Bombing ivory towers

This excerpt from Modi’s Mission by Berjis Desai examines why a section of India’s elite dislikes the PM

- Berjis Desai

Modi's Mission Berjis Desai 264pp, ₹595 Rupa Publications

A section of the intellectual elite in India has just not been able to decode Narendra Modi.

Even after he became Chief Minister of Gujarat for a fourth time, they believed that his political fortunes were limited to being a strong regional leader... It was only when the momentum generated by him during the 2014 campaign looked unstoppable that the elite became distinctly nervous. Some declared that they would migrate if Narendra Modi became the prime minister. None did.

The 2014 victory of the NDA (BJP) was regarded by them as an aberration, a onetime mandate due to anger against the nonperformance of the UPA during its second term. The elite were sceptical that the NDA was unlikely to win again. Hence, in 2019, they were rejuvenated by their belief that the BJP would lose. Instead, the BJP secured a record majority and required no coalition. In 2024, due to a setback to the BJP on results day, their hopes were enlivened momentarily, only to subside.

What the elite fails to appreciate is that Modi has triggered a structural change in the dynamics of the political landscape of India, which ensures that, in the medium term, the probability of dislodging a highly disciplined party promoting a nationalist agenda, is minimal. To use a rather insensitive analogy, Modi is like an atomic bomb that has fallen on the elite’s cherished notions... Ivory towers and cocoons rudely disturbed, they cannot digest that a tea vendor's seemingly unsophisticated son, an RSS pracharak, from the backwaters of Gujarat, has become the Prime Minister of India for a third successive term. The elite, which claims to be dispassionate, actually bristles with prejudice against Modi. The reasons for the allergy are many.