Do you remember the date, December 10, 2020? The lockdown had not yet been lifted fully. There were indications that Covid-19 would return more virulently. The nation had seen tens of thousands of migrant workers with their families walking all the way from cities like New Delhi to their villages, hundreds of miles away.

Leaders of most countries were busy announcing financial and other reliefs to their citizens to tide over the problems Coronavirus had created. The lockdown, initially for 21 days, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on March 24, 2020, was the least planned and the cruelest.

What engaged the attention of Modi all the while was the new Parliament building, the blueprint of which he had approved. Has the old Parliament House collapsed? Or, had it been declared dangerous that it could no longer be the home of Indian Parliament with two Houses?

In fact, inaugurated in 1927, it had not even completed 100 years. Parliament buildings in countries like Germany, Iceland, Britain and the US were older by several centuries. One of the newest parliament buildings is in Myanmar, where the military junta built a brand new Capital called Naypyidaw (Royal Capital) with a new parliament far away from Rangoon.

It was a surprise that Modi went ahead with the laying of the foundation stone for the new parliament building. Of course, he did not invite either President Ram Nath Kovind or Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu because he knew that as per the Warrant of Precedence, he came after them. For the sake of formality, he invited Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.

True to his word, Modi got the building completed in two-and-a-half years, i.e., less than half the time architects Sir Edwin Lutyens and Sir Herbert Baker took to construct the old, circular building, which remains an architectural beauty. Incidentally, both were built by Indian workers. 

While imported cranes and construction equipment helped in quickening the construction, Baker had to use elephants, donkeys and bullocks to construct what was known as the Imperial Legislature. Photographs exist of Parliament House in various stages of construction, whereas no photographers were allowed anywhere near the area once construction began in 2020.

Modi wanted to provide a dazzling spectacle to the people from the moment he got down from his car in front of the new Parliament building till he walked, alone, all the way to the “sanctum sanctorum”. 

For a few minutes he was the only person in view. With his trimmed beard, exquisite costume, complete with a rich, shining angavastram, he looked dapper as he took measured steps in his shining black shoes. Photographers had to keep pace with him to record his long walk for posterity.

There was a large group of swamis, heads of some mutts in Tamil Nadu, brought to Delhi at state cost and accommodated and feted at Ashoka Hotel for three days. Millions of countrymen who saw Parliament as the seat of people’s power would have been saddened, if not shocked, when they saw Modi doing sashtang pranam before the ochre-clad.

Even more saddening was to see him, as commanded by the priests, pouring ghee into the holy fire, and doing rituals that would have done a religious head proud. Even more ludicrous was the sight of the Prime Minister accepting the Sengol from the swamis, as if the electoral victory he had in 2014 and 2019 had not mattered.

A story was cooked up that the Sengol symbolised the transfer of power. It is true that some Swamis from Tamil Nadu, got a Sengol, wrapped with gold and topped with a Nandi, made and presented to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on the eve of Independence Day.

It was C. Rajagopalachari’s idea. It is a different matter that Nehru did not want Rajagopalachari to become the first President. 

There is no evidence, photographic or otherwise, to back the Sangh Parivar claim that the Sengol was first given to Viceroy Lord Mountbatten. In that case, the Viceroy should have given it to Nehru. This cock-and-bull story was created to justify the planting of the Sengol in Parliament. The Sengol represents superstition and myth-making. Nehru knew its true value. He sent it to a museum in Allahabad where it has been lying till it was retrieved by Modi for his coronation-like ceremony.

The President and the Vice-President should feel happy that they were not invited to the function, which had been reduced to a religious event. People who watched the event on television would have felt sorry for Om Birla, who had to sit beside Modi and watch his doings like an amused child.

Of course, Modi had done his rehearsals and knew beforehand how to carry  the Sengol to the Speaker’s podium and install it at the designated place. None of the party leaders or his ministerial colleagues had any role to play except sit and watch as the Great Leader provided a spectacle of the century.

Modi has completed nine years as Prime Minister. Was his rule so far without temporal and spiritual sanctity? The architect who designed the building said the triangular shape was because of the land where he had to build. If many saw it like a coffin, they could not be faulted.

A few days ago, Britain organised a coronation. It once ruled an Empire where the sun never set. The royalty is retained because it provides scoops for gossip columnists. Otherwise, it has little utility.

Modi never saw himself as just a Prime Minister. When he was sworn in as PM, he invited kings and prime ministers from neighbouring countries, including Pakistan, as if it was to bestow a crown upon his head. None of his predecessors allowed their swearing-in ceremony to be compared to a coronation. It was a mundane, constitutional affair.

The “consecration” of the new Parliament building happened days after the severe drubbing Modi received in Karnataka. It had no effect on him. He went ahead with his plans in the supreme confidence that nobody could challenge him. In fact, he cared two hoots for such criticism.

