The word “hubris” in Oxford English Dictionary is summed up simply as “excessive pride”. It is the single-biggest reason for leaders who exercise unrestrained power to rapidly start losing their shine. In the controlling, vainglorious style of managing government and party that he displays, Narendra Modi is sometimes compared to Indira Gandhi.
In a notorious exhortation in 1976, Congress party president D K Barooah declared, “India is Indira and Indira is India.” Perhaps Mrs Gandhi took his grovelling utterance literally. It was a calamitous period when she had seized absolute power during the Emergency, leading to a humiliating defeat in
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