It's enough to make a man sick

Dengue fever took me out of the world recently for about ten days It is a debilitating and depressing disease that can be threatening My blood platelet count dropped to 59000 normal range 15 to 4 lakh which meant five days at a clinic under an IV dripThe nurse asked how I got dengue and I wasnt sure because it hit me just before I boarded a flight from Bangalore where I had gone for two book functions The flight was an ordeal and when I reached home my son told me I was 1041 F The aedes mosquito must have attacked me before I left Gurugram for Bangalore possibly hatched at the construction site next door Such is the price of progressI gradually returned to the world this weekend while ill I could not even speak coherently Now typing seems like an art to be mastered again What makes it easier to return and more depressing is that the news appears to be much the same The same incompetent running of our economy the same doublespeak and lies by the government and the same nastiness from the governments cheerleaders towards all those who dissent or disagree What has changed however is that the number of people disgruntled with their prime minister has increasedI usually avoid talking politics with my relatives because they are upper caste Biharis who are as fascist as any group in India they act as if they are the only ones who have lived life through merit none of my relatives I may point out has had to do manual labour alongside studying for their civil services exams so merit is really a moot point though no upper caste fellow will ever admit it they have utter disdain for anything that questions the patriarchy they have a most unrepublican utter contempt for those lower in the caste hierarchy Ironically however I find that my relatives are not as bad as my upper caste inlaws from Assam who in the name of identity and pride have given us a disease called the National Register of Citizens which will unfold in the most nasty manner in the years to comeWhat I found surprising is that several of my relatives about whom I got a chance to hear while I was recuperating were disillusioned with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the main reason was economic uncertainty Two of my cousins both of whom are deputy general managers in completely different fields felt great apprehension about the economic future One of them was disgruntled because his wifes business was demolished by the 2016 demonetisation the other was worried about his sons job prospects in the years to come If such previously hardcore votaries of good governance could sour so badly on the prime minister during the election year then he has lots to worry aboutOf course Modi retains his hardcore support I see people on social media say things like who cares about the economy so long as Modi stops the Islamic invasion of India This is bizarre Where is this invasion and I should know having spent my journalistic career studying such things Forget about the invasion one would have to think that jihadism or extremism has receded rapidly over the past few years and that the protections erected by governments often at the cost of individual civil liberties have done the job Yet it is convenient I suppose for a bunch of cranks to keep barking about nonexistent threats to give themselves meaning and purpose in a life otherwise marked by banality and mediocrityWhat does this mean for Modis electoral prospects in 2019 While I was in Bangalore various people seemed to think that he would possibly lose up to half his Lok Sabha seats in the next election This led to the Indian middle classs favourite parlour game what would happen if Modi came down to 150 seats Somebody said that the next government would be a coalition government headed by one of three names that were currently doing the rounds former president Pranab Mukherjee the alwaysabridesmaid Sharad Pawar and even former prime minister HD Deve Gowda though everyone admitted that he was the long shot of the threeOrdinarily I would have shuddered at these names particularly the former president who is a weasel of Indian politics and is responsible for crony capitalism and Assams mess However what is more scary is that a coalition government might take charge but is so weighed down by its own contradictions that it collapses in two or three years which might lead to Modis return to power in the way that his role model Mrs Indira Gandhi did in 1980 Even dengue is preferable to thatAditya Sinhas latest book The Spy Chronicles RAW ISI and the Illusion of Peace cowritten with AS Dulat and Asad Durrani is available now He tweets autumnshadeSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates