Sunil Gatade | Can Modi Reinvent Himself? Otherwise, Genie of 75 May Begin To Haunt Him

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi, despite all the speculation in political circles, has not retired at the age of 75, and seems likely to stay on for some time, he still needs to be given credit for inadvertently seeking to turn young the politics of the country.

A leader’s credibility depends on whether he follows the rules he sets for others. So, he will hardly qualify on that count, for having ignored the rule to retire at 75.

He is no Ratan Tata, who ensured that the top honchos in his industrial empire quit executive positions on turning 75, and did so himself at the pinnacle of power. Tata did so as he was sure that the business group could survive without him, and it has not only survived but also thrived despite having a non-Tata chairman at the helm.

Politics, however, is a different ballgame altogether. It is more difficult than rocket science. Otherwise, how could one have expected H.D. Deve Gowda, then Karnataka CM, to suddenly become the Prime Minister some 30 years ago?

That apart, politicians, especially in India, are lesser mortals who would like to take their positions to the grave, and thus it would be wrong to judge Mr Modi on this count. Even Donald Trump, the controversial US President, had once hinted that if there was any possibility, he would like to have a third term at the White House.

It would be wrong to target Jawaharlal Nehru for seeking a third term as PM, as reports indicate he wanted to give up the position much earlier, but was persuaded to continue leading a young India. “The woods are lovely, dark and deep… And I have promises to keep”, was how he saw it in Robert Frost’s words.

When Morarji Desai can become PM when nearly 80, why not any other leader -- that could be the argument. A supporter of the PM suggested he could go on and on, and what was wrong with that? Those in power are not required to give any alibis or explanations. Their continuance itself is a statement.

Neither L.K. Advani nor Murli Manohar Joshi, as well as others confined to the BJP’s “Margdarshak Mandal” after turning 75, have the will or strength to say something. Their silence in the past decade has shown they are resigned to their fate.

Yashwant Sinha was one who spoke against. But he is no longer in the BJP, and so need not be counted. He’s just an Opposition voice which can be ignored.

Interestingly, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, who turned 75 recently, has come out in support of Mr Modi’s continuance as PM, seeking to bring down the curtain on his remark sometime back on this issue.

Mr Bhagwat has put paid to the campaign by BJP dissidents like Subramanian Swamy, who had warned the party would irreparably suffer if Mr Modi was allowed to continue after 75. Mr Swamy is himself past 80, but is seeking to project that he is active in politics.

There are very few examples in Indian politics like Madhu Limaye, who quit active politics in the early 80s soon after the collapse of the Janata experiment, of which he was a leading light. Virtually, no leader in India has followed the veteran socialist’s example.

Many have called it quits when the people have rejected them altogether, and they have had no face to show up in politics.

In 1991, P.V. Narasimha Rao had packed his bags to move to Hyderabad from the national capital. But fate willed otherwise, as Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in the middle of the Lok Sabha elections made him the PM.

No doubt Mr Modi has got a certificate from the RSS chief that he could continue after 75, but things may be different in the times to come given that the last Lok Sabha polls saw the law of diminishing returns catching up with him. The latest C-Voter survey saw Rahul Gandhi gradually catching up with Mr Modi on the issue of the PM candidate, an alarming development for the world’s largest party.

Mr Modi has unwittingly unbottled the “Genie of 75” into the air that has spurred the aspirations of many ambitious leaders in the BJP. Politics is, after all, the game of the possible.

One should not forget that the last Lok Sabha elections have given a sort of leveraging position to the RSS and its leader, who had been generally sidelined or shown in a secondary role in the first 10 years of the Modi government. The tact with which the RSS utilises this leverage will determine the shape of things to come.

Not all of a sudden, Mr Modi has sung paeans to the RSS chief on his 75th birthday. It took the PM 11 years in office to laud the role of the RSS from the ramparts of the Red Fort, which also tells its own story.

Despite a sizable media doing his bidding, Mr Modi is looking increasingly vulnerable just when he had completed the first year of his third term.

Donald Trump has turned out to be the “bull in the China shop” for Modi 3.0, resulting in not only unintended consequences but also much rattling too. Worse is that the US President has sought to take the sheen out of Operation Sindoor, seen as the trump card by the ruling side in the days ahead.

The “Vote Chor, Gaddi Chor” campaign too has not come a day too soon. The problem for Narendra Modi is that he is looking increasingly jaded now, and the more he fails to reinvent himself, the “Genie of 75” will start haunting him.

The writer is a journalist based in New Delhi