If there is an advice that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in dire need of listening to, it is this: “Physician heal thyself.”
In the run-up to the 2014 general elections, Modi had boasted of his 56-inch chest that is capable of confronting any adversity. He may have been quite honest about it. But the problem begins when you yourself create those adversities. 
Modi’s oft-repeated refrain before, during and after those elections was a “Congress-mukth Bharat” (Congress-free India). He nearly got what he wished for when his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a humongous 282 seats on its own and confined the Congress to just 44. 
But then nothing exists in vacuum. If India is rid of the Congress, something else will take its place. If Modi believed that all of India will one day come under the BJP rule, he must be deluding himself. There are few nations in the world that are as diverse as India and even its birth – or independence, if you want to be politically contextual – was a story of almost unparalleled blood and gore.
Somewhere along the BJP’s all-conquering march to power two years ago, the 56-inch chest became a symbol of machismo which soon took a still nastier misogynistic turn. So while Modi kept haranguing the Congress at almost every public rally, many of his party men went about mouthing inanities about beef and cow protection, ‘love-jihad’ and something called “ghar waapsi” which loosely translates into “bringing them back home,” a not-so-smart reference to large-scale reconversions to Hinduism. The likes of Sakshi Maharaj, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Sadhvi Prachi and Yogi Adityanath, the saffron faces of the BJP, and even Sanjay Balyan, one of Modi’s ministers who created a major controversy during the Muzaffarnagar riots, had shot off their mouths without any let or hindrance. 
The latest incidents of over-the-top crassness exhibited by the BJP’s self-appointed guardians of morality and the cow came from Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. No less a person than the vice-president of the UP unit of the BJP, Dayashankar Singh, described former state chief minister and head of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) Mayawati as a prostitute who would sell her party tickets for next year’s assembly elections to the highest bidder. In Gujarat, four Dalit youths were tied and beaten up in public by BJP goons because they skinned a dead cow.
For Modi, the chickens – or in this case the cows – have come home to roost.
The Indian media has not been very friendly with the prime minister. The disapproval though is mutual. But then, as the saying goes, it is better to have an enemy who honestly hates you than to have a friend who secretly puts you down. The Indian media, or at least a large section of it, honestly hates Modi. But it also honestly tells Modi to be more vigilant against his so-called friends who are putting him down at every opportunity they get.
Modi did not say a word when Mohamed Akhlaq was lynched on the outskirts of the nation’s capital in September last year for allegedly possessing beef. A month later two Dalit children were burnt to death allegedly by an upper caste Hindu mob in Faridabad, a Haryana town which shares boundaries with Delhi. He did not speak after two Muslim cattle-herders, one of them just 13, were hanged to death by cow vigilantes in the eastern state of Jharkhand in March this year. This when technology savvy Modi takes to Twitter and other social media to express his views on a variety of topics. And now the public flogging in Gujarat and the Mayawati incident.
Observers predict that this single case of describing a Dalit political leader as a prostitute will cost the BJP next year’s UP election. The party seems to agree. It has moved quickly to control the damage. After getting Dayashankar Singh to apologise to Mayawati, which she did not accept, the BJP promptly sacked him from his post as well as the party itself. He is now on the run as the state police are seeking to arrest him.
But this is too little too late. Loss in UP could well be the beginning of the end for Modi. He had set his eyes on retaining power in 2019 but that dream could quickly vanish. But he has still not said anything that can be construed as condemnation of these acts. No amount of economic progress, even if possible, will do any good if there is no social harmony. The healing process, like charity, has to begin at home, in this case the BJP. This physician has to heal himself.


Forty views on 
Rahul’s 40 winks 


Did Rahul Gandhi really go to sleep during last week’s parliament session?  If so what, ask some Congressmen. No, let him sleep, we didn’t miss him anyway, says the BJP.
The House was discussing the beating up of the four Dalit youths in Gujarat by Hindu zealots for the “crime” of skinning a dead cow. Lok Sabha TV, which has exclusive rights to telecast House proceedings, panned the benches and caught Gandhi sitting head bowed for an inordinately long time.
Members of parliament belonging to the Congress Party were rightfully agitated at what had happened in Gujarat. They charged the BJP government, both in the state and at the Centre, of being anti-Dalit just to appease the upper caste Hindus. 
Several Congress members like K C Venugopal from Kerala, who was sitting right next to Gandhi in the second row, Deepender Hooda from Haryana and Gaurav Gogoi from Assam were up on their feet shouting at the top of their voices decrying the BJP’s attitude. But Rahul Gandhi sat head slightly bowed with his right hand on his forehead.
Explanations for Rahul’s motionless and emotionless posture came thick and fast. Noted lawyer and party spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi told the media later that Gandhi was checking his cell phone for messages. (The BJP said he must have been playing Pokemon Go!) 
Renuka Chowdhury, who can hold her own against the best of the opposition, took a more motherly view with a touch of medical knowledge to it. You see, she said, the heat outside is unbearable. When you come into an air-conditioned hall like the Lok Sabha, it is but natural to close your eyes for a bit to let the moisture in. Chowdhury seems to have conveniently forgotten that Gandhi had not exactly walked in from the heat but had been driven in from his air-conditioned house in his air-conditioned car, the total exposure to outside weather being just a few seconds. If for that he needs to “retain moisture” in his eyes, he may better see a doctor.
Jyotiraditya Scindia, like Gandhi the scion of a rich and famous family, had a third opinion about why the Congress vice-president had his eyes closed while all hell was breaking loose around him. During the 59-day sabbatical that Gandhi had in Myanmar and elsewhere last year, he had learned to meditate so as to clear his mind and compose his thoughts. So he was simply practising meditation in Lok Sabha, said Scindia.
The BJP simply wondered why Gandhi chose to meditate/moisten his eyes/check his cell phone and do anything else when the matter that was under discussion was a serious one and he himself was scheduled to visit the four Gujarat youths and their families the very next day. Pokemon or not, politicians can play games of their own for sure!