalition fraying. They know that India stands at a point of inflexion, when it can either leap up to be one of the G3, three superpowers, or it can fall back into mediocrity. And the national mood is also not one of sacrificing everything on the altar of pure growth. For the first time since 1947, and partly due to social media, Indians are actively seeking to assert themselves as people of gravity, rather than pale imitations of white people.

This cultural renaissance, that which Sri Aurobindo and Swami Vivekananda envisioned a century ago, cannot happen if Hindus continue to be an oppressed community, fragmented and powerless. In this festive season, it would be good for the Prime Minister to consider these home truths. We don’t live by economic growth alone, and I don’t think many Indians consider South Korea a role model – they prospered, but they lost their culture and traditions. Japan, which has carefully retained its soul while modernising furiously, is a far better model. In fact, even more than its money, it is Japan’s soul that India needs.

The Prime Minister needs to realise that the leftists, the media, and other friends and fifth columnists of deepstate, China and others, are never going to let up. But he can retaliate against their relentless creation of new memes by springing a few surprises of his own and making their best-laid plans ‘gang aft agley’. Like Trump does, Prime Minister Modi should give them shock treatment.

Why not, for instance, announce that all Hindu temples will henceforth be free to run their own affairs with an elected council of believers (such as in churches and mosques)? #LetMyTemplesGo. That will surely yank the leftists’ chains, and divert them away from their little shenanigans. And after that, a few more surprises up your sleeve? What you need to do is to not just level, but change the playing field. At the moment, you are playing on their field. Force them to play on yours by surprising the wits out of them. Shock and awe is a good tactic. Remember demonetisation? Focused everybody's minds.