In June, we were witness to two official annual events: the first was on the imposition of internal emergency 51 years ago. The day was officially observed as Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas, or Constitution Murder Day. The second has been the ‘celebration’ of the 12 years of Narendra Modi as prime minister.The Emergency lasted 21 months and the newly formed Janata Party government, was able to wipe off all its vestiges as it had pledged. The perpetrators of the Emergency have apologised. On the other hand, the trail of systemic destruction left by the Modi regime is more widespread and deeper. Rather than expressing remorse, the present regime has made it clear they will further expand their area of operation with added vigour.Look at the visible signs of the frailties in the system the duo has built.First, the 12 years of Modi rule has destroyed the BJP’s famed cadre structure built by its original leaders like L.K. Advani, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Murli Manohar Joshi. The present set of BJP workers, many of them with the demeanour of paid professionals, is a pale imitation of the old cadre. The original cadre had freely discussed party policies, unlike the present BJP duo.At the party’s national executive, the role of even the old veterans today is limited to listening to Modi’s final day homilies and following the party chief’s directives on the way they must explain policies to people. The old era central election committee members had actively contributed to its decisions.Now, their job is to endorse the programmes put forth by Amit Shah’s team of experts. Unnecessary debates within the party and government, they say, is a Congress culture and will harm the party. The duty of the BJP worker is to obediently go on doing their assigned work without grumbling or raising questions.Second, the ruling party’s image as a safe haven for defectors is a transient phenomenon. In political history, every rising power had enjoyed this status. Most of the syndicate leaders, even the socialists, had flocked to the Indira party after she swept the 1971 Lok Sabha polls. So long as the Modi-Shah duo manages to keep up the rising power status, the party will attract the fortune seekers.The moment they begin to slip, things will dramatically change. Consider the the recent cross votings by BJP legislators in Karnataka. Can such defiance happen under the aegis of all-powerful Amit Shah? It clearly has.Finally, at the citizens’ level, the long span of the Modi-Shah rein has left us with an unquestioning, dumb generation of Indians who has forgotten the culture of protests for civic rights. A columnist has recently attributed the demise of public dissent and personal assertion to the popularity of social media. “If millions have seen my post, why should I be on streets?” he asks. This may be just one of the several factors. Before the Modi takeover, we had a series of occasional public agitations which brought tens of thousands onto the streets for weeks at a time. The anti-corruption movement of 2011, the anti-reservation stir, Nirbhaya, Chipko, name any. The present regime, through information control, political management and different kinds of palliatives has ensured public resentment is kept within limits. To understand how this is being done, just listen to what the Wrestling Federation of India-fame Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh says: “I knew what is happening within Ayodhya temple. But if I speak the truth, I will get into trouble…I do not the have the courage to speak the truth right now. If the time comes, I will speak out.” This is the way the top bosses impose discipline and loyalty. §Events after the West Bengal capture have two major takeaways. First, unlike Mayawati or Bharat Rashtra Samithi chiefK. Chandrashekar Rao, Mamata Banerjee is not running away from the battle. She will stay on and fight back. Her audacity and courage of conviction have halted further erosion from her ranks and earned her admirers even among the opponents.Second, far more important, is that Amit Shah is not going to rest on the laurels of post-Bengal gains. He will continue with operations for breaking up the opposition parties to achieve a two-thirds majority in parliament. This will pave the way for passing the delimitation bill, one-nation-one-election, and such other projects to make his position perpetually secure. All these measures are essential for a safe and lasting rule and to retain absolutist control.Now past 75, Narendra Modi is impatient to wrestle absolute totalitarian powers. For this, he has chosen a multi-pronged approach. Each of this regime’s actions and each of the initiatives it has taken is aimed at achieving this objective.This means no opposition party or their government will hereafter be secure from ‘Operation Lotus’, ‘Operation Tiger’ or its variants. Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party or any other opposition group with a few MPs will be in the firing line. Akhilesh has 47 MPs to guard from Amit Shah’s MP-capture drive and Sharad Pawar, eight. In April, seven of the AAP’s Rajya Sabha members defected to BJP. In May, BJP engineered the defection of 20 of the 28 TMC MPs. The ruling party must get two-thirds majority, by hook or crook.Now Shinde has herded his new batch of defectors first to Delhi and from there to a hotel in Jaipur. According to Sanjay Raut, the going rates per willing MP is as much as Rs 50 crores. Uddhav Thackeray’s Sena claims their defecting MPs got Rs 15 crores in advance before boarding the aircraft. All this has prompted Congress spokesman Jairam Ramesh to quip that the NDA has become ‘National Defectors Alliance.’.Punjab is the next target for state capture. There are elaborate preparations at different levels to unseat Bhagwant Mann as chief minister. This will invariably lead to AAP losing its status as a state ruling party. But a word of caution: Unlike other states, politics in Punjab is much more complex and the BJP will find it difficult have its own government after AAP’s ouster. But Amit Shah is determined to achieve the impossible.This apart, the Bengal capture has opened the doors for more systemic intrusions elsewhere. Now, Election Commission’s returning officers have also become ruling party’s faithful stormtroopers. How summarily the Madhya Pradesh RO has rejected Congress Rajya Sabha nominee Meenakshi Natarajan’s papers. In the process, she was denied reasonable time for her to produce more evidence before him.And the Supreme Court, as it is under the present CJI, declined to intervene. At the same time, the Jharkhand RO gave BJP nominee Parimal Nathwani enough time to produce the additional documents. Obviously, political dynamics seem to be changing for the worse. The template of authoritarian control is becoming more self-generating. New sections of people are willingly joining in as henchmen of Modi. Earlier, Amit Shah gave directions for every operation, now it is self-propelling. Operators come with their new ‘catches’. They hope such actions will help them get more recognition from Shah anda chance to be appointed as governors or to some government panels.§Sections of political scientists believe that India has reached the stage of Potemkin democracy. All its essential features are already discernible. Broadly called democratures in French, Potemkin means a system of government which is designed to look like a democracy to the outside observer, but which is really not one. This is to mislead the regime’s followers, as well as outside and foreign critics.Spin dictators like Modi use every available instrument to wrest absolute power. They do not take chances. They do not clamp down on protesters or formally acquire emergency powers. Instead, they use devious means to tire them out: thus they accomplish more than what the Emergency regime had once done. Putting the normal watchdog bodies into a coma, launching existing agencies like the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation on the protesters, and slapping the political activists with false cases are the favoured tools they adopt.When their harassment becomes too bothersome, the victims reluctantly join the BJP. Victims of ED pressure themselves often admit this. Take the case of a BJP corporator who joined the Congress at 1.30 pm. She was photographed with the party’s symbol of the ‘hand’ on the wrapped shawl. Within an hour, she reportedly got a call from the ED, threatening her with action. By 3.30 pm, she had returned to the BJP. Later, she allegedly cited the lack of proper office facilities at Congress to justify her return to the BJP.In most such cases, the process of investigations itself is being turned into a tool of political punishment. In an age of fractured mandates, personality cults and transactional alliances, P. Raman brings clarity to India’s shifting political equations. With Realpolitik, the veteran journalist peers beneath the slogans and spin to reveal the power plays, spectacle, crises and insecurities driving India’s politics.