When Karma Stands Before a 56-Inch Leader: 56 Inch Ka Chhota Bandar
When Karma Stands Before a 56-Inch Leader: 56 Inch Ka Chhota Bandar
The very same man who came to power with the blessings of the
RSS, an organization whose relationship with Mahatma Gandhi's legacy has
remained controversial for decades, was standing in front of Mahatma Gandhi and
Lal Bahadur Shastri with his head bowed, offering his prayers in front of the
cameras for the entire nation to see. Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun
Kharge, and other leaders were all present at the October 2 tribute ceremony.
Looking at those images, I could not help thinking about the
irony. Modi must have been thinking that standing before Gandhi was already
humiliating enough after the politics that came from the ideological world that
produced him, but how could a "Pappu" now challenge a 56-inch bold
leader? Perhaps the Pappu has become a real leader while the 56-inch brave
leader has become a 56-inch Chhota Bandar.
When the Prime Minister of a nation begins facing this kind
of open political rejection, you know something has changed. As the Bhagavad
Gita teaches us, Karma eventually stands before us. Modi's karmas are now
standing right in front of him. He wanted to become the longest-serving Prime
Minister and, in my opinion, spent more of his energy staying in power than
working for the people. He used every tool available to take political power
away from his opponents, and now the consequences of those choices are
beginning to stand before him.
Then came the students. The controversy over the examination
system and the company connected to the digital evaluation system brought
another storm. The figure of 23 student deaths has become part of the protests,
and questions have been raised about why a company connected to the disastrous
2019 Telangana examination controversy was later given a CBSE contract. A
parliamentary panel has heard allegations about changes made to the tender
requirements. These failures helped bring the Cockroach Janta Party and young
protesters onto the streets to tell the government: enough is enough.
The nation was also waiting for someone with the courage to
expose what was happening with the voter lists. Then came the investigation by The
Indian Express. What it exposed should worry every Indian who believes that
his or her vote belongs to the voter, not to a computer system controlled from
Delhi. In Goa, 97 voters were found eligible by the Electoral Registration
Officers, yet the officers could not restore their names because the ECINet
software did not allow them to reverse the deletions. The Goa CEO wrote
repeatedly to the Election Commission, with the communications copied to DG
(IT) Seema Khanna, but the names remained outside the final roll.
This is exactly why questions about ECINet and the power
taken away from EROs and other officials cannot simply be dismissed as
opposition propaganda. The Maharashtra Chief Electoral Officer has now asked
for changes to ECINet so that EROs can exercise powers that the law already
gives them. Even Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi
had raised concerns about the centralization of the system. The Election
Commission itself has now ordered a special drive in 20 states and Union Territories
to bring back voters who were left out of the rolls.
And now a new movement is taking shape against the power of
Modi, Shah and Gyanesh Kumar. On October 3, protesters were again on the
streets in Delhi over voter-roll changes, demanding the resignation of Gyanesh
Kumar, while police detained protesters after some breached barricades. The
Election Commission says its voter-verification exercise is lawful and
necessary, while its critics argue that eligible voters have been unfairly
removed.
Karma is a bitch. That is why the political symbolism of what
we are witnessing matters to me. The man once mocked as "Pappu" is
today leading attacks on the government over the integrity of the electoral
system, while a Prime Minister who built an image around strength is
increasingly being forced to answer questions about the system under his
government and has been branded as a 56-inch ka Chhota Bandar.
If the BJP thinks this movement will simply disappear, then I
think they are dreaming. They do not want to lose power, but the people
challenging them do not appear ready to go home either. Once people begin
believing that their vote itself has been taken away from them, the political
battle is no longer simply about BJP versus Congress or Modi versus Rahul
Gandhi.
It becomes a battle over who owns India: the government or
the people of India.
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