<img title="PM Narendra Modi at a roadshow in Varanasi ahead of the BJP&rsquo;s stunning victory in in the UP Assembly election in March. file Pic/AFP" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/2017/may/22-modi.jpg" alt="PM Narendra Modi at a roadshow in Varanasi ahead of the BJP&rsquo;s stunning victory in in the UP Assembly election in March. file Pic/AFP" /> PM Narendra Modi at a roadshow in Varanasi ahead of the BJP&rsquo;s stunning victory in in the UP Assembly election in March. file Pic/AFP
<img class="left" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/2015/dec/Aditya-Sinha-op.jpg" alt="" width="100" height="78" />On Narendra Modi's third anniversary as prime minister, it doesn't look as if there's any stopping him.
It no longer matters how little his government achieved. The voters cherish him like no other leader in recent memory, if the stunning UP Assembly election win is any measure. The middle-class loves him, going by the eye-popping first-week ratings of Republic, the TV channel launched by BJP member Rajeev Chandrasekhar and indignant anchor Arnab Goswami. Even the International Court of Justice's reprieve of Kulbhushan Jadhav, on death row in Pakistan on charges of espionage, is credited to Modi though the case was argued by professional lawyers and diplomats. (The Pakistanis also blame the ICJ's lone Indian judge who incidentally was appointed by Manmohan Singh's government.) PM Modi is like King Midas - all he touches seemingly turns to gold.
There's then no reason for Modi to rock the boat during this Parliament's remaining two years. He has got the Goods and Services Tax on track, even though our GST ceiling of 28 per cent is among the highest in the world (China's top rate is 17 per cent). The shoving of Aadhaar down our collective throat continues, with even the Supreme Court wary of getting in King Midas's way. Another surgical strike or limited war against Pakistan is unnecessary and risky. Pakistan is sure to be prepared. Also, there's a law of diminishing returns for such surprises. If there is a terrorist strike on India, it would rubbish the claim of deterrence of the first surgical strike. You could say a surgical strike is as deterrent as the death penalty: Not at all. As we saw during the Cold War, deterrence is in the threat and not in actual military use. For the next two years, just the notion that Modi is willing to wage war is probably enough deterrence.
There is, however, worry on the jobs front - the IT sector estimates it will lose two lakh jobs in the coming years, and manufacturing dropped for the last quarter to -3.7 per cent. Modi has little choice but to do what he's good at: playing to people's lust for retribution. The surgical strike was retributive. So was demonetisation. Six months later, there's no great recovery in black money and no Rs 15 lakh in our bank accounts. Land prices came down but property prices remain the same, as the market is waiting for prices to return to levels before November 8, 2016. Demonetisation's real achievement was that the poor believed Modi was sticking it to the rich and corrupt. It was retributive, except that it wasn't. The rich and corrupt suffered little; the middle-class had to sweat it out.
Governance by retribution is what drives all current anti-Muslim activity, be it beating them for 'love jihad' or killing them as a result of 'cow vigilantism' - these are all acts of retribution for a perceived historical wrong. With Yogi Adityanath now chief minister, talk of a Ram Janambhoomi temple in Ayodhya has re-surfaced - even the Supreme Court bizarrely offered to preside over an out-of-court settlement, before hastily beating a retreat.
Subramanian Swamy routinely calls for constructing the temple. The time seems ripe.
It may seem unnecessary for King Midas to do so, and maybe Muslims will keep quiet, so who knows? Anyway, he controls everything, even the political Opposition's narrative.
Rahul Gandhi's lack of political skills are well-documented. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was defanged by the loss in Punjab and in Delhi's municipality polls, though he's made a convincing case that voting machines were tampered with (the EC has issued a limp counter-challenge). UP's heavyweights are silent, like the newly-orphaned. BJP chief Amit Shah has his sights trained on two chief ministers: Bihar's Nitish Kumar and West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee. He's trying to arm-twist Nitish into dumping Lalu Prasad's RJD in favour of the BJP, and he's begun an all-out ground war against Mamata, the results of which he hopes will be a big tally from her state in the 2019 parliamentary election. No wonder the Opposition's attempts to have a combined Presidential candidate against the BJP nominee (likely an RSS journeyman) appear sluggish; that a grand opposition rally has been slated for August, after the July Presidential poll, underlines their lack of confidence. The Lilliputian Opposition has zero ideas on pinning Modi's Gulliver down.
The remaining two years is still a long time in politics, and no one expects the jobs scenario to improve. Modi has the wind in his sails, however; big industry, big money and big media are all behind him. Voters are unlikely to lose faith in King Midas, particularly as no one looks capable of displacing him from the voters' imagination. Modi is sitting pretty, and has no need to do anything spectacular till after 2019.
Aditya Sinha's crime novel, The CEO Who Lost His Head, is out later this month. He tweets @autumnshade Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com

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Aditya Sinha: Spinning gold out of saffron

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