Modi At Hyderabad - On A Path Of Rhetorical Deviation Hyderabad, Aug 17: “There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.” While the rest of the country was flocking into multiplexes to watch Shahrukh Khan’s unbearable “Lungi dance” in half-baked comedy called Chennai Express, a mammoth crowd attended a public meeting at Hyderabad on Sunday(11th Aug’2013) to listen Narendra Modi, the potential Prime Minister of India, who dished out a strangely “sloppy mishmash of cheesy political speech”. As the runaway success of Chennai Express demonstrates, logic is not a prerequisite for believability or success of Bollywood movies, but even for political leaders to make their political speeches in India. While the success of Chennai Express displays the fan following value of Shahrukh, despite lack of punch in the script, the large gathering at Hyderabad to listen Modi demonstrated the measure of both his popularity and curiosity value. Thanks to constant projection of his persona by the media. It is no doubt that the larger than life image acquired by Modi is plausibly the reason for the people of Hyderabad to come in large numbers to his public meeting. The BJP had pulled out the plugs to make sure Narendra Modi’s maiden Hyderabad address was an overwhelming success. From aggressive Twitter publicity to live streaming that party had no stone unturned to make sure that Modi’s speech hits all the right notes in a strife-torn Andhra Pradesh. The rally, named "Navabharat Yuva Bheri" keeping in mind Modi’s target audience, was the youth who propelled the Telangana movement and the youth who have been opposing it – it is a section of the society Modi has a fair amount of sway on. The BJP drew a strategy that the Gujarat CM would come up with a middle path which a divided Andhra Pradesh is compelled enough to embrace. Or better still, a strategy forhim to be able to convince the youth from both the regions that Congress’ motives are not in the best interests of the state. If there is one person who can hijack the Telangana agenda successfully from the Congress, it is the Gujarat CM and that is what BJP’s strategists perceived. That is what everyone who thronged to hear Modi, the zany, charismatic and at times politically flinching, expected. Rather,he appeared to have taken his speechon a rhetorical deviation. In contrast to their expectations the address of Modi was as “watery as the sambar in a bad Udipi restaurant”or as “spice less as the Hyderabadi Biriyani in a messy Bawarchi extension” with political clichés floating about like miserable bits of drumstick or half cooked chicken pieces — which means political critics, like this writer, have enough to complain about while analyzing their reviews on his maiden public meeting at strife-torn Hyderabad which was a catalyst in a sense for a series of such meetings throughout the country as part of the his nationalcampaign. The people of Hyderabad or for that matter that of Andhra Pradesh had made a beeline for the venue of the public meeting, while lakhs of them who could not make it glued to their idiot boxes and waited with an abated breath only to hear him that he could not offer a new perspective on any issue, leave alone the much concerned Telangana tangle except saying that the Congress lead UPA failed in all fronts. After all, when the man in the street has no doubts about the failings of the UPA, he cannot enjoy the same being reiterated by the man who is rated to be the potential Prime Minister of India. With his speech, Modi might have effectively snatched a few thousand votes from the Congress – an exercisethat can surely be carried out with much success at other times too? Do we not hear the BJP accusing Congress of trolling them on Twitter every day? Do we not hear the deafening Twitter rants between BJP-Congress supporters? How does that make its way at a venue which is almost sitting on a powder keg, thanks to the mishandling of Telangana issue by the Congress? Freedom from the Congress might bea clever political slogan, but is it an imaginative refrain befitting at a time of his maiden visit to the state that is burning wherein people speaking same language are verbally exchanging hatred? Not so much. It is no secret that Modi came to Hyderabad to unveil his “Oust Congress Mission”. Perhaps Modi’s much overhyped team of social media savvy IIM-branded advisors thought this would be a brilliant gambit to cement their leader’s coveted “youth connect” among disgruntled youth of Andhra Pradesh. And in seeking to appear as friend of both Telangana and Seemandhra, Modi seemed to have lost focus on many accounts. In the process, he probably thought "he would be able to make the best of the both worlds. If he has, in the process, instead, he lost both the worlds". His accusation of the Congress that it was indulging in vote bank politics indealing with the Telangana issue waslike pot calling the kettle black. One wonders which party is not indulgingin opportunistic politics on the issue for the last several years. Far from revealing his ideas to settle the issue,he used the stage in Hyderabad to indulge in an invective against the Congress and its political expediency on Telangana. He accused the Congress of creating wedge between the people of Andhra and Telangana. He hinted that failure to build a capital for Coastal Andhra- Rayalaseema region as the cause for the ongoing protests in other regions of Andhra Pradesh over the decision to carve out separate state. He also said that the apprehensions of Coastal Andhra-Rayalaseema people could not be ignored, while promising the Telangana state. In his exuberance in taking on the Congress, he lost the focus that his Party sounded “sub-regionalist” when it promised of Telangana in hundred days, that it totally ignored the likely apprehensions of Seemandhra region. He tried to put up an ignorant posture that, like the Congress, his own Party think-tanks failed to understand the ground realities vis-à-vis Coastal Andhra-Rayalaseema apprehensions when they promised Telangana within no time of the BJP forming the Government. While blaming the Congress of mishandling Telangana, Modi appeared more “double-dealer” than the "multi-tongued" Congress. His call for addressing the apprehensions of Coastal Andhra-Rayalaseema people and his appeal to the people of either region to maintain peace hasn’t gone any distance in cooling the political climate in the state. He missed the fact that it would take much more to calm down the frayed tempers in the other regions before a meaningful roadmap can be charted out for the proposed division. He has not announced any meaningful roadmap than launch a tirade against the Congress for creating present mess in the state. The BJP which has never won a singleassembly seat in Coastal Andhra-Rayalaseema region smelt an opportunity. It didn’t waste any timeand dispatched Modi and only to raise decibels in Hyderabad on how the Congress mishandled Telangana issue, while ignoring the apprehensions of the people of the other regions. Therefore, a shout of jingoism from its prime ministerial hopeful and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi at Hyderabad was not without a meaning. With the Congress taking the unexpected and sudden decision, the BJP has felt the pinch. Pending Telangana imbroglio it was looking for an emotive issue to fish in troubled waters. Now, that the Congress had the nerves to take the decision, Coastal Andhra-Rayalaseema apprehensions could be an alternative plank for BJP for a foot-hold in AP. Modi will never run out questions to throw at the Congress government and shake them off their pedestal, but could he not, with his oratory skills instead say what he planned to do for the present mess in Andhra Pradesh, not what he has done for Gujarat? Yes, he was right to criticize Congress’ Telangana policy, but could he not suggest what he would have done if he were to make a balanced decision on the issue. Could he not, for once, tone down style for vitriol-less substance in a speech? Or could he not display the “Magic Wand” that he has to make people of all the regions to distribute sweets, while he divided the state? At Hyderabad, Modi, the self-styled ‘Vikash Purush” had shed the glow which had no illumination for the people, but shed the glare that obscured the vision of the people of AP as whole. Unfortunately, this is the irony of all the political choices we have. One’s just a better shade of the other. Not anew one that has the potential to dazzle.
Posted on: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 06:37:51 +0000
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