Skip to main content

The Paradoxical Prime Minister


Book Review

Narendra Modi has two faces: one which is turned backward towards the cobweb-ridden hoary past of the country and the other which is grandiloquently futuristic. He knows how to use each with the best results for himself. Shashi Tharoor’s latest book, The Paradoxical Prime Minister, dissects with clinical precision both the faces and the entire paradox conjured up by them.

The 504-page book is divided into 5 sections whose very titles are self-explanatory: The Paradoxical Prime Minister; The Modi-fication of India; Moditva and Misgovernance; The Failure of Modinomics; and Flights of Fancy. While the first section gives a fairly detailed biography of Modi from his difficult childhood to the royal present, the other four sections deal in detail with the eponymous themes.

In the Modi-fied India, the whims of the intolerant majority reign supreme. Tharoor shows why the Prime Minister should take “a large share of the blame” for the prevailing atmosphere of violence and persecution in the country. “The rise of gau-rakshaks, the assassination of rationalists, mob lynchings, episodes of beef-related violence, virulent attacks on all and sundry by BJP trolls on social media and in various public forums” are integral aspects of the Modi-fied India.

Good governance leading to achhe din was one of the many promises that got Modi’s party elected to power. What the country got, however, was sheer misgovernance with one bad initiative following another. Demonetisation and GST are two glaring examples which Tharoor dissects in great detail. There is much else to be said about Modi’s misgovernance and Tharoor has not minced words while speaking about each factor such as intrusive surveillance of people and the messed up Swachh Bharat initiative.

The Modi brand of economics has all but ruined the nation. Modi’s Gujarat Model was supposed to be extended to the whole country which in turn would become a utopia of sorts. Four years after Modi’s reign, each promise of the Prime Minister ended up as mere sham. The fourth section of the book shows how.

Perhaps the best part of the book is the last section which tears into Modi’s extensive and expensive foreign travels and his highly flawed foreign policies. He has made more enemies than any other Prime Minister did. Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Bangla Desh and Maldives have all turned away from India after Modi became the Prime Minister. Tharoor shows us how and why this happened.

Anyone who is interested to know what Mr Modi has done to the nation in the last 4 years should read this book. It is eminently readable in spite of the notoriety that the author has earned for abstruse diction. Use a dictionary if need be, but read the book at any cost is what I would counsel to every Indian.


Comments

  1. Though i dont have much knowledge in politics neither i try to know but the truth is...if really something big progress would have taken place in last four years then i should have heard it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Perhaps the book needs to be translated into Hindi for the benefit of the Hindi heartland which forms the major part of the country...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

Dopamine

Fiction Mathai went to the kitchen and picked up a glass. The TV was screening a program called Ask the Doctor . “Dopamine is a sort of hormone that gives us a feeling of happiness or pleasure,” the doc said. “But the problem with it is that it makes us want more of the same thing. You feel happy with one drink and you obviously want more of it. More drink means more happiness…” That’s when Mathai went to pick up his glass and the brandy bottle. It was only morning still. Annamma, his wife, had gone to school as usual to teach Gen Z, an intractable generation. Mathai had retired from a cooperative bank where he was manager in the last few years of his service. Now, as a retired man, he took to watching the TV. It will be more correct to say that he took to flicking channels. He wanted entertainment, but the films and serial programs failed to make sense to him, let alone entertain. The news channels were more entertaining. Our politicians are like the clowns in a circus, he thought...

Stories from the North-East

Book Review Title: Lapbah: Stories from the North-East (2 volumes) Editors: Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih & Rimi Nath Publisher: Penguin Random House India 2025 Pages: 366 + 358   Nestled among the eastern Himalayas and some breathtakingly charming valleys, the Northeastern region of India is home to hundreds of indigenous communities, each with distinct traditions, attire, music, and festivals. Languages spoken range from Tibeto-Burman and Austroasiatic tongues to Indo-Aryan dialects, reflecting centuries of migration and interaction. Tribal matrilineal societies thrive in Meghalaya, while Nagaland and Mizoram showcase rich Christian tribal traditions. Manipur is famed for classical dance and martial arts, and Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh add further layers of ethnic plurality and ecological richness. Sikkim blends Buddhist heritage with mountainous serenity, and Assam is known for its tea gardens and vibrant Vaishnavite culture. Collectively, the Northeast is a uni...

Dine in Eden

If you want to have a typical nonvegetarian Malayali lunch or dinner in a serene village in Kerala, here is the Garden of Eden all set for you at Ramapuram [literally ‘Abode of Rama’] in central Kerala. The place has a temple each for Rama and his three brothers: Lakshmana, Bharata, and Shatrughna. It is believed that Rama meditated in this place during his exile and also that his brothers joined him for a while. Right in the heart of the small town is a Catholic church which is an imposing structure that makes an eloquent assertion of religious identity. Quite close to all these religious places is the Garden of Eden, Eden Thoppu in Malayalam, a toddy shop with a difference. Toddy is palm wine, a mild alcoholic drink collected from palm trees. In my childhood, toddy was really natural; i.e., collected from palm trees including coconut trees which are ubiquitous in Kerala. My next-door neighbours, two brothers who lived in the same house, were toddy-tappers. Toddy was a health...