Just when everyone started to believe that post-JantarMantar@July 20, the “Cockroaches” had at last goaded the polity and its various institutional stake-holders and ‘pillars’ out of their fear of the ‘competent authority,’ the morning of September 28 came as a rude shock.Most newspaper readers were distressed to discover that almost every publication had handed over its precious edit-oped pages to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his birth centenary salute to Ashok Singhal of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. That’s the Indian Express, the Hindustan Times, the Telegraph, the Tribune and Times of India. The Hindu is probably the only lemming which refused to take the plunge and treated Modi’s praise as worthy only of a news story.Future historians would be flummoxed to think of a single reason why any self-respecting editor would allow their editorial space to be used like this. There is nothing prime ministerial in Modi’s paean to Ashok Singhal. He is not explaining any public policy. It is an unabashedly sectarian ‘tribute’ from an ideological partisan to a man who single-mindedly saw to the shameful denouement of December 6, 1992, when the Babri Masjid was demolished by a large mob of Hindutva foot-soldiers.Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.Ashok Singhal – and let there be no confusion about this – was no saint; nor was he a nation-builder. He was an unrelenting Ayodhya ‘andolanjivi.’ He and the VHP made life miserable for Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and his home minister, LK Advani, who rightfully felt bound to respect and enforce judicial injunctions in Faizabad when they were in power from 1998 to 2004. If the “Ayodhya movement” was to be judged by today’s standards of law and order, Ashok Singhal would have been accused of waging a war on the Indian State – an accusation that would have been upheld by every single judge and very brilliantly defended by Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta in the Supreme Court.Singhal’s culpabilities are not the issue; the question is what and why the prime minister is seeking to achieve by putting his name on the opinion-piece. It is a straightforward effort to legitimise the so-called ‘Ayodhya movement’ and all the divisiveness it injected into our body-politic. Both his detractors and friends would agree that what Modi has done is use his prime ministerial perch to paint and polish the hard shell of ideological radicalism that animates the Hindutava discourse.It is perhaps understandable that had it not been for the Ayodhya movement and the communal divide it created in Indian society there would have been no Modi regime. In 2013, Singhal had predicted that “after the 1990s, the time has come for another Hindu uprising. Those who oppose it will be vanquished.” The prime minister is repaying a debt.Perhaps Modi feels vulnerable enough to desperately want to rebuild broken bridges with the Sangh parivar’s ideologies in Nagpur. And with the winds turning increasingly unfavourable for him, both at home and abroad, there is reason for the prime minister to seek Mohan Bhagwat’s indulgence. Modi’s aides and advisers who have his best interests at heart cannot be unaware of the growing public perception that the criminal mischief at the Election Commission has created doubts about the ruling regime’s legitimacy.The experienced political warriors in the BJP strategic group know that the Rahul Gandhi-led opposition is not going to cease its assault on the government. And then, there is that unpredictable and intractable entity called GenZ and its current face, the Cockroach Janata Party. This GenZ constituency is not going to be taken in by Modi putting in an appearance at some bhajan-clubbing event. Such stunts now invite only ridicule. This generation has seen through his tricks. There is turbulent weather ahead, and the ruling clique will need the enthusiastic support of a charged-up Nagpur. Hence, the very public obeisance to a Sangh Parivar icon, resuscitating the controversial memory of a Hindutva partisan.To the discerning eye it should be obvious that this prime ministerial oped ploy is aimed at reassuring his base that he remains a Hindutva warrior. The “santan dharma” crowd has been led to believe that India is now Bharat and that this Bharat is a Hindu State—and that Narendra Modi remains indispensable to sustaining this Hindu-fied arrangement. This core constituency is in desperate need of reassurance that the ruling clique remains on top of things and is in total control, despite all the turmoil unleashed by the newly empowered GenZ.It is not difficult to understand why the prime minister would diminish his office by this centenary tribute to Singhal. He and his advisers know that the ambivalent middle has already been given enough reasons – the chanda chori in Ayodhya, the naked and unprincipled use of governmental power against political rivals, and now the disclosures of inspired malevolence rampant in Nirvachan Sadan – to feel disillusioned and short-changed. The neo-Chankays also know that it would be an utter disaster if the core – the ‘Sanatani’ mob starts developing doubts about the ruling group’s capacity to stay the course.Still, there is no obvious answer as to why so many editors would allow the prime minister to diminish and dilute the sanctity of their own editorial pages. Perhaps the editors and other gate-keepers at these newspapers have not discerned the new mood in the country. Modi may still be a very legitimate occupant of the new “seva teertha” but he no longer has the moral bandwidth to talk a troubled nation out of its doubts and misgivings. And singing hosannas to a forgotten –and forgettable – Ashok Singhal is certainly no way to go about it.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.