Pratap Bhanu Mehta on Modi as Ceasar.

Why can't India have a Hitler? Because the Army won't swear loyalty to any man. Unlike the German General Staff, it does not dream of conquest.

Why can't we have a Mao or Stalin? Because our Communist parties did not wade through a sea of blood to establish their hegemony. Indeed, no Party has military might at its command.

Why can't we have at least a Mussolini?
Autocrats are vulnerable to assassination. Govind Ballabh Pant, as Premier of U.P, acclaimed Mahatma Gandhi as the Fuhrer and Il Duce of India. Yet, ten years later a Hindu nationalist shot the greatest of Hindu nationalists. Why? One benefit of a henotheisitic Religion is that it is permissible to turn against an idol if it doesn't perform to expectation. After all, it is only an idol. What is of clay will inevitably be smashed. What is of the soul is indestructible.

Dynasties can be autocratic precisely because assassination tempers them. It permits a reboot.

What about an elected leader from a proper political party- not a dynastic outfit?

What about Modi?

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes in the Indian Express.

this is ... a moment of dread for Indian democracy. Let us be clear. This is the greatest concentration of power in modern Indian history.

This is not true. The greatest concentration of power in modern Indian history occurred when Indira Gandhi declared a State of Internal Emergency in 1975 and jailed her opponents and amended the Constitution.

Never has a force emerged, not even the Congress under Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, where a leader had such unchallenged power in the party, a party organisation this energised, complete control over capital, and a vast set of civil society organisations that are poised for dominance in every institution in every corner of the country.

Every corner? Does this man think Tamil Nadu and Kerala are not part of India? The facts are quite different to what Mehta asserts. The Bench is far more independent and inclined to act as a check on both the Executive and the Legislature than it was in the Seventies or Eighties.

Jawaharlal had more leverage within Congress than any other leader because he could always leave it and take leadership of the Left. Indira actually carried out this threat and that is why she could take complete power as a Dictator. In doing so, she gave Indians a taste of what life would be like after a 'sampoorna kranti'- a total revolution. North Indians didn't like it because it involved forced sterilization. However they dissimulated their feelings so successfully that Indira called Elections which she permitted to be free and fair because she genuinely believed her opponents would be trounced.

By contrast with Jawaharlal and Indira, Modi would be nothing if he walks away from his Party. So long as he delivers, he heads it. The moment he fails to deliver he will be as unceremoniously dumped as Thatcher was by the Tories.

There is nothing wrong with that. All political lives are supposed to end in failure- at least in a proper parliamentary democracy. Mehta, no doubts, prefers a type of dynastic rule in which he would have a permanent place as a glittering Navratna type 'Public Intellectual' funded by the Public, gaining luster from proximity to the throne.

India’s fate is now truly in his hands.

Would this were so! India's fate is in its own hands. It should use them to make rude gestures at cretins like Mehta.       

This victory puts an imprimatur on the idea that India has given up on the central tenets of its politics.

i.e. voting for the dynasty coz Mehta sez it ought to.

In both its institutional and aesthetic form, this is a victory for electoral Caesarism pure and simple, where the power of every institution, from business to religious institutions, will revolve around one man.

Pure fantasy! Does Mehta really believe that religious institutions in India- like the Catholic Church- or businesses- like those of the Tatas- will revolve around Modi?

In ideological terms, it is a victory for majoritarianism,

That victory was achieved in 1947.

a desire to openly marginalise minorities and assert the cultural hegemony of Hindutva.

As opposed to the intellectual hegemony of Pratap Bhanu Mehta.

In sociological terms, this is yet another blow to those who peddle illusions about the power of caste and regional politics. Those identities are breaking down, and ripe for appropriation for the larger project of Hindutva.

That's a good thing. Caste discrimination must end. Loyalty to one's region must give way to loyalty to the Nation. Hindutva, it seems, is nothing more than Indian Patriotism.

It is probably also the case that despite the cult of toxic masculinity that characterises BJP’s ideological discourse,

 Coz Pragya Thakur and Smriti Irani have dicks

Modi upended the politics of gender in new and creative ways. There are now no barriers to the Hindutva project that we take for granted that emanate from social structure. This is a victory for the politics of unreality.

Coz Mehta believes women should know their place unless they are named Sonia or Priyanka.

The Modi government has several successes to its credit. It certainly managed to create a sense that some of its schemes touched the lives of more people than ever before. But let us be clear: Modi has not won because of his economic success; he has won despite his economic failures. The economy is tottering at a growth rate that feels closer to four or four-and-a-half per cent. That this election was almost entirely bereft of a serious economic narrative of hope does not portend well. To be fair, the Opposition did not have any eye-catching ideas either. Indian elites are now compensating for a faltering India story, a make believe world where our explanation of our failures is the fragmentation of power.

Mehta believed that India's power was not just fragmented, it had blown away with the wind. After the Pulwana atrocity, he said ' 

“Pakistan has won because our public culture has become corrosive,” he stated, “The tragedy of Pulwama is not just that soldiers died; it is the sense that we are acting as if Pakistan has won.” he added.

He acknowledged that international pressure, diplomatic response and surgical strikes were inadequate to the task of deterring the situation.

Of course, had he known Modi was capable of avenging the attack he'd have kept his mouth shut. Still, the fact is, Modi did avenge the attack. Yet Mehta continues to believe that this was 'unreality'- Maya. The truth is India is a shit country. Indians should understand this and just give up. Mehta acted as if Pakistan had won. Modi did not. It was Mehta's brand of politics which was corrosive of Indian power and capacity for development. That is why the Indian voter has elected Modi and rejected Mehta's former patrons.