Humour and knowledge are the two great hopes of civilisation: Konrad Lorenz
The Narendra Modi regime, carefully constructed as an unassailable fortress of absolute power, has suddenly begun to look permeable.
Two new developments challenge the desired image of seamless centralisation. One is the weakening of social prohibitions against mocking Modi in public, and the other is information leaks from within the system.
The inability of the regime to handle public lampooning of the prime minister or respond credibly to the leaks in the Election Commission of India (ECI) reveals cracks in a system that was supposed to be in complete control of the political narrative. Even journalists seem to no longer be afraid of writing critically of the regime’s reactions to these events.
Public mocking signals people questioning the psychological control the leader may have exercised over their behaviour. By having fun at his expense, they make him laughable, and render his foibles all too familiar.
The material dimension of Modi’s authority has begun to erode with officials leaking information about internal contestation and questioning of policy decisions, as they believe it to be in the public interest. As institutional disagreements make their way into the public domain, the aura of unanimity is punctured.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) reacted in a hypersensitive way to comedian-satirist Pulkit Mani impersonating Narendra Modi at Rahul Gandhi’s Chhatron Ki Goonj event in Indore. BJP leaders were less disturbed by someone daring to mimic Modi yet again — and more by the fact that the spoof of Modi was enacted before a large and appreciative youth audience, on a public stage, and with the Leader of the Opposition also laughing alongside.
The comic’s miming and impersonation of Modi’s gestures, vocal mannerisms, use of catchphrases, and clumsiness with English made it different from ordinary political criticism. The effectiveness of his act lay in making Modi, a powerful figure, into someone laughable and familiar — and a fair target to boot. No wonder the BJP slammed the Congress a party of “comedians and jokers”, and beat their breasts about deterioration in public discourse.
Had Mani performed in a comedy club, the BJP cadre might have attacked only him (he has been threatened and his shows cancelled). However, Rahul Gandhi’s presence and the laughter of the audience made his act politically consequential. It underlines Modi’s uneasy relationship with youth culture, especially galling as the incident stripped him of the deference he expects as prime minister.
Modi’s public persona rests on the contradictory claim of at once being an ‘ordinary Joe’ (chai seller, humble origins, mother working as a domestic help, and familiar with an informal and youthful vocabulary) and also simultaneously being an extraordinary leader (a decisive commander, a world statesman or Vishwaguru, having a mystical origin, and indispensable as prime minister). For a long time, he has convincingly bridged the gap between the two.
Public ridicule, however, collapses this contradiction, suggesting that he is ordinary enough to imitate. Against media adulation, those ridiculing him say he is mockable. Their disrespect arises from a shared experience of ‘fixed’ examinations, exorbitant fees, a deteriorating education system, and joblessness.
The BJP’s attempt to occupy the high moral ground on political discourse is deceitful as Modi’s own record of jeering at opponents from public platforms forcefully introduced a new abrasive element into national political discourse. He has routinely used sarcasm as a political weapon and caricatured rivals for their body language, their speech patterns, and coined insulting names for them. Can he afford to be thin-skinned now?
What makes mockery a political danger to Modi is that it has provided a common language for the electorate — the youth in particular, to represent their grievances, and what they perceive as the indifference of the State. Ridiculing Modi is no longer just entertainment; it is an articulation of political dissent.
The surfacing of disagreements within the government shows a weakening of his command over State institutions. While public ridicule undermines the psychological basis of his rule, the dissent within erodes the material aspect (control over government machinery, police, the power to reward and punish, etc.) of his rule.
Ashish Joshi, a retired civil servant, was picked up during a morning walk and questioned for nine hours over his claim of rifts between the home minister and home secretary on the use of police force against student protestors. The government’s unwarranted over-reaction to a social media post shows how the possibility of any erosion in the cultivated image of internal discipline and control can reduce it to panic.
The ECI episode is far more consequential. The Indian Express reported 14 instances over 10 months in which two of the three election commissioners recorded objections to decisions of the chief election commissioner. These disagreements concerned voter registration and deletion, electoral roll management, unilateral changes in Form 6 that created hurdles for new eligible voters, and alleged blocking and manipulation of software for unauthorised ends.
The differences within the constitutional body have been recorded in official proceedings. Despite having been handpicked by the government, the two election commissioners opposed what they considered procedural wrongs. Such differences could not have reached the public domain unless leaked by an insider.
The ECI insists there is no institutional rupture, claiming decisions were ultimately unanimous. Yet the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) controversy added another layer of failure. One election commissioner himself found his name flagged for discrepancy, though later validated. The credibility of the system — meant to demonstrate administrative precision — has also been questioned by the Supreme Court, which noted that notices of “logical discrepancies” in the SIR process in the national capital, Delhi, were issued “mechanically”.
Thus, the ECI’s procedures are being questioned both internally and externally. The ECI leak incident shows that centralised control over the bureaucracy may be weakening with officials being less willing to maintain silence in the face of decisions they consider wrong.
Taken together with the irreverent laughter at Indore, where youth in the audience refused to be taken in by the choreographed pantomime of Modi the great leader, it may well be that the regime’s tough seams are fraying.
The Modi system was designed to be impermeable. But public ridicule and internal leaks show that even the most tightly controlled regimes cannot weather the forces when social energy and institutional conscience begin to seep through.
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