There are two distinct strands to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s art of public communication: one, high-voltage fiery bombastic rhetoric; two, total silence. The first is the highly personalised style of the nationalist superman, harking to how he is ek akela kitno par bhari (one man taking on so many of the Opposition), pushing his own ‘victimhood’ and how he is the ‘victim’ of his rivals. But when it comes to realities that discomfit the government, whether protest movements or killing of soldiers or outbreaks of violence, the top leadership of the ruling BJP stays totally and completely silent.
Loud, personalised nationalist superhero-cum-victim-cum-action man, on the one hand; stony silence, on the other. Bombastic rhetoric on certain issues, deafening silence on other matters; high profile personality projection, but mute escapism and refusal to take responsibility. It’s the politics of a government with a split personality. Citizens are kept guessing, perpetually unsure about whether their problems will merit attention or gain sympathy from the ruler. It is a strange politics of schizophrenia in which citizens can’t be hopeful of redressal of grievances if those grievances don’t fit in with the ruler’s politics.
