Earlier this week we were invited to relish the delicious absurdity of a former deputy prime minister, a former vice-president of India, and the incumbent foreign minister, among others, being subjected to the Election Commission of India’s scrutiny. For weeks now, the WhatsApp groups in middle class and upper middle-class colonies have been sizzling with indignation and exasperation at being asked to prove one’s identity. What is more, this upper crust of the Modi constituency has raved and ranted at a constitutional authority being imperious to the hue and cry in the kingdom. And, now we are being told that there are serious professional differences among serious professional public servants at Nirvachan Sadan on how to go about this business of compiling a voters’ list.Rather than applauding the much-needed and much-delayed growth of spine in some corner of the Election Commission, experience and prudence should caution us to remember that nothing happens without a mischievous design in the new Naya Bharat. Perfect rulers, perfect control, and perfect results: keep the masses sufficiently distracted and on tenterhooks so that they are never able to catch their collective breath – and, start asking our new rulers a few uncomfortable questions.Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.Nobody can be under any illusion that the chief minister of Delhi, Ms. Rekha Gupta or the former chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal will be denied the right to vote (and, in their case, right to contest the next election). Rather, Nirvachan Sadan has provided Ms. Gupta a readily facile explanation to ladle out to all those hapless citizens who find themselves in the election commission’s crosshairs: look, it has happened to me also; nothing sinister in these lakhs and lakhs of deletions. And, should Arvind Kejriwal complain of targeted deletions of potential AAP voters, he can be cited the case of Ms. Gupta or S. Jaishankar. Take a deep breath, ‘my friends,’ competent and able gentlemen are at work at Nirvachan Sadan.Also at work is an evolved deviousness. This Advani-Kapil Sibal-Kejriwal-Jaishankar sleight of hand is part of the toolkit perfected during these “25 years of public service.” The tricks of the con man have now been ‘gentrified’ and are acclaimed at assorted ‘business summits’ as dynamic innovations in the art and science of governance.It is incumbent upon us to remember that we are blessed with a regime that takes great pride – and is also held in awe by its rivals and detractors – in its own street fighting skills and record. It has no time or respect for traditions, dignity, or truth or constitutional proprieties or democratic sensibilities. It has learnt to brazen it out – elegantly, if possible, otherwise there is no dearth of crudeness.The modern state has increasingly acquired considerable experience in ensuring that the citizen remains quiet, obedient and acquiescent. The relationship between the state – organised, coercive and powerful – and the citizen, disorganised and unarmed – is becoming more and more tilted in favour of the authoritarian. If a government of the day is so inclined – and, the Modi regime has been more than inclined – it has very many tricks available to it to keep the troublesome or demanding citizen pinned down in his or her isolation. Since 2014, the Modi regime has been successful in atomising the “argumentative Indian” and seeing to it that no disagreement, no resentment, no grievance gets collectively expressed. The national capital, or most of its parts, have remained slapped down with “section 144.” No assembly, no crowds, and no mobs. It is in this background that the Jantar Mantar episode disoriented our rulers so badly.Let us recall that a few months ago, suddenly, an official spokesman set the cat among the pigeons: the passport is not a proof of citizenship. For weeks the articulate and affluent sections of the society were subjected to needless anxiety of citizenship. And, there was and remains no absolute clarity as to what document/proof we Indians need to prove we indeed are the very citizens/voters/consumers who pay taxes, which in turn are used to build a Viksit Bharat by that very clique we “elected.”For the first few years of the Amrit Kaal this weapon of anxiety was wielded against the “Bangladeshis” and other “undesirable” minorities. We constantly keep devising new tests of patriotism to keep vast sections of the society nervous and stressed—and, thus, subdued. And, should an Umar Khalid dare not to feel cowed down, there is a complicit judiciary to help make an example of him.Now in its fading years the ruling regime has turned its malicious attention to the majority. The victims of the crony-capitalism-centric ‘economic growth’ are not the poor Muslims; it is the majority of the majority community. The minorities have long ago been pushed out of the formal economy; it is the youth of the majority community that have a problem of unemployment, under-employment, unfair wage structure, and all other discriminations that our saffron-commissars have injected in every walk of life. Anxiety, uncertainty and hopelessness now define the life-chances of the majority of the majority.The bottom-line of control and command is that a populace that is always kept on the edge is rarely able to question, let alone dislodge, an authoritarian arrangement. Our rulers have effortlessly converted the much-touted Amrit Kaal to an Anxious Kaal.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.