From a Nehru dynasty fan to a Modi ‘Bhakt’… it

I joined Twitter in December 2008 and till about mid-March of this year I had a measly 770 odd followers. Then one day that month I got the shock of my life to discover that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had started following me. Suddenly my twitter numbers began to rise and the fun tweets became serious business. And from being just another twitter handle I was labelled a Modi bhakt!

So, it seems, following the prime minister and being followed by him has become a crime and all the ‘nobodies’ and ‘busybodies’ on Twitter have a view on that. Worse is the fact that whether I write for or against the PM I am still subjected to abuse from both sides. I have been ridiculed, insulted, abused in a language used by alcoholic lowlifes, my mother (God bless her soul) has been abused because I tweeted something where I didn’t even criticise Modi but those who criticised demonetisation. But because I support Modi, people think I’m a khaki-wearing, trishul carrying bhakt who mutters “mandir wahi banayenge” even in my sleep! Honestly, I couldn’t care less, about khaki shorts, RSS, or a trishul. Although I daresay my views about the mandir have changed since I first wrote this blogpost. It seems today it is a fate worse than death for any Hindu and more so for one who supports Modi. It’s a double whammy.

My father, Bishweshwar Prasad Sinha, was a part of Mahatma Gandhi’s Non-cooperation Movement right from the 1930s as a youngster and while he didn’t agree with Nehru’s views he still regarded him highly. He even contested elections against the Congress from Phulpur and was the only candidate who didn’t lose his deposit. In those days, you could put up a lamppost as a Congress candidate and it would win. He was also a true blue Socialist like Ram Manohar Lohia, Madhu Limaye, Jaya Prakash Narayan and others. I remember my mother telling me how Lohia, who was a regular visitor to our home in Patna, would rubbish Nehru and his ancestry.

My mom Lakshmi, on the other hand, was a ‘dynasty fan. She was a diehard Nehru dynasty fan right from the days of Motilal Nehru. She would always speak glowingly of Jawahar Lal Nehru and how my father took her and my elder brother to meet Nehru in Delhi. Nehru supposedly hoisted my brother, who was then 3 or 4, on his shoulders and took him for a walk around the grounds of his home. Heck, she even named my elder brother Rajiv. When I was born, she was determined to name me Sanjay. Thankfully, my father put his foot down with “One Nehru/Gandhi in the family is enough!”

My mother’s family too seemed to have been big fans of Pandit Nehru and we even had Nehru staring down at us from our living room wall in our home in Pune, until, one day, I banished it into the storeroom where it stayed until it was packed and crated with the rest of the stuff when we shifted houses. I never saw it again. And in those times, a Freddie Mercury or a Gabriela Sabatini poster held more sway than one of Nehru!

Meanwhile, my grandparents, Barrister Valoor Krishna Menon (not to be confused with Nehru’s man V.K. Krishna Menon) and Janaki amma, in Thrissur, named their new home Gandhi Mandiram after the great man stayed there during his travails around the country when he launched the Quit India movement. (see attached image for story and pic of Gandhi Mandiram, which is today a Homestay).

It so happened that some Congressman (see attachment) asked my grandfather whether he

would have a problem if Gandhi stayed at their newly constructed home on Dewan Narayana Menon Road (named after my great-grandfather) in Chembukavvu and he was more than happy to oblige. Gandhi Mandiram also played host to Babu Rajendra Prasad, Madan Mohan Malavya, Pattabhi Seetharamiah and Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya. My mom, however, took her Nehru obsession a step further.

When my brother was getting married, imagine her delight when she heard the girl’s name was Sonia. She did something that she claimed was on a whim but I have my doubts. What she did a few weeks before the wedding was that she sent the wedding card to Rajiv Gandhi with a note “Somewhere in this world another Rajiv weds another Sonia. Won’t you grace the occasion with your presence and bless the young couple?” Expecting the PM to attend a wedding of a namesake was a far cry, I don’t think she expected even a response. When we returned from the wedding the maid told us the postman had been coming around and was refusing to hand over the letter to anyone but my mother. The next day the postman landed up and refused to hand over the letter without a hefty tip.

He said, “When I saw the Prime Minister’s seal there’s no way I could leave the letter here without a baksheesh.” The letter was a signed personally by Rajiv Gandhi. I was very impressed by the man’s class, but my mother treated the letter as some sort of proxy at the wedding reception!

Even in the elections in 1984, that followed the Delhi riots where Rajiv said those famous words, we still voted for the Congress. It was the first election I was voting and my mother made me promise I wouldn’t vote for anyone but Rajiv. Who could turn down a mother’s request, not that there was any other option in those days. So it was a custom in my family to vote for the Congress and all these years until 2014 I voted for the party. In 2014 too, I didn’t vote for Modi or the BJP/Sena candidate from our constituency. So what changed it?

In one para, the arrogance of the Gandhi family that they were above the law and above any regulations that governed this nation. That this family could do what it wanted, say what it wanted and like the royalty of old were protected by courtiers who would place a protective shield around them at all times, was something I found unacceptable. The fact was hard to swallow.

Then came the speech by Sonia Gandhi in LS on the Food Security Bill where she said: “I don’t care where the money comes from…” and then there was the Right to Education Bill and I decided I could do without the Congress brand of appeasement politics and reservations without a thought for the taxpayer, and promised I would NEVER vote again for the Congress party. Kapil Sibal said it well enough with his “They are the Gandhis, blah blah…”

Then post 2014 May, when became the PM I noticed an entire ecosystem that chanted ‘not my PM’. They were egged on by the Congress to oppose the PM and anything he did. They were finding it difficult to digest that they were out of power. That this lowly Gujarati could storm their citadel was unacceptable to them.

I think it’s clear as daylight that Rahul Gandhi just doesn’t have it in him to be an astute politician, and his sister even less. They are both living in their rarified ecosystem that fawns on them. Good for them! I’d rather vote for a Modi or anyone else this country can produce than a member of a family that believes it has the right to rule and is not answerable for its actions.

(Updated on Jan 12, 2024)