Charity begins at home. So it did during the celebrations to mark the 75th anniversary of Somnath Temple reconstruction with a two-kilometre-long procession, led by 108 horses, presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, flowers and decorations flanking the roads, petals showered over the temple premises from helicopters and the Indian Air Force’s Surya Kiran Aerobatic Team performing a grand aerial display over the temple.
A day before that came the Prime Minister’s austerity ‘advisory’, falling like eleven commandments on the ordinary citizens – moratorium on fuel, gold, fertilisers, cooking oil, solar pumps, purchasing imported goods, foreign travel; and shift to public transport, carpools and work from home ‘requests’.
Physician Heal Thyself
Necessitated by a surge in global energy prices and trading delays due to the continued crisis in the Middle East, a moral lecture by the country’s leader may sound reasonable. The question whether that crisis is partly a making of the government can be left to the economists to resolve. More significantly, for a nation that has just witnessed the grand show of elections in four states where BJP, led by Modi, poured money like water and followed it up with extravagant victory rallies during the worst periods of that crisis, this austerity call is nothing but a case of the proverbial devil quoting scriptures.
The timing is perfect. Austerity declared. Right after the elections. Ahead of a display of wanton excess at Somnath and Modi’s five-nation foreign tour.
So while the leader of the country can indulge himself in a lavish splurge and embark on jet-setting tours, the commoners are expected to tighten their belts - adjust to fuel crunch, do away with fertilisers, forego vacations, work from home and give their vehicles a rest - while dreading whether this austerity lesson was a veiled warning for major price escalation and policy shifts in the offing. In short, people are being asked to suppress their needs and demands while awaiting the bombshell of even higher prices amidst suffocating inflation.
If austerity is the need of the time, did the state have to engage in a religious celebration to make it an ostentatious spectacle? Should the government have allowed the use of military force, spent massive amounts of fuel and money, in support of a majoritarian religious event?
Blame Nehru
It’s all because of Nehru, blaming whom has become a favourite pastime for Modi. Any opportunity calls for a grand show, a spectacle.
During his address on the Somnath celebrations, Modi bashed Nehru, insinuating that he (Nehru) obstructed the reconstruction of the Somnath Temple out of political considerations, contrasting him unfavourably with Sardar Patel and Rajendra Prasad, who championed the effort.
Firstly, Nehru did not oppose the Somnath Temple reconstruction in 1951, but he wanted the state to distance itself it went against the grain of constitutional values. “We must not do anything that comes in the way of our state being secular,” Nehru is recorded to have said, making it clear that the reconstruction should be left to the religious community.
By actively participating in and politically leveraging a religious temple's celebrations, Prime Minister Modi has blurred the constitutionally mandated line between state and religion that Nehru spoke about. This goes beyond reflecting a contrast of ideologies between the present prime minister and India’s first.
Modi has set a troubling precedent where the machinery of government is deployed to amplify one faith's heritage over others. This is not the first time. Even though a truly secular head of state must remain equidistant from all religions, Modi has been persistently using Hindu places of worship as platforms to attack political opponents and fundamentally weaponise religious sentiment.
Austerity: From 1951 to Now
Nehru’s adamancy to not let the state interfere in the Somnath celebrations 75 years ago stemmed not only from the ‘secular-value’ logic but another reason. In his objections to Rajendra Prasad, he is reported to have written in his letter (to Prasad) in unequivocal words:
“At any time, this would have been undesirable, but at the present juncture, when starvation stalks the land and every kind of national economy and austerity are preached by us, this expenditure by a government appears to me to be almost shocking. We have stopped expenditure on education, on health and many beneficent services because we say that we cannot afford it,” Nehru wrote to Prasad.
Contrast this with Modi’s austerity speech that shifts the onus from the government to the public. A month ago, the Modi regime was hell-bent on bringing in an unconstitutional delimitation to double the size of the parliament, meaning more burden on the state exchequer to match the lavish salaries and perks of the elected representatives. Since he came to power, public-sector banks in India have waived loans of billionaire corporates, estimated at between 10 lakh and 16 lakh crore rupees. A decade ago, his government waived of the wealth tax, slashed the corporate tax seven years ago from 34.94 per cent to 25.17 per cent (inclusive of Surcharge and Cess) for all existing domestic companies and 17.16 per cent (inclusive of Surcharge and Cess) for all domestic companies incorporated on or after 1 October 2019 , enabling India’s top 10% to grow richer at the expense of the poor, who are disproportionately hit, their dissatisfaction met solely with the announcement of a slew of welfare schemes, not policies designed to bridge the inequality gaps.
Now the country’s commoners are being asked to forego their necessities, desires and demands while the leader of the country immerses himself in the glory of horses and choppers, at state expense, and goes off on a whirlwind tour to foreign lands.
Be the change you wish to see in the world, said Gandhi. Modi has turned these words on their head.
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