Modi’s style of dealing with insecurity

The Modi government is imposing more and more restrictions on the country. The Opposition is being silenced more than ever. Social media posts are being increasingly regulated. Publishers are not allowed to release certain books.

One such book whose publication bas been withheld is Four Stars of Destiny by General Manoj Mukund Naravane, former Chief of Army Staff of the Indian Army. When Rahul Gandhi, leader of Opposition, tried to read out some pertinent parts from the book in the Parliament, objections were raised in the name of certain technicality.

The February issue of The Caravan has a long essay by Sushant Singh on how Modi government is controlling public narrative by suppressing many truths and spinning its own convenient yarns.

When China encroached into India’s land in 2020, the Modi government refused to take a firm decision on what’s to be done. Instead, it announced that the army was given a free hand. That was not the truth, however. Naravane writes in his unpublished book that India’s soldiers were asked to exercise extreme restraint. They were allowed to open fire only “as a last resort, if our own physical security was at stake…”

Naravane makes it amply clear in his book that Modi is scared of China in spite of all the bravado he apparently exhibits in public. China is more powerful than India militarily. The Caravan goes to the extent of saying that “the people of the country seem to understand much more than the government. In a 2025 survey by Pew Research, a third of Indian respondents said that China poses the greatest threat to India, while 46 percent said that the territorial disputes between the two countries are a very serious problem…”

Naravane’s restraint in 2020 may have been operationally sound. But Modi’s refusal to own the decision was not. “Deterrence without political resolve is performance, not strategy,” argues Sushant Singh. “It signals weakness that will invite continued Chinese probing.” After all, China doesn’t regard India as a strong power at all.

The suppression of Naravane’s book also indicates Modi’s cowardice and lack of integrity of any sort. How long will a ruler go on suppressing opposition of every sort just to hide his own insecurities?

 

PS. My series on Education will resume in the next post.