A few weeks ago, there was much consternation when it was announced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been invited to deliver the annual Ramnath Goenka Lecture. The ultimate calamity! Agitated conversations in various liberal WhatsApps groups wondered whether the Indian Express – known for being one of the last outposts of sanity among the otherwise unhinged Big Media and for its (sometimes) courageous journalism, too – had been overrun by the Hindutva mob.Perhaps a perfect case of missing the woods for the trees. The question that liberals and others should be asking is why, after all these years, Modi has allowed himself to be persuaded to appear under a media banner that can by no means be clubbed with the many other obsequious newspapers and television channels.The question pressed itself, again, as a few days later the prime minister adorned the ‘Leadership Summit’ of another publication.Even if we grant that both publishers are obviously keen to ingratiate themselves with the political establishment, what needs to be noted is that on both occasions the audience consisted almost exclusively of that much denigrated Lutyens’ Elite – that mythical order against which ‘Modi the Outsider’ once railed and ranted as he enlisted different resentments and prejudices against his principal political rival, the Indian National Congress. As Prime Minister, Modi has convinced himself and his crowd that India was set on a path of unprecedented glory and prosperity now that the polity has been purged of the presumably baneful influence of the Lutyens’ Elite.A foot-note is needed here. The Modi crowd starts with a flawed premise: it confuses the Sonia Gandhi Hangers-On with the entire Lutyens’ Elite. Truth be told, the Sonia darbaris were a minuscule lot; a full quorum would not fill up her large drawing room at 10, Janpath. This group of darbaris has gracefully retreated to their corner, with their sense of superiority intact.The Lutyens’ Elite, however, is a much bigger fraternity of the Bent and the Beautiful – a club of necessity, glued together by shared misdemeanours, extra-legal solidarities, off-shore accounts and a bemused tolerance of the political leadership’s pretensions. The specific cast of characters in this club may get reshuffled from time to time but the characteristics remain unchanged. It should be clear to anyone that the Lutyens’ Elite has remained singularly untouched by the Hindutva revolution’s presumed regenerative influence. On the contrary they continue to indulge themselves in their tribal rites and customs. After all, no regime can do without the special services the corrupt offer and remain unseduced by their ‘extra-legal’ habits and short-cuts. The Modi regime is no exception.It is possible to suggest that the Lutyens’ Elite have understood the Modi game. They are happy to indulge him if wants to abuse Nehru; they couldn’t care less if he drifts into a soft absolutism; they will respond if summoned to attend the BJP’s temple ceremony at Ayodhya; they will humour him if wants to preen as a world leader – as long as his government lets them corner fat contracts and appropriate national assets. Nothing conveys this cockiness better than the latest corporate ad: “BULLISH ON INDIA— Crores of Indians believe in the nation’s financial growth. We too, along with our 1.5 crore investors, are Bullish on India.”So, the question remains: Why is the prime minister now trying to make himself amiable to this bunch, that too in such a public manner? Why, for example, this inelegant tango with Shashi Tharoor, the classic poster-boy of the Lutyens’ Elite? Does the Modi crowd, after a decade of state power, feel so bereft of talent and self-confidence that it needs Tharoor’s charming verbosity to airbrush its patchiness? Could it be that after a decade of institutionalised mediocrity and incompetence, the Modi establishment has realised that it has run out of steam and imagination? The mismatch between the Modi coterie’s inspired political management of elections in state after state and the rigorous requirements of modern statecraft is all too visible. The much-touted claims to efficiency and competence no longer hold. Has the time come, then, to drop the pretence that ‘the Lutyens’ Elite’ are his enemy, especially if the next three years are to be spent muddling through misguided governance overload?Two recent episodes – the Indigo meltdown and the toxic Air Quality Index (AQI) hanging over the national capital – have brought to fore the in-built limitations of the Modi model of administration and leadership. Not only have the two crises taken the sheen off the Modi myth of an-honest-leader-can-solve-any-problem slogan, the core of the core BJP support constituencies – India’s upper middle class Hindus – find themselves unable to make sense of the his administrative collapse. The very same constituency was already miffed at the Modi government’s failure to handle Donald Trump as the American president has ruptured the cozy and comfortable world of the Indian diaspora in North America.For the first time, the Modi media-managers are unable to cast the two crises in the Hindu-Muslim binary. The Muslims cannot be blamed for IndiGo; nor, for that matter, can they – or even Jawaharlal Nehru – be held responsible for the hazardous air over the National Capital Region. And, the victims in both the crises are predominantly Hindus. The guilty leaders and their victims are both Hindus.Consider this: the non-employee, non-founder members of the IndiGo Board are 24-carat Lutyens’ Elite. And, to rub salt in the Hindutva wounds, the Risk Management Committee includes a former Air Force chief, a former SEBI chief and an ex-CEO of NITI Aayog. All three gentlemen have variously used their offices to glorify the Leader and have now been parked in friendly boards in recognition of services rendered. Yet when it comes to the nuts and bolts of good governance, they are of little use to Modi.And, the Lutyens’ Elites hear bemusedly as Prime Minister Modi drones on and on about “psychological renaissance” and goes after some 19th century Englishman named Thomas Babington Macaulay. They tell each other the old joke: “Politicians will be politicians. Let us not get dragged into the politicians’ quarrels. Let them quibble over Vande Mataram. Let us not get distracted from the business of raking it all in. The Hindutva mascots will come to us if they must muddle through the next three years.” Harish Khare was editor of The Tribune.