From light to darkness

PM Modi paying homage to the Mahatma - perfunctory

Prime Minister Modi paid a perfunctory homage to Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, on his 70^th death anniversary today.  His tweet was conspicuous for what it did not say rather than what it did.  His visit to Raj Ghat was something he would have liked to avoid if he could. 

The Mahatma and PM Modi are the opposite poles of a continuum that holds a nation together in spite of differences.  Gandhi’s vision was wholly inclusive while Modi’s is wholly exclusive.  It is true that Modi has come quite a way from the days of his hate speeches in the initial years of the millennium.  Not only the hatred but also the sarcasm has mellowed. Apparently. 

PM Modi's tweet today

It is not mellowing really.  India is witnessing communal hatred like never before.  The Mahatma’s death anniversary used to be remembered in schools with a minute’s silence until Modi became the PM.  Slowly, surreptitiously, like the petrol price hikes, like the communal poison being injected, like Modi’s increasing narcissism, slowly, unnoticed, the Mahatma’s memory is being erased from the nation’s collective memory.

We are left with clashes. Misery. Terror. 

The worst is yet to come.

May all the gods of the PM save us.  But they won’t.  They belong to the wrong pole.  The right pole has been buried and forgotten.  We are moving from light to darkness.  From the Mahatma to a Narcissist.