Ponmala

A few literary works have become part of the language and are used as vernacular phrase, because they accurately describe certain category of people or are prophetic in nature. One of the oldest in this category is the Greek mythological story of Narcissus. It tells the story of a handsome youth who loved no one till he saw his own reflection in water and fell in love with that. From it came the word ‘narcissistic’, used to describe a person with a personality disorder that is a combination of inflated sense of oneself, excessive attention seeking and a lack of empathy for others. Another Greek mythology inspired idiom is Pandora’s Box. In that story, Pandora opens a jar left in her care containing sickness, death and many other evils, which were then released into the world.
‘Frankenstein’ means a monstrous creation that ruins its originator. It is a fictional character in Mary Shelly’s 1818 novel Frankenstein. ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ is a term used about persons with a dual nature: outwardly good, but also shockingly evil within. It was adopted from R L Stevenson’s novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, first published in 1886. George Orwell’s 1949 novel 1984 contributed the phrase Big Brother to the English language. It means a person or organisation exercising total control over people’s lives. It appears in this sentence of the book: “Big Brother will be watching you this week when spy cameras start to operate in Essex.”
When all these idiomatic attributes come together in a ruler, what a heady cocktail it can be for a nation! Drunk on such a cocktail called Narendra Modi, we as a nation are now floating in the clouds.
When a young man saw his own reflection in the RSS mirror at a very young age, he fell in love with himself. Abandoning his young wife Jashodaben, he fled from home and worked his way up through the RSS to become the Prime Minister of India. From the word go, Narendra Modi has been a narcissistic attention seeker. What a hyped show his 2014 swearing-in ceremony was! It was to be beaten only by the huge rallies held in his honour on his 92 trips to 57 countries to project him as the world’s most popular leader and India’s all time great. The two custom made planes costing 12,000 crores for his foreign trips are now sadly Covid stricken.
A litany of praises is recited round the clock by his worshippers, paused only for the duration of his sermon man ki baat broadcast once a month. Any role from that of ruler to guru to fashion model to adventurer (he headed into the wilderness with Bear Grylls of Man Vs wild fame)… is child’s play for him. His birthday celebrations are designed to draw global attention. In 2018, Indian skydiver Sheetal Mahajan jumped from a height of 13,000 feet above Chicago holding a placard to wish him on his birthday. Every Covid certificate carries his image. And all this at the cost of a nation that ranks 101 out of 116 in the global hunger index and where petrol costs Rs 110/- a litre. Truly, an Indian avatar of Narcissus.
Modi opened his Pandora’s Box twice. He opened it first in 2016 to release demonetisation. Mayhem ensued. People died waiting in serpentine queues, small businesses went under, unemployment skyrocketed and the economy got punctured. He opened the Box again the following year to release GST. Tax collection went haywire. Tax revenue dropped. Small businesses suffered further. But Modi splurged money on buying off MLAs to topple governments in opposition ruled states.
Modi the Big Brother bought the spyware Pegasus to snoop on any and every individual who was perceived as a possible threat, including opposition leaders, media men, a judge, the chief election commissioner and even a member of his cabinet. Pegasus invades an individual’s mobile and does surveillance on all of his or her activities. The individual will have no privacy left. Modi used national security as a shield for this Big Brother activity, but the Supreme Court was not amused. It has ordered a court monitored enquiry headed by a retired judge. A ray of hope for the 1.4 billion people who inhabit Mera Bharat Mahan at last!
In the case of Modi, the phrase Jekyll and Hyde scores over the rest – outwardly noble and shockingly base within. At home he unleashes investigating agencies against his opponents, slaps draconian laws against those who expose him and keeps them endlessly in gaol, and while abroad he lectures on human rights to heads of state. A few democratic countries had declared Modi persona non grata after the murder of Muslims in Gujarat under his watch. But an SIT that was instituted to enquire into it found him not guilty and a lower court gave its approval to that finding. The Supreme Court has now overruled the lower court’s verdict and opened the way for a fresh enquiry. That could hopefully expose the Jekyll and Hyde in Modi.
Again, even as Modi keeps mum about attacks on Christians, priests, nuns and churches, and does precious little to stop them, he plans to meet the Pope in the Vatican; even as he woos Syrian Christians to get a foothold in Kerala, he dispatches the Enforcement Directorate to probe against Cardinal Alencherry, head of the Syro-Malabar Church. Jesus would have called him whitened sepulchre. But that does not in any way deter a faction of the Syro-Malabar Church from seeking protection under Modi’s wings against love jihad and narcotic jihad.