The evening that Narendra Modi left for France, Germany and Canada, there was a very silly talk show on NDTV. It was about how many days Modi was going away for.
On Doordarshan (DD), too, there was Modi. And only him. You know, Modi did this, Modi said that, Modi went there, Modi came back. It was as if we were back in the days when the only things you saw on DD were the three Gandhis - first Indira in the early 1970s, then Indira and Sanjay in the mid-1970s, and finally Indira and Rajiv in the 1980s.
But DD is not alone. If you happen to watch regional TV or read the regional papers, it is the same story in many states also. The state leader currently in power dominates the news. Whether it is Tamil Nadu or Punjab, West Bengal or Andhra, Kashmir or Odisha, it is the same story - a one-person show.
A former editor of a major newspaper was the first to put a name to this tendency back in the 1980s. He called it totem politics. Indian politicians, he said, needed a totem around which to drink and dance.
He did see the modernising instincts of Nehru, Indira, Rajiv, NTR, MGR and so on. But he also saw how medieval their parties were.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he said, didn't suffer from this malaise. No individual was held to be above the party in the BJP. He was right - then.
I could not quite believe this of the Congress, at least before 1971. So, I read up on it and, believe it or not, from about 1920 onwards, the Congress, too, had drifted in that direction.
The year 1920 was when Gandhiji took complete control of the party and he was very clear: only what he said mattered. He demanded complete obedience. The alternative was complete oblivion.
Jinnah chose the latter, at least till 1936, when he came back from London to take control of the Muslim League.
Then, hah! He, too, became its "sole spokesman".
It has been the same in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, to name the three big countries in South Asia. All suffer from this problem of family-run parties.
It is a strange kind of schizophrenia where the objectives are modern but the methods are medieval. The results, needless to say, are dismal.
Et tu, BJP?
And now, the BJP is becoming, if it has not already become, just like them. Their totem is Narendra Modi.
Indeed, for party members, the old Christian era has been replaced by a new Hindu one. BC has become BM and AD has become AM.
Does this bode well for the party? To the extent that there is no apprehension of dynastic succession, no.
But that is true of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Trinamool Congress, Biju Janata Dal and the Bahujan Samaj Party also. There are no dynasties there, either.
Nevertheless, even if the BJP doesn't face quite as dismal a future as these regional parties, there are aspects other than dynasty that any party ought to worry about.
Thus, while it is one thing to run the government with a firm hand - which, given his lenient attitude to the accursed bureaucracy, Modi is emphatically not doing - it is quite another to take the party for granted. It has a way of pulling the chair just as you sit down.
In fact, greater obedience to a prime minister should come from the bureaucracy, and not from the party. But with Modi it has become the other way around.
The bureaucracy is going its merry way, extorting the public with grim determination while the party is quietly sulking because there are people in it who owe other leaders.
So, while DD may project Modi as an Indian sole spokesman, he is not. The chief ministers of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are biding their time. And in the other states where the BJP has its own chief minister, it is only as a coalition partner.
Primus inter pares
After 11 months in office, Modi has become no more than primus inter pares, a first amongst equals.
Politically, this means he has far less wiggle room than he would have the country believe. The wizardry of Amit Shah notwithstanding, it's only going to get harder from here on, even in the elections.
This is something the party should start worrying about. There are two simultaneous ways it can pre-empt the emerging problem.
One is for Modi to be more like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and less-in-your-face. The other is to restore the party's democratic instincts rather than copy the Congress and the rest.
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
