It’s quite significant that the elevation of a certain Modi has occupied front page and top of the mind today, i.e.April 1st, All Fools Day. Because never before have we as a nation been as collectively fooled as we have by this phenomenon. People have taken us for a ride before and I’m sure we haven’t seen the end of that particular habit. Circumstances have been twisted to suit the most bizarre cases and pardons have become more creative than the crimes. The super rich have proven beyond doubt that they belong to a creamy layer far above the clouds, and have gone about rewriting laws or bending rules with impunity.

But this man, this phenomenon has done something I didn’t think possible. Made a fool of possibly the shrewdest community in the world…the Gujarati. And in the same breath won over the Marwaris, the Sindhis and all those business savvy tribes. How did he achieve this? It’s a mystery very few can comprehensively answer.

But perhaps it starts with the Barbeque Nation. Otherwise known as the Godhra Massacre, this fired off more than just imaginations and helped carve a unique shape for the ‘Mod’Man. Then the elaborate ‘chor police’ game that involved false accusations, encounters true and false…and a uniform, evil approach to crime and punishment.

I think though that the masterstroke was getting rejected by the US when he asked for a visa. Suddenly it became a matter of national pride and human rights violations were swept under red carpets and the matter became a prestige issue even for his detractors. Today his publicity machine has engineered a coup and has actually gotten an American delegation looking like they made a special trip to Ahmedabad to invite him to the US.

Are you with me till around here? I hope so. Because I have been pole-axed by a sudden development. A political party that prided itself for being perhaps the only true nationalistic party left with leaders with serious credentials, has visibly weakened at the spine and bowed down to the gallery. The gallery of crooks.

It doesn’t sadden me that this party has allowed this to happen. After all, what choice did they have? WIth most of their top order ready to drop dead at a moment’s notice, the situation indeed is grave. And we are still a nation that believes that the fifties are young and the sixties are wise.

What makes me angry and what makes me cry is the fact that no other party seems to have anyone of any stature to counteract this atrocity. The party with the numbers is at sea…it has a leader who has never shaved and a rank’n file that’s never grown up. The regional parties have been marginalized by their own squabbles and inheritance woes.

Where is a Laloo when you need him? There was a cowherd who fooled the country into believing that the railways was a profit making enterprise. And launched the first official remote control political operation in the country, and called it Rabri. Of course the model was refined and deployed by the Italian Princess. But think about it…if we don’t wake up in time, the elections will soon be upon us and the year 2014 will go down in history as the year that India voted to be ruled by the sinners.

Are we more intelligent than that? Only time will tell and the clock is not talking!!!