A few years ago when he donned the religious garb while laying the foundation stone for the new temple at Ayodhya and while inaugurating the Kashi Vishwanath Dham Corridor project, people saw it as a joke. Some even lampooned him little realising what he was coming to.

The new Parliament building is not yet complete. It will take another month to complete the finishing touches. When I photographed the building from outside, I could see workers coming out of it. The next session of Parliament is a few weeks away. What was the urgency to inaugurate it?

Modi wanted it to be inaugurated on the birth anniversary of V.D. Savarkar, who called himself Veer in a book he authored using a pseudonym. For starters, he was in Andaman jail and was released only after he wrote a series of mercy petitions to the British authorities. True to his word, he remained a disciplined subject of the British Queen.

It was Savarkar, not M.A. Jinnah, who first sowed the seeds of Partition. He is dear to Modi and the movement he represents because he is the author of Hindutva, which provided the ideological underpinning to the RSS and its offshoots, including the BJP.

Whatever might have been the slogans the Sangh Parivar used in the past to endear itself to the common people, it is wedded to the idea of declaring India a Hindu, theocratic nation. The RSS never approved of the Indian Constitution. It always claimed that it was a cut-and-paste job done under the auspices of Dr B.R. Ambedkar.

It did not accept the national anthem or even the national flag. When Modi became Prime Minister, he made an announcement that he would be guided only by the Constitution, and no other book. True, scriptural readings by representatives of the Christian, Muslim, Bahai and other faiths were allowed after the Ganapati Homam on May 28. 

Nine years after Modi came to power, there is not a single Muslim minister at the Centre. All the institutions of the state have been captured by the Sangh Parivar.

There are two Governors belonging to the Muslim community. One is S. Abdul Nazeer in Andhra Pradesh. He is one of the judges of the Supreme Court who gave the Ayodhya verdict in favour of the Hindus. After his retirement, he made a speech where he argued that a more traditional text like the Manusmriti (The laws of Manu) should have been the basis of the Indian state. The other Governor is in Kerala.

All the institutions of the state, including universities and educational centres of excellence, are now controlled by those who owe allegiance to the RSS. The NCERT has decided not to teach the theory of evolution in schools. Charles Darwin would have turned in his grave when he heard this decision which would allow alternative, Hindu religion-based theories to be taught.

When the Constitution enjoins upon the state and its functionaries to promote scientific temper, the Prime Minister shows the world that the right place for ghee is not in the stomach of the needy, emaciated children but in the holy fire. Alas, the Constitution remains subverted without resort to provisions like the Emergency.

Occasionally, the Supreme Court makes some “sound and fury”, to quote the Bard, that suggest that it remains independent and vigilant. The present Chief Justice was one of those who gave the Ayodhya verdict. Days after the court gave a verdict in favour of the Delhi government, the Union Government promulgated an ordinance to undo the verdict. Kejriwal is back in the court.

A law was created to freeze the status of the disputed structures at Varanasi and Mathura but this has not prevented a lower court from hearing the case in Varanasi. Similarly, the Supreme Court says the Manipur High Court does not have the authority to declare a community as belonging to the Scheduled Tribe category. Yet, it allows the same court to hear the case because it does not want to shoulder the responsibility.

It is now more than a month since an anti-Christian pogrom began in Manipur. Every single Christian family in Imphal was driven out of the Capital. Their properties have been looted and the buildings burnt. Militias of the Chief Minister have been using weapons seized from the police to terrorise the Christians.

When there is resistance, the resistors are branded as insurgents and shot. And when the Christians who were wiped off the valley demand special status for the hills where a majority of them live, Home Minister Amit Shah says the state’s integrity is inviolable.

It was the same Shah who in the name of scrapping Article 370 of the Constitution reduced the status of Jammu and Kashmir to a Union Territory. When he himself conceded the demand of the Buddhists of Leh for a separate UT status, he was unmindful of the pathetic conditions of the Manipuri Christians who cannot return to their old houses and have to remain in the hills at the mercy of the state.

This is the new India that Modi has created. Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh is not wide of the mark when he says that if Modi gets another chance in 2024, the 2029 election will be held on his terms. He will decide who can contest and who cannot contest.

In the name of conversion, pastors and priests are arrested and sent to jail. There is a child welfare body which is busy raiding children’s homes and orphanages run by Christian organisations. A few years ago, its chief sent a notice to all children’s homes to close down and send the children to their parental homes, as if they had such homes.

A government that values a criminal-turned-politician and accused of sexual assault more than its sportswomen who brought glory to the country has no place in a civilised world. The sooner it is consigned to the dustbin of history, the better it is for the country, its democratic, secular and liberal values. It is now or never.
ajphilip@gmail.com