A Crisis of Credibility

How the ruling BJP is plunging into a crisis of credibility

If every time you face opposition from the public and you cry "foreign bogey," if every time some part of country goes up in flames and you're conspicuous by your absence, if every time you cry "freebies" and then top up the amount by a crazy margin, you, my friend, are BJP. I get it; leadership is hard. People think you hold all the strings, but there are forces beyond your control, and when they work against you, you're left with slack ropes in your hands looking like an idiot. And that is why leadership demands poise. An act, which makes you look trustworthy, non-whimsical, serious, and above all sincere.

But the way the Indian establishment has been acting under the BJP, that poise, that character, and that illusion of being in the light is missing. The PMs words carry as much weight as 25 paise. We assume that if he's going to say something, 85% of what comes out of his mouth is incoherent mumbo-jumbo. And we must feel that way; otherwise, that mumbo-jumbo is enough to tear apart the work of thousands of years that has gone into creating the Indian civilization. Heads of state are supposed to be more erudite than what we currently have. And the biggest issue with that is that the next generation is losing faith in its foundation. They're trying to look elsewhere for succor, and fortunately or unfortunately they don't see it anywhere else. The flare up in Ladakh is just the most recent consequence of this. Sadly, it wouldn't matter because we've been conveniently looking the other way for three years as Manipur burnt. The anger everywhere is about getting the bigger share of the pie, but no one is concerned with growing the size of the pie.

Neither is the public demanding an increase in state capacity, nor are the incumbents incentivized to think in this direction. Everyone is out just for themselves but fundamentally it is not going to work in even in medium term. Somehow let's say you're able to dig into the pie, eventually an angry mob will rip apart your jaws and stick their hands in your mouth. Slowly, we're headed into that direction.