Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent address to the Rajya Sabha was not a statesman’s summation of governance. It was a campaign speech delivered from the commanding heights of power – the very style of politics he once rose by condemning.As a challenger, Modi built his appeal on rejecting governments that confused dominance with legitimacy, spectacle with substance, and rhetoric with stewardship. He warned against leaders who governed through polarisation rather than persuasion, through volume rather than reason, through emotional mobilisation rather than moral authority. Yet, in this latest parliamentary address, he relied on precisely those methods.The speech, long on invective and short on introspection, did more than blur the line between campaigning and governing. It erased it. Parliament, the republic’s most sacred deliberative institution, became a rally stage. And with that transformation came a deeper democratic question: What happens when a leader continues to behave like an insurgent long after becoming sovereign?In parliamentary democracies, the executive’s task is not to overpower debate but to elevate it. A prime minister is not only a political combatant; he is the custodian of the republic’s moral register. His words establish institutional tone. His restraint signals constitutional maturity. His respect for dissent defines democratic norms.Modi’s speech did the opposite. Instead of confronting unemployment, widening inequality, institutional erosion, federal strain, or economic fragility, he returned to grievance, point-scoring and caricature. Its structure was unmistakably that of a campaign: identify enemies, rehearse victories, invoke civilisational destiny, and recast criticism as betrayal.This style mobilises emotion, consolidates identity and wins elections. But when imported into parliament, it transforms deliberation into confrontation and accountability into applause. Governance becomes performance. Institutions become props.In mature democracies, leaders undergo a rhetorical and moral shift when they assume office. Their language slows, tone deepens and vocabulary matures. They move from the grammar of insurgency to the syntax of stewardship.Modi has resisted that transition. His address aligns him with a global pattern in which populist leaders never stop campaigning. Power does not moderate them; it radicalises them. Governance does not steady their tone; it intensifies polarisation.Donald Trump in the United States, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, each treated institutions less as guardians of equilibrium than as obstacles to be theatrically dominated. Modi’s speech echoed this tradition. It spoke over the nation rather than to it. It demanded loyalty rather than reflection. It asserted inevitability rather than accountability.At its core lay a familiar populist manoeuvre: collapsing the distinction between leader and nation. To criticise the government is to betray India. To oppose policy becomes to obstruct destiny. To question power becomes to weaken civilisation. This is not mere hyperbole. It is democratic corrosion.The Rajya Sabha exists to moderate the tyranny of numerical majorities. Where the Lok Sabha expresses popular will, the Upper House embodies federal balance, institutional continuity and democratic caution. Modi’s address subverted that role. Opposition voices were dismissed, criticism ridiculed, and institutional concerns overshadowed by political theatre. Parliament itself was diminished.When heads of government treat legislative chambers as stages for narrative projection rather than arenas of scrutiny, democracy loses one of its last internal brakes. Power begins to circulate in closed loops, insulated from feedback and restraint. Democratic erosion rarely arrives through coups. It advances through the slow hollowing of institutions by spectacle and partisanship.True leadership is measured not by dominance but by moral credibility — the willingness to acknowledge imperfection, absorb criticism, and show humility before institutions larger than oneself. By that standard, the speech fell short. It conceded no error, offered no introspection, and recognised none of India’s complex governance challenges. Instead, it projected a seamless narrative of triumph, grievance, and destiny. Such absolutism does not produce strength. It produces fragility disguised as force.A striking feature of the address was its reliance on civilisational nationalism, an emotional reservoir that Modi has tapped with extraordinary electoral success. But nationalism in legislative settings often functions as evasion. It displaces policy scrutiny with emotional alignment. It converts economic hardship into civilisational struggle. It transforms administrative failure into ideological confrontation.In a society as diverse, unequal, and complex as India’s, this rhetoric carries particular risk. By framing governance through a civilisational lens, the speech implicitly divided citizens into believers and skeptics, patriots and obstructionists, insiders and outsiders. Nations are strengthened not by rhetorical homogenisation but by institutional pluralism, civic trust, and inclusive political language. Great leaders do not mobilise against segments of their own society, they unify across differences.Campaigning thrives on contrast; governance demands synthesis. Campaigning rewards emotional clarity; governance requires moral ambiguity. Campaigning celebrates certainty; governance lives within uncertainty. Campaigning mobilises anger; governance cultivates patience. Modi’s speech showed little movement between these modes.This reflects not merely rhetorical choice but a deeper structural problem: a political culture that increasingly rewards permanent mobilisation over durable institution-building. India requires precisely the opposite – patient reform, administrative modernisation, judicial independence, educational investment, healthcare transformation, and broad-based economic inclusion. None of these are advanced by campaign-style oratory inside the parliament.Modi commands extraordinary electoral dominance. His party controls vast institutional terrain. His personal popularity remains formidable. Yet the speech revealed a paradox: unprecedented power accompanied by diminishing gravitas. True authority steadies rather than shouts. It integrates rather than polarises. It earns trust rather than demands reverence.The most enduring democratic leaders — Lincoln, Mandela, Adenauer, Nehru — spoke with restraint because they understood the weight of institutional inheritance. Their humility was not weakness but historical awareness. Populist leaders often speak as if history begins with them. Institutions become stages. Critics become enemies. The future becomes destiny. This is the seduction of charismatic power and its danger.India’s democracy has survived empire, Partition, insurgency, emergency rule, and political assassination. Its resilience flows not from great leaders but from enduring institutions and a stubborn civic culture. But resilience is not invincibility. When leaders erode norms, hollow deliberation, polarise identity, and conflate patriotism with obedience, institutional fatigue sets in. The damage accumulates. The consequences endure.The Rajya Sabha speech should concern not only critics but supporters. Democracies do not collapse when leaders are weak. They weaken when leaders become too powerful to be questioned.Modi stands at a rare juncture. Few leaders inherit overwhelming mandates alongside vast institutional control. Even fewer preside over a nation poised for economic and geopolitical transformation. What he chooses to do with this power will shape India’s democratic trajectory for generations.He can deepen institutions or hollow them out. He can elevate discourse or brutalise it. He can govern as a constitutional steward or campaign as a permanent insurgent.The speech suggests he has not yet chosen governance over mobilisation. History is unforgiving toward leaders who mistake applause for legitimacy.The ultimate test of leadership is restraint, not victory. Dignity, not dominance. Moderation, not mobilisation. In great democracies, power matures, leaders evolve and institutions deepen.India deserves that evolution.Satish Jha co-founded Jansatta for the Indian Express Group and was editor of the newsweekly Dinamaan of the Times of India Group.