Modi has to learn a lot from Vajpayee and Advani | Faraz Ahmad

July 6, 2024

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is never known for according respect to institutions and institutional representatives whatever status the Constitution may accord them.

Therefore, when he surpassed his past record in coarseness and crassness, targeting Rahul Gandhi, the first Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha after a gap of 10 years, while replying to the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address in the first session of the 18th Lok Sabha, it embarrassed and shamed even some of his admirers.

This country has witnessed a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Deputy PM L.K. Advani for a fairly long period from 1998 to 2004, where they and most of all Advani stood firmly for Hindutva. But never did Advani’s speech betray any lack of dignity for the Opposition leaders. As for Prime Minister Vajpayee, he in fact not just praised the tremendous service former Prime Minister Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru provided the Indian nation when it needed most, but fondly recalled in the Lok Sabha his pleasant association with Nehru.

Forget Vajpayee and Advani who had a long experience of legislative business, even Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj, the two understudies of Advani, whom Advani later elevated as Leaders of Opposition in the UPA II government, were always mindful of parliamentary decorum and etiquette whenever they stood to address either of the two Houses whether as ministers or later as Leaders of Opposition.

Even Venkaiah Naidu who tried to be more aggressive than the rest of Advani’s students like the above two or later Ananth Kumar, never crossed the rubicon. His apparent aggressiveness too might have been perhaps because unlike these three Venkaiah did not come from the RSS/ABVP stock. He told us once during an informal discussion how as a university student he had actively participated in the anti-Hindi agitation. Maybe that is why MoSha did not trust him to let him continue long enough in their government.
Fact is these leaders felt no need to flaunt an M.A. in Entire Political Science. Vajpayee to Ananth Kumar, each one had gone through regular education through school, college and university. The RSS/ABVP background of each one of them notwithstanding their careful observance of protocol in Parliament can only be attributed to a regular proper education which seems to have made all the difference, A comparison between those leaders and our dear Leader of the 16th, 17th and now the 18th Lok Sabha hits one immediately in the eye.

I have often mentioned in my writings and even orally that I have been brought up from early childhood to adulthood and entering professional journalism in the lower middle class government quarters of Timarpur near Delhi university campus, where most of my friends and companions were shakha going boys who innocently repeated all the fables fed to them in the shakha like Taj Mahal not being built by Shah Jehan or Indira Gandhi’s husband Feorze Gandhi being actually a Muslim whom later Gandhiji adopted to appease an angry Nehru at Indira’s choice. They were thrilled in 1967 by how a little Israeli nation has beaten hollow all the Muslims together. Even I, a son of a journalist, started marvelling at Israeli feat little knowing and understanding Israel’s source of strength being the United States of America (USA).

But I mention this past here only to state that all those boys were very decent, polite and cultured. I am still left with one or two of them. They continue to be Modi bhakts. But none of them were and are coarse and crass. They all went to Government schools passed out with distinctions and became engineers and doctors. Their cultured manners were on account of their upbringing both at home and school. They happily included me in their outudoor games, cricket, football, badminton etc. never making me conscious of my physical handicap.

Unlike them before my mother, a government school teacher was allotted a government quarter, we were living in Mohalla Qabristan in Chitli Qabar a stone’s throw from Turkman Gate when we started going to school and our bus came to pick us up there. I had to wear callipers in my right polio-stricken leg. The boys there, almost all without exception, were Muslims. They would imitate my limping walk, poke fun at me and sometime even tried to push me, except that my brother and sister both younger than me, were ready to fight them. So, my mother employed a boy little order than us to escort us to and from the school bus stop. Those boys, never went to any school. This is just to illustrate what difference education makes to a man’s personality.

For 23 years now Narendra Modi strode the corridors of legislatures with none strong enough to challenge him. He hardly ever attended the Assembly sessions, choosing to walk in only when he had to make a statement with all his flourishes and gestures in his inimitable aggressive style mocking and gesticulating at the already weak Opposition wilting under his dismissive gaze.

It’s the first time in his long political career when he faces the prospect of answering to the Opposition. For all his vanity and a false demeanor of a victor, he cannot digest the fact that he and not even the BJP lost this election of 2024 by failing to get a majority. After all it was he who fought this election on the slogan of ‘Modi ki guarantee’ He knows that 234 cannot be termed a victory. Whatever arithmetical juggling he may indulge in, he is dependent on the crutches of Nitish Kumar and Nara Chandrababu Naidu. It hurt his ego badly. He who had actually lost was poking fun at Rahul for improving Congress tally from 54 to 99 seats and winning Rae Bareli with a far better margin then Modi from Varanasi. Anyone in his place, like Advani ji in 2009 would have sat on the side and made space, not for the Opposition, because that would be asking too much, but for one of his party leaders such as Nitin Gadkari or Rajnath Singh. But power is such an intoxicating potion once tasted, its lust never dies.

His first speech in the 18th Lok Sabha proved beyond doubt that In ten years of being the Prime Minister Modi has not understood the role and stature of the Leader of the House. That the Leader of the House is the leader of the entire House not just his party. I doubt though that his arrogance would ever allow him to reconcile to this new reality.