BARELY two years in office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is already showing signs of strain and frustration. He has made an astounding speech in which he has accused various forces of conspiring to destabilise his government. Speaking at a rally in Odisha, Modi pointed fingers at various quarters who he alleged are unable to tolerate him as prime minister and his government. Among them are those who cannot digest the fact that a tea-seller has become a prime minister; there are others who are angry that he has sealed off the avenues for corruption; and then there are the NGOs who have united to attack him since they were asked to provide details of their foreign funds. Looking back, this attitude of the prime minister is not something new. It has been the stock in trade of various prime ministers in the past, when faced with insurmountable problems to declare that foreign and internal forces are out to destabilise their governments. In Modi’s case, it is not clear which is the foreign hand behind the conspiracy. It cannot be the Americans who have found in him an eager and willing ally and partner. There is no danger of the opposition uniting to oust the government since the ruling party commands a firm majority in the Lok Sabha. As for the NGOs posing a threat to the Modi government, that is a laughable assertion. What is irking the prime minister is not any conspiracy to oust his government rather it is the abject failure of the government on all fronts. The list is lengthy and dismal. The most serious failure is on the economic front. The economy is in doldrums with a severe agrarian crisis, contracting industrial production, fall in exports and growing unemployment. The banking system is slipping into a crisis and the stock markets are plunging. The central government looks increasingly a helpless spectator in this looming crisis. We can expect more neo-liberal prescriptions in the union budget which will only aggravate the economic difficulties. It is in such a situation that the Modi government and the ruling party have embarked upon curbing dissent and attempting to steamroller Hindutva values on to the university campuses. The cry of anti-national elements having infiltrated the campuses mirrors the conspiracy theories against the government being spouted by the prime minister. The president’s address to the joint session of parliament reflects the complacency and the ostrich like attitude of the government. There is no indication whatsoever about the serious problems faced in the economy and how the government proposes to tackle them. Instead there is a litany of government programmes and schemes adopted in the past one year. There is no mention whatsoever of the situation in central universities like Hyderabad and JNU. Nor is there any reference to the burning issue of the Jat agitation for reservations. If anything, the address illustrates the government’s vacuity and failure in economic policies while the unsaid part is the malign nature of its authoritarian and communal interventions in universities. (February 24, 2016)