The
Rajya Sabha MP's recent exertions suggest he has found Modi sarkar's weak
spot..
In
trying to understand why a highly educated person like Subramanian Swamy would
behave like a gadfly, I googled the word "contrarian". It took a
little doing but I found "froward" to be the best fit; it refers to
being "wilfully contrary".
Swamy
is nothing if not a wilful contrarian.
He
started out as a pillar of the academic establishment; was elected to both
houses of Parliament and remained an MP for 25 years; served as cabinet
minister for commerce and law; had a blue-chip upbringing and education and
currently has a pedigreed family with two accomplished daughters, one a lawyer,
the other a journalist, married to successful professionals from established
and well-connected civil service families.
So
what happened to turn him into a gadfly? My assessment may be completely
misplaced but then so is Swamy’s effort to target two accomplished public
intellectuals.
He
is himself a highly qualified member of the same club and he surely knows that
RBI governor Raghuram Rajan and the government’s chief economic adviser Arvind
Subramanian are about the only globally recognised assets that Narendra Modi
has in his barren government.
Most
of his other appointees, whether ministers or bureaucrats, are lacklustre
apparatchiks who draw their name and fame from the prime ministerial sceptre he
touched them with.
On
the other hand, Rajan and Subramanian are internationally renowned scholars who
brought gravitas to these heretofore humdrum positions.
So
is Swamy simply being peevish and seeking to shoot down the competition? Or he
is doing the bidding of this "suit-boot sarkar", beholden as it is to
fat-cat cronies?
Could
it be Swamy is making a final play for the position that he believes is his
destiny? My money is on the third possibility.
Swamy
is probably the seniormost and certainly the most academically qualified person
in politics now that Manmohan Singh is gone.
He
seems to be convinced he is suited to be primus inter pares in the Union
council of ministers. From his resume and list of accomplishments, it is hard
to argue with his claim. So let us see how the third scenario might play out.
There
is not an iota of doubt that the most credible face of the regime is finance
minister Arun Jaitley, willy-nilly the number two in the cabinet.
He
is a fine professional and a source of strength for PM Modi. His lack of a
political base is probably an important consideration in the assignment to him
of the important portfolios of finance, information and broadcasting, and until
they found a suitable fall guy, defence.
In
targeting the NRI economists, Swamy seemingly seeks to sap Jaitley. Does he
want the finance minister’s job? Or is he aiming at a higher target?
From
his mercurial tendencies, in which he has targeted people from all across the
spectrum, including not just the Congress but the RSS as well, it is easy to
conclude that his ego is at least as large as that of Modi.
He
has an impressive resume and a cosmopolitan cachet that is lacking in the
current leadership. For example, consider his immediate family in which his
son-in-law is Muslim, his brother-in-law is Jewish, his sister-in-law Christian
and his wife Parsi.
His
undoubtedly superb academic qualifications, his experience in Parliament plus
the familial diversity separate him from the traditional rube leadership that
the BJP has on display.
As
such, Swamy certainly seems to be better equipped to take the reins of
political leadership. There is quite simply no one on the saffron bench that
measures up.
The
only problem he might confront what many believe is a lack of maturity and
somewhat irresponsible behaviour. However, given the outlandish records of
various ministers, Swamy is not alone in the bizarre department.
The
culture minister, the education minister, the home minister, the defence
minister and many others have made some remarkable comments that are not in
keeping with the gravitas demanded of a berth in the highest councils of the
government of India.
Could
it be that Swamy, an acute analyst, has sensed the Modi gravy train is veering
off the tracks? It is fairly evident that there is erosion in the lowest-ever
31 per cent vote share to deliver a majority in the lower house of Parliament.
Gujarat-style,
Modi and his cohorts may think they have evaded responsibility for Lalitgate,
Vyapam and other abuse-of-office scandals.
They
may dismiss their abject foreign policy failures as too complicated for the
electorate to parse. Or they may believe their loud, whistling-in-the-dark
claims on economic growth will drown out the reality of low growth,
joblessness, high inflation, collapse of exports, the looming banking crisis.
They
may have persuaded themselves that some tokenism on the farm front may
alleviate the serious crisis in agriculture.
In
the end, the current leadership could lose the perception battle despite the
bluff and bluster it relies on, and a media environment that it is confident of
influencing to its advantage.
Whatever
communications strategies it brings to the table, the leadership cannot be
unaware that creating perceptions through hype and hoopla is not a sustainable
proposition; unhinged from reality, they can be called out as propaganda.
Swamy’s
recent exertions suggest that he may have hit upon the weak spot in the most
swaggering regime ever to hold office. Whether his campaign succeeds in
destabilising the Modi government depends on a number of factors including just
how much disenchantment there is within the party and the parivar at large with
the two Gujarati helmsmen.
After
all, some 282 members of the BJP have ridden to power on their coat-tails. But
if the feeling grows that the government is floundering, the support could
disappear like a mist in the morning sun and with it, the bravura claims of
re-election with an even bigger majority.
(An
edited version of this post will appear in Education World, June 27, 2016.)
