Did Rahul win or you lose Modiji? A letter to PM Modi

Respected Shri Modiji,

A lot of analysis and discussions have already taken place on various platforms (print and electronic media) and perhaps an equal number or more are on the way, to discuss the reasons behind your party’s rout and Congress’ upsurge in the states of MP, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh. A lot of people, experts are saying, that demonetization and GST hurt you. And quite a few are applauding Rahul for his ‘leadership’! But is it so?

A middle-class voter, I am far from being an ‘expert’ but that’s the beauty of democracy- power of the common people, and equipped with that, I think I can share a thing or two about the reasons of your defeat.

People voted for you because they thought you were different. They thought you wouldn’t tolerate corruption in any form but then you went on collaborating with the Reddy brothers in Karnataka election and tried to form the govt there (unsuccessfully) with the connivance of the Governor. In Goa, you had already done so, (Congress had the majority but ‘your Governor’ invited you) but people let that go because they wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. They still believed that you would do all that you had promised.  But by the time Karnataka happened, the line had started blurring.

For the defense forces, you were the hero, who would put an end to the injustice meted out to them. You had promised OROP in your election manifesto and conveniently forgot about it once you came in the power.  After a long period of protests by the veterans, you did implement that but in an absolutely diluted form- so much so that its non-implementation would have been a better proposition. Implementation in this form was more like an insult to injury. The veterans wanted this revision every two years if not one, while the notification said that the pension would be re-fixed every five years. Also, it came with a rider that the armed forces personnel who opted to get discharged on their request, would henceforth not get OROP benefits. Now, how justified is that with a steep pyramidical structure of the armed forces! Do you suggest that even if they are not promoted to the next rank, they are to continue being in the service grudgingly, to be eligible for OROP!!! I wonder whose loss is that! The armed forces, which is forced to carry on with the personnel who are not happy being where they are, after being denied the promotion, or the personnel who despite not getting promoted, can’t exercise their option of leaving, lest they lose OROP!   And then you meddled with their sentiments by claiming all that they did or do as part of their duty and by putting ‘your man’ at the top, breaking the norm. All those people are not happy with you Shri Modiji.

People knew that you belonged to a party, strongly associated with a religious leaning, and they were fine with that, as long as that ‘leaning’ didn’t disrupt the fabric of the society, as long as it didn’t stop development, as long as ‘Mandir’ issue didn’t overpower the need to develop our infrastructure first, as long as providing employment to the youth remained the priority.  But you chose the opposite. A non-descript group like ‘Karni Sena’ went on a rampage and kept an entire state hostage while you and your govt kept mum, out of the fear that if you did something to stop it, Rajputs would go against you. Dear Shri Modiji, no Rajput or any caste wants such disruptions.We wanted words of assurance from you and not the ‘inaction’ that you exhibited.

You had promised of a Lokayukt, people were fed up with the rampant graft in the govt and had thought you would end all that. If you remember, seven years ago this word was what people had pinned their hopes on. As ‘India against corruption’ movement caught the imagination of the people, its two protagonists, Anna Hazare, and Arvind Kejriwal demanded the establishment of an Ombudsman to deal with grafts by public servants. Somewhere it helped you and your party big time. But you chose to break that promise. It showed that you were not really that different. The recent CBI fiasco added to the woes, further denting your image.

You kept mum on the ‘mob killings’ by those supposed ‘Gau Rakshaks’. You thought by doing so, you are securing Hindu votes. Ironical this may sound but you lost in the ‘cow belt’. Modiji, believe you me, the middle class is least interested in the politics of religion. For them its more about economics than politics.  

With your absolute majority, people who had voted for you, hoped that you would rationalize reservation, making it economy based rather than caste based, but you chose to continue being in limbo-neither here nor there.

Maybe, you shall introspect over these, think why people chose you over others- there is still time. Use your ‘international persona’ rather than a persona whose party people engage in the debate of Hanuman’s caste!

If you think rural people are interested in your caste and religion politics, you need to correct that as well. For the farmers, Mandir is not important, good price of their produce, good roads, and cold storage facilities are. And yes, they are also troubled by your cow policy. They do not know what to do with their ageing, non-milking cows. They are poor people with ‘hand to mouth’ existence. While your ‘Gau Rakshaks’ are all ‘rampage happy’, they haven’t really shown much responsibility towards these cows.

Extraditing Mitchel (Augusta middle man)and getting the orders from a UK court to extradite Mallya, you did show some fillip towards your promise of ‘corruption free India’ but this was too little, too late and seemed more like a last-minute effort rather than an honest endeavour. 

There cannot be even an iota of doubt that you have changed the perception of the word ‘India’ on the world platform and we are grateful for that. GST was needed but the execution certainly could have been better. But please let this country be India and don’t turn it into ‘Pakistan’ of another kind with fanaticism.  To sum it all, I feel, it’s more about you losing, than Rahul winning.  Maybe you can still change it and be the man that we had hoped you to be.  And for you, the good part is,  general elections behave much differently than the Assembly elections. 

Regards

Picture Credit -The Quint

Copyright© Aradhana Mishra