Guest post by BHAWNI MEHROTRA

Dear Modiji,

I’m glad you spoke. Even though it was devoid of any personal remorse and limited to calling the Dadri lynching an “unfortunate and unwarranted” incident at Sasaram. Even though it was to cash in on ‘communal harmony’ during an election rally in Bihar. Even though it was a mere paraphrasing of the President’s quote once before at Nawada (we know of your limited vocabulary beyond acronyms and your “may-the-force-be-with-you” love for quoting). Still, I’m glad that you managed something! However, the one thing that you have failed miserably to manage (and let’s leave the ambling economy and your familial relations out of this) is the ‘fringe elements’ that come as part of the ‘BJP family pack’ offer.  Sadly, under your ‘good governance’, the fringe has been asserting itself as the mainstream. Even sadder is that under ‘you’, the fringe is the mainstream.

The icing on the cake are your own MPs and ministers. Initially, what I thought of as verbal diarrhea on their part is actually proving to be a string of comments that are a part of a larger orchestrated communication message. Each message has a defined audience suited to their language and idioms. They all suffer from a dangerous saffron strain, exactly the kind that has fathered the ISIS, the Taliban and so on. Whether it be Yogi Adityanath’s remark, calling on Hindus to organize themselves; or Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti’s unparalleled comparison between a “Ramzaada” and a “Haramzada”; or Nitin Gadkari’s reminder of the government being one of “Rambhakts”- all seem to be competing for being the most ridiculous. Did you mean “Hindutva First” and not “India First”? I’m sorry that I was so awestruck by your gazillion rupee election campaign (the one thing that you managed brilliantly) that I didn’t read the fine print. Therefore, it is not your failure, it’s mine. Had I voted sensibly, Mohammad Akhlaq wouldn’t be dead today. Continue reading A Letter to Modi from a Former Supporter: Bhawni Mehrotra →