It wasn’t just a rhetorical metamorphosis; the prime minister induced a discursive rupture, dragging the gullible from the dreamland into the abyss of despair. The unreal world woven with Vishwaguru fantasies, fourth largest economy brag and danka-baj-raha-hai hallucinations crashed. The dream in the dazzling attire all of a sudden turned into a nightmare in tatters.Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked the citizens to stay home to save petrol, consume less edible oil and avoid buying gold. Experts warned of a crisis; a long-term struggle, stagflation and more. What changed overnight? The war in West Asia? But the war started on February 28. Modi never threw any hint of a lurking crisis; he promised rapid development while campaigning in election-bound states, held grand rallies and roadshows, as if squandering money is no expense. He called a special session of parliament to surreptitiously push delimitation and used the exceptional instrument of address-to-the-nation to malign “anti-women” political opponents. Not a whisper on any kind of a crisis; even the demonstrated reality of millions struggling for gas cylinders was dismissed as panic-mongering. Did Modi try to hide the crisis and delay the national response to the multiple challenges to insulate his party from electoral impact? Isn’t that a classic example of an anti-national act? It’s wrong to lay the entire blame on the Iran war. The economy wasn’t in a good shape at all; dressed up for so long by forged data and white lies. The consequences of war are doubtless linked to lack of autonomy in foreign policy. Who is responsible for the reckless alignment with Israel and surrender to US blackmail? Who was assigned the task of looking after India’s energy security over the last decade? Who wasted time in mixing religion with politics, on the toxic polarising agenda, on breaking parties and buying MLAs, in framing activists and critics in false charges? Who misled the nation about Sengol, Kumbh and Ram temple being the driving force behind national reconstruction? Who burnt resources on Kanwariya, lighting up lakhs of lamps and illegal vigilantism? Who legitimised fake babas recklessly destroying scientific temper by promoting superstition? The supply shock was bound to pose challenges but India wasn’t prepared for a response. The talk of India’s phenomenal rise was hollow rhetoric, resting on false premises rather than solid foundations. Wasn’t Make-in-India a disaster? How many big industries were set up during the last 12 years? How many new universities were opened and how many existing ones upgraded to global level? Was there any concrete plan to execute the atmanirbhar project? Didn’t Modi create a false impression by hyping up mobile-phone exports as a manufacturing success when we only assembled imported parts from China? Isn’t it a fact that our top industrialists were happy selling salt, cooking oil, wheat flour, tea and biscuits instead of investing in new technology and innovations? The government this week took a decision on gasification of coal, allocating Rs 37,500 crore for the project. India aims to make 100 metric tonnes of gas from coal, called syngas, by 2030. China is the global leader producing 350 metric tonnes of syngas annually. China also surged ahead in solar power, producing 48% of the global capacity. The Chinese Yuan is only 6.7 for one US dollar. Indian rupee is 95.60 for a dollar. Why? Because the Chinese government is not obsessed with cheap politicking, harassment of opponents, use of false narratives as diversionary tricks, and religiosity. We were dancing about our fastest growing economy without realising that India is placed at the bottom half in per capita income. The crisis isn’t caused by war; the reality has been unmasked, the reality of Modi’s lack of vision and commitment. A crude truth The Manmohan Singh government constantly faced high crude oil prices, ranging between $100 and $140 per barrel. But diesel was sold at Rs 38.10 per litre in 2010, Rs 37.75 in 2011, Rs 40.91 in 2012, Rs 48.63 in 2013 and Rs 55.48 in 2014. Modi was extremely lucky as the crude rates fell dramatically, hovering between $40 and $70 per barrel, less than half of what Manmohan faced. While diesel price was less than Rs 60 per litre till 2019, it breached Rs 80 mark in 2020, reaching Rs 90 in many cities by 2022. Even now in the midst of war, crude price is around $102 per barrel but diesel price is over Rs 90. Modi has used the war as an excuse but did he pass on the benefits to consumers when the crude price was hovering between $40 and $50? No.The Congress has claimed the Modi government earned around Rs 43 lakh crore by taxing petroleum products in the last 11 years. That’s profiteering off people’s woes. Roughly Rs 1,000 crore a day. A government that pocketed Rs 43 lakh crore from petroleum products could have easily suffered a loss of Rs 20-30 thousand crore during this crisis to insulate the ordinary people from the curse of war. But Modi can suffer losses for winning elections, not for giving comfort to the poor. His government has the dubious distinction of invariably raising the price of petrol-diesel soon after elections. But Modi could have shown some mercy in these wretched times. The gas cylinder, available to the poor for Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,400 in black now costs Rs 4,000. Talk to any worker on the street and you discover they are skipping meals or surviving on biscuits or bananas because of the spurt in prices. The drama of curtailing the number of cars in minister’s convoys, or occupants of Rajbhawan talking of austerity, looks so cheap against the reality of hunger. Leaders who spend thousands of crore on self-publicity, whose public rallies cost Rs 25- 30 crore each, should stop the theatrics of simplicity. This country has seen Mahatma Gandhi who didn’t have to cut down on his luxurious life in times of crisis. Simplicity was his way of life. Wait, tweet or fight? Imagine BJP’s belligerence if a Congress Prime Minister was in such a miserable plight – pushed below the 272-mark in the election, accused of surrender to US blackmail, messed up foreign policy, grappling with vote-chori allegations, unemployment and price-rise troubling majority of the population. The BJP would have either forced the prime minister to quit or paralysed the whole system. But the opposition parties today are in deep slumber, waking up between whiles to quibble or tweet only to disappear from the scene for long periods. The country will get fed up with Modi’s shenanigans one day, giving us power on a platter – that’s the belief feeding opposition leaders’ hope lying dormant in their broken hearts. When Rahul Gandhi so forcefully started his campaign against vote-chori, releasing substantive data to put the Election Commission in the dock, who would have imagined he would abandon the fight without getting a credible remedy? The Bihar election was fought against the grim backdrop of these allegations but the response of the opposition parties after the unusual result, with the BJP strike rate touching 90%, was less than a whine or a whimper. RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav’s silence after the result showcased unimaginable timidity. It is difficult to believe that Mamata Banerjee will summon the courage to fight the Bengal results, which she described as loot, either legally or politically. Akhilesh Yadav, who will face a similar fate in Uttar Pradesh next year, showed solidarity with Mamata but no action plan has been unveiled to rectify the flaws in the election processes.Gandhi too fell silent after this acerbic tweet: “Assam and Bengal are clear cases of the election being stolen by the BJP with the support of the Election Commission. We agree with Mamata ji. More than 100 seats were stolen in Bengal. We have seen this playbook before: Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Lok Sabha 2024 etc. Chunav Chori, Sanstha Chori – ab aur chaara hi kya hai!” The prime minister will be chuckling to himself if the opposition parties fall silent after making such explosive allegations. Modi should be convinced by now that these parties do not have the resolve of the farmers who sat on the road for over a year, lost 700 of their colleagues, and retreated only after defeating the government. Modi has a skin thick enough to tolerate the sting of a couple of nasty tweets and occasional slings in parliament. If that’s the cost of being in power, the BJP will merrily pay for the next 50 years.Sanjay K. Jha is a political commentator.