Modi buries Manmohan Singh: For 'hamara' PM is an honourable man

While the Indian Prime Minister met Nawaz Sharif in far away United States, back at home he was suffering death by a thousand cuts. Even as Rahul Gandhi tried to reassure the Prime Minister that he was not “nonsense”, and his mother damned him with faint praise, calling his leadership “able”, the BJP was burying Singh with kindness. Where Varun Gandhi merely said the “dignity of the post should not be compromised," Narendra Modi rose stirringly to the defence of “hamara pradhan mantri” at his mega rally in Delhi’s Japanese Gardens. At least that’s what it seemed like. “Between Nawaz Sharif and Rahul Gandhi’s chir-haran of the PM, ironic the only man saving some of his izzat is Narendra Modi” tweeted Chetan Bhagat. But Modi’s version of saving Manmohan Singh’s honour was more akin to an honour killing, but with its blows disguised in courteous solicitousness. [caption id=“attachment_1141847” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Modi’s version of saving Manmohan Singh’s honour was more akin to an honour killing, but with its blows disguised in courteous solicitousness. PTI[/caption] By posing as the last defender of Singh’s izzat at a time when his own party dismissed his policy decisions as “nonsense”, Modi, with masterful use of rhetoric, portrayed the beleaguered PM as a forlorn lonely figure, a pitiful man — the sardar who was not asar-dar (effective) as Navjot Singh Sidhu dubbed MMS at the rally. Even as Modi rose to Singh’s defence against Nawaaz Sharif’s alleged comparison of Singh to a whiny dehati woman, he depicted him as the PM who went all the way to Washington to do what he derisively called “poverty marketing”. Modi relished drawing that portrait of the groveling PM, begging on bended knee, “Obama-ji, I have come from India. I am the PM of a poor country.” Having cut MMS to size, Modi rode to his rescue against the barbs of outsiders. “Duniya ki kisi desh ko mere desh par ungli uthaaney ka adhikaar nahin hai,” he thundered. (No country has the right to lift a finger against my country [or the office of its prime minister]). What he was really saying was not that Singh didn’t deserve such ignominy, just that Pakistan had no right to heap it on him. But what to do, Modi said, Manmohan Singh has ended up with the aukat given to him by his own party. When his own party’s shehzaada ripped off his turban, why should Sharif watch his tongue. By using that colourful colloquial phrase — pagri uchhal di (cast away his turban) — Modi was conjuring up, all in the guise of solicitude, an image of the Prime Minister shorn even of his turban, stripped of the last shreds of dignity by the princeling. Singh’s fall from grace is hardly news. For months, even years now, he has become the butt of jokes, a near-mute spectator to his government’s disarray. He has himself and his reluctance to talk to the people, to blame in great part for his downfall. Perhaps that’s why Nawaaz Sharif’s comment led to more chortling than righteous anger. Singh had suffered so much indignity in the last few months, this was just one more to add to the pile. It gave the opposition an excuse to call for his resignation, not because he had done anything wrong, but as a way to save his own face. Modi magnified this rumoured slight to a national dishonour wondering ominously who were the journalists who savoured Nawaaz Sharif’s mithai while he made mincemeat of their prime minister. The threat, delivered with steely determination, made their tea with Sharif almost tantamount to an act of treason. “I am going to tell you something that hurt me a great deal,” Modi said again and again, slowly and adroitly building up to the coup de grace of the humiliated Prime Minister, leading the crowd which was unsure whether what was coming would be a mocking joke or something truly sincere. At the end of the story, most in the audience were still unsure. The waves of laughter gave way to uneasy chuckles as Modi roared about the apmaan to Hindustan’s prime minister. What was clear though is that at the end, the current PM was damned as a man unable to defend himself, either at home and abroad, now dependent on the kindness of the man who would replace him. Modi’s real message: This would never happen to me or to the country if I were its leader. Manmohan Singh, in comparison, seemed pathetic. Or was it worse? From pathos which at least has the dignity of poignancy to it, had Manmohan Singh been reduced to bathos.