I started this post by listing some silly and nonsensical questions that the Congress could ask Narendra Modi:
~ If the BJP is really a party, where’s the bartender, the DJ, and the bouncer?
~ If Modi is really Prime Minister, they should prove he is divisible only by himself and by 1.
~ If Amit Shah is Home Minister, who is the Home Maxster?
~ If the RSS really exists, why can’t I subscribe to its feed?
~ If the VHP believes Tamil Nadu is part of India, why hasn’t a single Tamil headed it?
~ If the BJP genuinely respects women, why isn’t Jasodaben the Prime Minister and Narendra Modi her retired spouse on a yoga sabbatical?
~ If Fadnavis really loves white, why is his hair black?
~ If I really love motorcycles, should I marry my bike and give 33% reservation to spark plugs?
~ If Misbahji loves eggs, why does she order mutton biryani?
But they won’t. Because at this point, they are scrambling to list all the Muslim, Parsi, Christian, Dalit, and women Presidents, along with their varied Prime and Chief Ministers and leaders, while Modi has probably already (or will, by tomorrow) moved on to his next wild accusation, proving once again that the opposition has not just not learnt to play this game, but they don’t even know what game is being played!
Is the question Modi asked or his challenge to the Congress to prove its sympathy for Muslims silly? Of course.
Is it absurd, irrelevant, bizarre, and entirely devoid of reason or context? You bet.
Is it easily answerable with just a bit of research? Sure.
Does it actually make any sense? Not in the least.
Indeed, is it in the general category of “not even wrong”? Absolutely.
Which, let me tell you, is precisely the point.
Because if you’ve ever listened to Narendra Modi speak, whether in a public or a private event, you’ll notice he specialises in this genre of political performance art: the random, the rhetorical, the reality-proof, and the shoot-and-scoot. Questions and allegations so weird and baffling that they leave the opposition scrambling for history textbooks, fact-checking portals, and smelling salts.
Make no mistake: this is not a bug. It’s the entire program.
Every time Modi mentions the Congress, he drags them back into the centre of the ring, not as a weak, broke, morally exhausted outfit unable to win even student union polls, but as a towering demon that only he, the great Vanquisher of Dynasts, can slay.
By invoking the Congress in every speech, he keeps them fresh in the public memory, as if they were just ousted last week rather than last millennium. You could be forgiven for thinking it was still 1989 and Rajiv Gandhi had only just left the building, rather than the Congress having staggered through decades of coalition politics, irrelevance, and terminal decay.
But here’s the clever bit: while Modi has been Prime Minister for over a decade, and the BJP has held power for longer still, he still plays the role of the underdog. The outsider. The rebel. The only man with the courage to speak truth to the ‘system’.
And the system? Why, that’s the Congress. That hollow, cash-strapped shell of a party whose ground workers are broke but whose leaders still look like they’re on holiday in 1984.
This is the masterstroke. The BJP is the richest party in India. It controls Parliament, the police, the propaganda, and arguably even the judiciary. But in public imagination, thanks to Modi’s ceaseless theatre, the BJP is the party of the poor, the humble, the chaiwallahs. While the Congress, holding zero power and less money, looks like the fat-cat establishment.
And the Congress helps. Dog knows, it helps.
For a party teetering on the edge of political extinction, it is astonishing how uniformly well-fed its top brass looks. The party is poor, but its leaders are not. Almost every Congress leader, whether district, state, or national, is wealthy, asset-rich, and privileged. The Congress is a pauper’s party run by princes. A movement led by the very image Modi wants his audience to hate: soft, entitled, English-speaking, landowning, foreign-travelling, tax-planning aristocrats used to the trappings of power, surrounded by servants and yes-men. Even the ones who aren’t that rich look like they own a vineyard in Tuscany.
So long as that’s the face of the Congress, Modi will win the perception war. Because perception is the war.
And he is very, very good at it.
Don’t confuse the idiocy of his questions with a lack of intelligence. This is not a stupid man. This is a man who knows exactly what he is doing. Each question, however fake, however farcical, is a landmine for the opposition. Not meant to be answered. Meant to be reacted to. Meant to distract. Meant to reframe.
And until the Congress learns to stop answering and start attacking, until it sheds its weight at the top, literally and metaphorically, it will remain a party of the establishment without any power, and the BJP will remain the establishment while pretending to be the rebellion.
That’s the show. And Modi is directing it. Every. Single. Scene.
