Rahul Gandhi, for once, has hit the nail on the head: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is no longer capable of running the country. In his familiar bumbling and fumbling ways, however, the Leader of Opposition confuses his message as he says this is because the prime minister is “compromised’. At issue is not the nature of ‘compromise’, if there is any; rather, the question is one of simple competence. To put it bluntly, the crux of the matter is the ruling party’s obsession with Hindutva which, ipso facto, has become an alibi for incompetence and is incapable of translating into good governance.For over a decade now, many thinking Indians as well as most of those in the Hindutva constituency have allowed themselves to believe that if the Narendra Modi regime is given electoral ‘mandate’ after ‘mandate’, the Indian state’s crisis of governance would get tackled efficiently and competently. The vast majority of Indians have been made to believe that we have become a ‘hard power’, a ‘muscular nation’, and a ‘developed’ country with the third or fourth – what is one place up or down among friends and sycophants – largest economy in the world. And, those who choose to be Doubting Thomases are told to look around to see how our leaders are being wooed and courted on the global stage. We have been assured on good authority that we are now authorised gurus to the Vishwa (world.)Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.This nicely-painted Potemkin rangoli was rudely unmade by Prime Minister Modi himself when he asked citizens to be austere and prudent in their travel and consumption. Though his officials were super-quick to tamp down any talk of rationing, we have been jolted out of our collective sense of satisfaction. The prime minister has suddenly injected a sense of precariousness – sending editorial writers and other drum-beaters into a tizzy, belabouring the need for more ‘reforms’ and more ‘hard’ decisions, without anyone explaining what has prevented the regime from doing what obviously needs to be done.Modi and his ministers need to be told that they cannot blame the ‘West Asia conflict’ for our current crisis. Anyone can drive an automatic car on a highway; the test of the driver’s skills, temperament and psychological make-up comes when there is a need to avoid an incoming car from the wrong side or when negotiating the chaotic traffic of Paharganj in Delhi. After ten years, Hindutva’s shining Mercedes stands dented, for everyone to see.Rahul Gandhi is off the mark by directing his central fire on a ‘compromised’ prime minister. Rather, the fundamental question is one of incompetence – and that too not just of one individual or leader.The reason for the incompetence all around us is not that complicated. A decade of political dominance has now sanctified group-think, call it Modi-itis: that we are 24-carat deshbakhts who put the nation above the party, and the party above self or family. We are protectors of the Hindus because the Nagpur-honed theology of us versus them is the only correct view of Indian society. We have good intentions; we are honest, we are sincere, and, therefore, we are entitled to deference, respect, compliance and obedience – never mind the constitution and its guarantees of fundamental rights. And, we have a duty to shut down anyone who questions our motives and methods. Authoritarianism, did you say? Oh, for god’s sake, get real.This group-think has now congealed into a working mantra. No need for any wisdom or ideas from ‘Harvard’ when ‘hard work’ will suffice. Our man is pitching the perfect game – to use a baseball analogy for when the pitcher retires 27 batters in nine innings without letting anyone reach base. As we are blessed with the most competent master of all trades, the country is already soaking in the benefits of amrit kaal.So, why do we get the sense that Naya Bharat is stalled? Why all these calls for spending prudence and austerity? Why this push for work from home? Why is the official cant not yielding results? Why are citizens and consumers being made to bear the brunt of organised incompetence? And, above all, why is no one pointing out that a decade of ‘vikas’ has produced unchecked and unlimited crony capitalism? That the crooked corporate chickens are coming home to roost?We tend to forget that crony capitalism does not thrive in isolation. A decade of crony capitalism on Prime Minister Modi’s watch has blunted all our institutions and their efficaciousness. It is in the very nature of crony capitalism that it must degrade all sites of lawfulness and compromise all forums of organised competence.A decade of crony capitalism has spawned institutional dysfunctionality on a massive scale. We have a crony media dishing out fiction as facts on nightly shows and are at their creative best in generating viciousness on social media. We have crony judges who rebuke environmentalists for obstructing development and projects. We have crony statisticians who fudge figures and data and crony Niti-Aayogers who produce expert research papers in alignment with the Leader’s claims and boasts. We have crony bureaucrats who find the law, the rules and regulations and the precedents to help crooked ‘entrepreneurs’ not pay back the taxpayers’ money. And, then, we have the Enforcement Directorate, the income-tax inspector and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to concoct cases against the crony capitalists’ business rivals and other ‘obstructionists’.These assorted dysfunctionalities are converging to produce an overload of incompetence. We are handicapped as a system to deal effectively with the West Asia-centric crisis. In his characteristic manner, Prime Minister Modi himself has “outed” the crisis. His message is loud and clear: this is it. This is the best that can be done by me and my cronies – and, we as citizens must brace up for hardship and scarcity. After all, citizens, too, have duties. This is the true meaning of Kartavya Path. Fall in line.Harish Khare was editor-in-chief of The Tribune.This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.