A changing narrative about the Prime Minister can unravel his leadership

Facing reversals on every front, anger against the govt, especially amongst the youth seems to be growing and this can create problems for the PM and BJP

The public perception of Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to be changing. The farmers’ agitation  against three proposed laws, Chinese incursions in Ladakh and a worsening Covid-19 pandemic have only added to a long term malaise of rising unemployment, declining economic growth and alienated youth. And yet the government appears unperturbed.

Perhaps the last general election has shown that a public narrative of economic despair will not necessarily translate into anti-incumbency. No general election is due for a long time and the BJP’s election planners have almost always managed to produce a rabbit (or even a peacock) out of the hat in state elections.

But two things suggest that public disillusionment may be deeper than earlier. Social media lampooning of Prime Minister Modi and the BJP is not only more vicious but also more personal. China’s persisting belligerence is also a terrible embarrassment for a government that has thrived on cranking up ultra-nationalist sentiments. It has also shot to hell the carefully nurtured image of Prime Minister Modi as a world statesman. 

Social media is an unmissable indicator of a downturn in youth support for Prime Minister Modi. They have voted against the issues raised in his radio homilies by pressing dislike buttons. Youth hostility is even visible on the BJP’s social media platforms.

Perhaps the anger is fuelled by their uncertain future. India’s GDP has not only shrunk overall by 23.9 per cent in the June quarter, but the contraction is much higher in labour intensive sectors, with construction contracting by 50 per cent, manufacturing by 39.3 per cent, and trade, hotel and transport by 47 per cent. 

Data collected by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy suggests that in the month of August roughly one in ten persons in urban areas could not find work with the urban unemployment rate at 9.83 per cent as compared to 9.15 per cent in July. Rural unemployment also increased to 7.65 per cent compared to 6.66 per cent in July. Disturbingly rising unemployment coincides with the freeing of economic activities curtailed by a harsh lockdown. Economists believe that layoffs in the formal sector and saturation in the farm sector are contributing to deepen the employment crisis. So the crisis of those seeking first time employment has been over-layered with those who have lost old jobs and need new ones. 

Even those employed are worse off because of large-scale salary cuts in the private sector. In Uttar Pradesh the security of government jobs will be diluted by plans to put new state employees on contract for the first five years. Even though political opposition has failed to channelise youth anger it will continue to fester unless the government addresses it seriously.  

Indifference to the public mood is not limited to the BJP government at the Centre and in the states. The entire political class, including state governments and the Opposition are quiet. But when anger erupts it will be directed against the BJP, especially the Prime Minister, because they had promised to create a $5 trillion economy by 2024 and 20 million new jobs a year. States are unable to create jobs because they are financially crippled by the central government’s inability to fully compensate for their loss of GST. The finance minister has simply thrown up her hands blaming the economy on “an act of God” – i.e. the pandemic. Maverick economist and BJP MP, Subramanian Swamy has predicted that, “If the economy is not rectified, Modi has about six more months till people start challenging him.”

However, more than the economy needs rectification. The early days of the pandemic saw the Prime Minister lead a vigorous campaign against the coronavirus. He addressed the nation every few weeks and people blindly obeyed whatever he asked them to do. But he has gone silent after the virus has claimed more than 85,000 lives. The government continues with its ostrich-like refusal to take stock of the crisis and admit to faults in its own planning. It thus claims that it has no official data on the number of migrants who died trying to get home during the lockdown. It is either incompetent or callous because academics from Jindal Global University and the Universities of Emory and Syracuse, have recorded 906 deaths.  

The government is also clueless about fatalities of healthcare workers due to Covid-19. It cites the fact that health is a state subject for the lack of data. Nevertheless the Indian Medical Association has claimed that 382 doctors died during the pandemic and should be declared ‘martyrs’. There is no data on nurses, support staff and ASHA workers who succumbed to the disease. Can people then be blamed for believing that they have been abandoned by the government to their own devices?

The farmers of Punjab and Haryana are up in arms against laws which will create a free market for farm produce, facilitate contract farming and allow certain crops to be exempted from the ambit of the Essential Commodities Act. The government has failed to convince them or their representatives that the new laws will not do away with Minimum Support Price and benefit them. The sole minister from the Shiromani Akali Dal in the Modi government, Harsimrat Kaur Badal has resigned. Such was the hurry to enact the farm Bills that they were rushed through by voice vote in the Rajya Sabha despite MPs demanding a formal vote. 

Still, the greatest damage to Prime Minister Modi’s image has been caused by his military and diplomatic failure against China’s land-grab in Ladakh. After the public denial on June 19 that China had intruded into Indian Territory, the prime minister has gone silent leaving the battle for public perception to Indian army commanders and his ministers. The statements by the ministers for Defence and External Affairs suggest that far from restoring status quo ante China’s belligerence in Ladakh has increased. The prime minister’s failure on the China front may become another millstone around his neck.  

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence on major issues facing the nation should have his party worried. At some point the BJP will have to start exploring an alternative leadership if the present one continues to falter.

Twitter: @Bharatitis