India Overdrive
Modi, Sengol, and the bombarding of Lutyens’ Delhi.
Scepter in hand, sadhus trailing. The imagery sent airwaves soaring as PM Modi inaugurated the new seat of the highest deliberative body in the land. Media outlets pushed stories on the vastu significance of the building, heralding the dawn of ‘New India’. The vernacular Bharat rejoiced while the old elite, weakened by the fall of the Congress party, seethed in silence.
Unlike many other nations borne out of revolution, India had not done away with the vestiges of imperial rule. Due in large parts to the relatively non-violent, deliberative, and prolonged nature of its freedom struggle, India had not witnessed the dethroning of the erstwhile anglicized elite that had accumulated power and influence under the authority of the British Raj. These individuals and institutions continued to wield clout into the new dream of a democratic India. They morphed into the ‘Lutyens’ Delhi’ of modern Indian politics.
The imagery of a ‘Lutyens’ Delhi’ is characterized by anglicization, social privilege, urban outlook, and outsized influence. These are individuals that have accumulated power, paisa, and distinction, in the times of the state-controlled ‘License-Permit-Quota’ raj, under the patronage of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. By virtue of collective clout, they have managed to remain ‘insiders’ through successive governments (even the BJP-led Vajpayee administration). Until now, that is.
The economic reforms since 1991, spearheaded by Dr. Manmohan Singh under the stewardship of then Prime Minister Narsimha Rao, ushered India into a free market economy. The loosening of government stranglehold resulted in an era of unprecedented prosperity for the ordinary Indian citizen, eventually resulting into the creation of a financially stable urban/semi-urban middle class. These were people who had grown up in vernacular households, held strong cultural beliefs, and had their own idea of Bharat. With enough food in their bellies, they made for a formidable political constituency. The same political constituency that had propelled Vajpayee to the position of the Prime Minister, and won Dr. Singh a second term in 2009. The same political constituency that now challenges the ways of an old elite. The same constituency that the anti-elitism and anti-dynasty politician in Narendra Modi wishes to win over to secure a third term.
Modi is shrewd. Nine years into the highest office in India, he calls himself an ‘outsider’. The narrative is striking; the homegrown grassroots leader from a vernacular state challenging the hegemony of the out-of-touch English-speaking urban elite under the patronage of a corrupt dynasty. The kind of stuff that makes for good election campaigns. That is not to say that the argument is dishonest.
Under the obvious political calculations, the movement is genuinely representative of an increasingly assertive middle class. It’s a battle between the boss who thinks in English and the engineer who doesn’t speak the language outside of work. It’s a race between those that take the backseat and those that sit by the steering. It is Lutyens’ Delhi versus Bangalore.
The Sengol is indeed representative of a transfer of power. Just not from one government to the next, or from one party to another. It is the transfer of power from the old elite to the new. Bharat has come knocking on India’s door.
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