In the Mahabharata Yudhisthira led the Pandavas to victory leaving much of the heavy lifting to his brothers and the divine help, Krishna. In this time and age the Modi government does not have any such luck. The duplicate or ersatz Yudhisthira that the government picked to lead the Pune film institute is being worsted by the students with a lot of support from the public and media. And no one is doing the heavy lifting for Modi & Co.; not even its in-house spin doctor Arun Jaitley. In fact the only defence of Gajendra Chouhan has come from himself in the form of a plaintive cry: "give me a chance!" Hardly a dialogue that is kingly much less acceptable given the advisability of allowing a ham to strut upon a stage once occupied by the great names of Indian cinema.
The problem is not that the BJP has chosen a member or supporter of the sangh parivar to head a government body or organisation. All parties in power do this; it is the price we pay for governance. In democracies the choices are open and subject to criticism in the public domain; in totalitarian societies they are never commented upon. Often these appointments are sinecures; but in some cases they do carry responsibilities. Hence it is important that while the ruling party regrettably stuffs these posts with its own people it does not impose upon the country just any Tom, Dick, and Harry or a Yudhishthira. The party should place a premium on competence while complying with its requirement of political loyalty. While the appointments to head the Pune film institute, the National Film Development Corporation and the anti-democratic Censor Board get full marks on the political loyalty scorecard, the limited track record of the appointees do not inspire confidence on the question of competence.
The strangest part of this selection process is that with the whole wide world of Indian cinema available to it, the sangh parivar ended up with these three: an actor whose field is limited to mostly serials and bit roles in films that have sunk without a trace; another who
believes that a loud voice and muscle flexing can substitute for acting and who has little experience of finance or even the business of making and selling a movie but has a track record in doing charity; and finally, a producer whose only claim to fame is as a propagandist for Modi and a maker of truly forgettable B grade films. Despite all the managerial skills displayed by the BJP its headhunters has had access to Teams B to Z of Indian cinema!
Most commentators have remarked upon this and those like the Pune students who will be directly affected by the choice have taken to the streets in protest. Rightly so. However there is a deeper meaning to BJP's silly exercise of power. The mastery and manipulation of the social media have come up against the hard reality that the sangh parivar has little support amongst the elite, the creative and intellectual areas of Indian society. Whether it is cinema, history or education the party's choices are confined to those in Teams B to Z because it can't find anyone in the A team who will broadly agree with its so-called ideology. The reason is that this ideology is just a collection of myths and wishful thinking cloaked in simplistic religious slogans which cannot bear the light of reason.
The paucity of intellectual support is the Achilles heel of the Modi government and the sangh parivar. Because votes can only get you power; to govern you need the support of the elite in the civil society and not just business people who only look at balance sheets. Vajpayee knew this and if the Modi government has to get the support of the Indian elite it needs to move away from the constricted world view of the RSS and its khaki knicker klan.
