Over the past eight years the proponents of HIndutva have failed abjectly at administration and economics and have only one crutch left, of a misremembered and misrepresented history. For sometime the BJP did succeed in presenting itself as a party with a difference a party of modern infrastructure as opposed to the old welfare state ideals but it has dropped all pretence to a political appeal based on economic and material growth in favour of a strident Hindutva emotional appeal based on an imaginary clash of civilisations. The saffron party has a parochial approach pretending to be nationalist by promising the average Hindu revenge for past wrongs and imagined insults by going down the path of bigotry, hate and otherisation of the minorities. And leading the charge is none other than our PM himself. He did not reach the highest post in the land by observing the mores and manners of a civilised democracy, he crowbarred his way to the top riding on the back of his gift of the gab and inciting mobs. But those twenty minutes on the Punjab flyover has revealed a deeply uncertain and perhaps a very scared man. Maybe the ulterior Hindutva project will die a natural death.
