Price of the Modi Years

 

Book Review

Title: Price of the Modi Years

Author: Aakar Patel

Publisher: Westland, 2021

Pages: 488, Price: Rs 699

Some leaders become extremely popular and may even acquire messianic proportions but end up costing the country a price beyond all imagination. Narendra Modi is one such leader, according to Aakar Patel’s book, Price of the Modi Years.

The book has 13 chapters each of which deals with very specific aspects of Modi’s governance and provides the details of the damage done in each. Modi’s endless campaigns versus his actual delivery is the subject of the first chapter. Like in every chapter, hard-hitting facts and statistics tell us in no uncertain terms how Modi has failed in almost every domain that he has touched: from human development to religious freedom, economy to mass media, terrorism to climate. What you see in Modi’s diverse advertisements is far from the reality.

Chapter 2, titled ‘The Godi Media,’ shows how the Indian media has become Modi’s lapdog by and large. “The purpose of the Godi media is to distract, attack Modi’s opponents, laud him, and to divide society and discredit and vilify those who resist the division,” says the author. Too many TV channels, newspapers and magazines, and even social media like Facebook have sold themselves to Modi out of sheer fear of decimation.

Economy is the subject of chapter 3, ‘Modinomics’. Modi has taken India down below countries like Bangladesh economically, something which none of his predecessors achieved. Most of his projects and ideas meant for improving the economy have been utter disasters. Demonetisation, GST, Make in India, Strat-up, and the Lockdown. Foreseeing the disaster named Modi, “The really rich fled India. Between 2014 and 2018, a total of 23,000 dollar millionaires (meaning Indians worth Rs 7 crore or more) left India, the highest number of millionaire migrations out of a nation in the world.” The figures for the last two years are also equally astounding: 7,000 and 5,000 respectively for 2019 and 2020. “The poor have nowhere to go,” says Patel and so they will rot in Modi’s India shouting inane slogans given by their leader from time to time.

Modi’s foreign policy is discussed in the next chapter, ‘A Policy of No Name.’ “Modi is comfortable with hostility.” The author summarises Modi’s policy in one sentence. He antagonised all the neighbouring nations including Nepal and Bhutan. When it comes to the great powers in the West, Modi’s policy lacks in terms of “internal substance.”

Mere show, “spectacle,” is what holds up Modi’s diplomacy and national security strategies as we see in chapter 5, ‘The Doval Doctrine.’ Do unto the enemy what was being done to you. That is the Doval Doctrine essentially. That is what the street thug does. That requires no grand vision. It is “high decibel, low impact action,” as Patel puts it in the chapter.

The title of the next chapter, ‘Bad Muslim,’ tells us succinctly what the chapter is about. In this chapter we get to know certain facts like:

·        Three years into Modi’s first term, a research report found that 97% of all cow-related violence in India came after he was elected.

·        Promoting enmity between groups more than doubled over 2016.

·        Mob violence against the weak is promoted by the BJP with Modi’s approval and there is no shame in admitting it.

·        In 2020, more than half the arrests under the anti-terror National Security Act in Uttar Pradesh were for cow slaughter cases.

·        In Modi’s India, the State determines whom you cannot marry, what food you cannot eat, what dress you cannot wear, and so on.

Good governance (chapter 7) is what Modi promised India again and again. That’s just what India would love to have now more than seven years after Modi has governed the country. Governance so far, under Modi, has been ‘my way’ for Modi and the highway for the common citizens.

Chapter 8, ‘Their Lordships,’ shows how the judiciary has been corrupted irredeemably by Modi. Individual luminaries like Arun Mishra and Ranjan Gogoi are given sufficient space in the book. “Under Modi,” says Patel, “the Supreme Court became an executive court… an extension of the Modi administration rather than the guardian of the Constitution.” The last sentence of the chapter predicts that “the record will show that the Modi years have been one of the most shameful periods in the history of the Indian judiciary.”

Kashmir is the subject of chapter 9, ‘Final Solution.’ Modi has succeeded in making Kashmir yet another hostile neighbour of India!

Corruption-free governance was one of the many dreams that Modi sold us long ago. His government is arguably the most corrupt because it is the least transparent. Transparency is the subject of chapter 10 which shows how PM-CARES is a huge swindle, the gargantuan fraudulence of the electoral bonds, and the historical scandal of the Rafale deal.

Titled ‘Mahabharat,’ chapter 11 delineates Modi’s failures in dealing with the pandemic. “O King, in your Ram-Rajya, we see bodies flow in the Ganges.” Patel quotes from a dirge written by Parul Khakhar and went on to become quite popular.

The last two chapters are about ‘laws and disorder’ and the quintessential diabolism of Modi’s politics.  In the concluding pages, the author asserts that “India has not had such a figure as Modi. Messianic, full of self-belief and so adored for his charisma and charm. So full of himself. Offering wisdom endlessly and not liable for the consequences of his actions. Failure on the economy, on national security, across a range of social indicators and multiple indices is not his fault. It is the fault of India that it has not lived up to Modi’s genius." [emphasis added]

Patel’s final verdict is that Narendra Modi is a successful stand-up comedian. “He can entertain people for a set and then return with fresh material.” He is a comedian who is taken very seriously by millions of people.

Those who want to know the reality behind the stand-up comedy that is being enacted in present India should read Patel’s book. However, if you hate facts and figures and statistics, don’t dare to read it.