Why Modi is (or rather, always wanted to be) a Congressman.

First, he tried to copy Nehru by stealing his jacket (and trying to rename it), travelling the world meeting leaders, Mann ki Baat, authoring(?) books, speaking to children, and promoting yoga. This flopped badly, despite the IT cell’s sincerest attempts to malign India’s first PM and replace him with NaMo.

He then tried to copy Gandhi, including the whole ‘me Gujju-he Gujju’ vibe, the ‘Swachh Bharat’ scheme (whose logo literally blurs the lens of Gandhi’s glasses) the silly attempt at spinning yarn on the Charkha (not that he needed lessons in spinning yarns, but that’s another story), the swing-by-the-Sabarmati-riverfront, the feeding of birds, and the growing of the beard. Perhaps that was the venerable Thakur he was going for, but as we all know, his intent was to be seen as a man of peace and of letters, which ended up with him resembling Asaram more than anyone else.

He also tried copying Netaji Subash Chandra Bose, wearing a camo parka, sunglasses, and jackboots, visiting troops in the border areas, spending Diwali with them, and promising them the sky. Unfortunately, he could not back it up with OROP implementation as desired by those very men, nor did he endear himself to them by foisting an unloved person as COAS first and then CDS (despite all the glowing obituaries later). His attempted crushing of the Sikh farmers (many of whom were veterans and had families in uniforms) did even more damage.

Then, he tried to copy Patel by trying to ‘integrate’ India by repealing the special status of J&K, ‘solving’ the Assam D-list voter issue, commissioning the iron-man’s statue, and attempting to appropriate the strong ‘man-of-unity’ image. This too did not work given the shambles the centre-state relationship is and the tatters the Hindu-Muslim-Sikh-Christian relations find themselves in.

So, he tried to copy Shastri by trying to broker peace between Pakistan and India, stopping over (without being asked) to wish the Pak PM a happy birthday, and inviting him over for his swearing-in. This backfired (as usual) with an enhancement in Pak’s low-intensity conflict with India, not just in Kashmir, but across India and the UN too. The so-called ‘surgical strikes’ and the humiliation of an Indian pilot captured and then released put an end to that direction.

His next attempt at copying was Indira by showing laal-laal aankh to China and announcing demonetisation out of the blue (which he must have fancied to be like bank nationalisation or the abolition of privy purses). Unfortunately, China responded with not just killing our men in cold blood, but even renaming places inside our country, occupying hundreds of sq km of our territory, and cocking a snook at us, daring us to do what we keep posturing about, knowing full well we cannot afford it, from a perspective of money, military armament preparedness, or even equipment. And everyone knows how demonetisation ended.

Let us not forget his attempted copying of Rajiv Gandhi, and his Startup India, Standup India, Make in India, Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao, Ease of Doing Business rankings, and so on. This only ended up with money being spent on advertising and PR, as well as making a complete mess of whatever little government assistance was already available for young entrepreneurs. As for his dream of ‘Digital India’, it is ending with Voda and Airtel reducing their investments in tech, BSNL dead, and Jio delaying its 5G deployment. As for ‘cashless’ (or ‘less cash’, depending on who you believe) India, the less said the better.

Somewhere between all of this, he also (rather weakly) tried copying Dr.Manmohan Singh (remember the cringey calling of the POTUS by his first name?) and PVNR through his demonetisation and GST initiatives, which flopped so badly that he himself does not speak of them at his rallies. He also arm-twisted the RBI, changing its governors, extorting money, and forcing them to do his bidding, trying to show his grip on the country’s economy. But as Chidambaram said famously, his entire knowledge of economics may not be enough to fit on the back of a postage stamp.

And now, finally, he tried copying Rahul Gandhi (an Aikido black belt and someone who can belt out a dozen pushups without breaking into sweat) by trying to show his ‘work out’, first in the fancy garden of his bungalow (by tippy-toeing around a tree and then lying on rock), and then, recently, by attempting to ‘demonstrate’ the use of a shoulder press, to an utterly laughable end that has resulted in a meme-fest, as was inevitable.

Who’s next? Sonia? Frankly, if he tries to emulate her by giving up the Prime Ministership of India to make way for a much more qualified and learned visionary of sizable international stature who will work quietly (but still take press conferences), will be respected the world over, not need a PR agency to prop him up, and take India to new heights within a short span, why not? I will only welcome it. But, as we all know, he won’t. He has literally the same love for power that he accuses others, especially Congressmen and women of.

That’s not all. Other than these cheap imitations, he has tried to poach almost every Congressman and woman he could, rename every Congress scheme and project he knew of (and some he did not), and tried to kill Congress programs such as MNREGA and Aadhaar so unsuccessfully that he actually ended up enhancing them.

In short, he has tried to be a Congressman and emulate the Congress at every step of his career as a politician. Unfortunately, while he could have been an excellent authentic Modi (this is hard to believe, but let us say this was possible in a parallel universe), he has ended up as a bad copy of Congressmen.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, would ultimately be his legacy.

He, or his followers, could not have thought of a worse fate.