Teflon Modi And The "Infallible" John Howard - A Chin Up To Indian Liberals

What do Indian PM Narendra Modi and former Australian PM John Howard have in common? A lot. Not just their apparent invulnerability, but also their unapparent vulnerability.

A recent poll by the India Today group shows that 74% of Indians believe that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's performance is "good or outstanding".

Only 6% of survey respondents see Modi's performance as poor

A number of other Indians are simply incredulous at these results. As journalist Aakar Patel tweeted while referencing this poll, 

We are in the 37th month of sequential decline in GDP growth. This is our fourth year of decline. Indians were poorer in 2018 than they were in 2013, and that was before this 37 month decline began. This is Govt data. Modi era has set us back 10 years.

Of course, as the comments following Patel's tweet show, many people simply don't believe these survey results. They consider India Today to be part of the "sold media" whose function today is to subtly push the government narrative onto an unsuspecting populace.

In the absence of evidence to support that accusation, let us assume the survey results to be genuine and accurate.

Harking back to Aakar Patel's points, just how does Modi manage to retain his stratospheric levels of popularity in the face of such a dismal performance over the past 7 years? Some of my liberal friends were despondent at these survey results. If the Indian people were willing to give high marks to a government that had clearly failed to deliver, what did that mean? The implication to them was very clear, i.e., that the majority of Indians had bought into the Hindutva ideology and were in fact expressing their satisfaction with the progress of Modi's majoritarian agenda, with no regard to the economic hardship they have had to endure. Some of these friends were despondently resigning themselves to three or even four terms of a Modi government, and the seemingly inevitable prospect of India becoming a theocratic Hindu state with a permanently fascist polity.

Having lived in Australia since 1998, I recollected a parallel from Australian politics, and I put together this piece to provide them some cheer.

Former Australian PM John Howard won four consecutive 3-year terms (in 1996, 1998, 2001, and 2004) before losing in 2007, when he even lost his own seat.

What suddenly happened in 2007?

Nothing happened. That's what was so surprising. Howard was an extremely successful prime minister and a sure-footed politician who always seemed to sense the public mood, and invariably did things that gained popular approval.

In 1996, shortly after his first victory, the Port Arthur massacre took place - Australia's worst mass shooting tragedy. Howard reacted with alacrity, banning all automatic weapons and implementing a buyback program. That made him very popular. (In the US, this would have contravened the Second Amendment.)

This was also the term when Pauline Hanson, then a newly elected independent MP, made her maiden speech, a sensational diatribe against Aboriginal people, Asians, and immigrants in general. She suddenly gained popularity with a section of the electorate that was feeling threatened by Asian migration. Most other politicians condemned her speech, but John Howard stayed completely silent. He in fact very quietly started implementing aspects of her demands in immigration policy, and stole the wind from her sails. He swung the racist vote to his party without saying anything! This is exactly like Modi's strategy of staying silent and pointedly not condemning extreme and bigoted statements by others.

Howard won again in 1998, but with a reduced majority. He took a big risk when he pushed through the GST in 2000, which was unpopular at the time, but which turned out to be visionary and, in retrospect, one of Australia's great success stories (One flat rate of 10% on all goods and services, period). Just before the 2001 election, he famously refused entry to The Tampa, a Norwegian ship that had rescued boat people from a capsized vessel. Once again, that act appealed to the immigration hardliners and he won his third election. This is again like Modi and his Balakot operation just before the 2019 election.

Howard's third term saw the 2001 WTC attacks, and he joined Bush and Blair in sending troops to Iraq, which became very unpopular later. He was at his weakest before the 2004 election, but he got a major reprieve because Labor's leader at the time (Mark Latham) put off many people. Latham was a known goon and a hothead who had once broken a cabbie's arm during an altercation. Howard won his fourth term in 2004 because of the TINA factor. This is exactly like how people see no alternative to Modi because Indian opposition parties are such a disaster.

Mind you, Howard's stewardship of the economy during his four terms was beyond reproach. Not only did he run surplus budgets, he also paid off the national debt. During his tenure, Australia built up a huge surplus called the Future Fund (which came in very useful for Kevin Rudd in 2008-2009 when he had to provide a Keynesian stimulus after the GFC). Also, under John Howard and his Treasurer Peter Costello, Australia neatly avoided the recessions that hit the rest of the world, first during the Asian currency crisis in 1997-98 and then during the Tech crash of 2001.

It's good to have a surplus like that as a buffer for the future. Well, the future is here. -- Kevin Rudd, unlocking the Future Fund to provide a stimulus package in 2008

Impeccable economic management credentials. Expertise in dog-whistling hardline right-wing messages without actually saying anything that people could point at.

Yet John Howard lost in 2007. How? Why?

Analysts have been searching for reasons, and they usually come up with three. The first two are very weak, IMO.

1. He tried to tinker with labour legislation with a new policy called WorkChoices, which reduced employee rights, but he backpedalled on it after facing opposition.

2. There was a feeling that Australia needed to do something urgently on climate change, which Howard (as a conservative) did not think was important.

3. There was a sudden and inexplicable "shift in the wind", with people just feeling that he had overstayed his welcome and it was time for a change.

In fact, Kevin Rudd followed a very clever policy of not differing much from Howard except on climate change. He portrayed himself as an economic conservative too, so on paper, there was really not much to choose between the two opponents. Rudd deliberately made it hard for Howard to attack him on policy, since he mirrored Howard on all his policies. He just happened not to be John Howard. He banked on voters' weariness with Howard. And it paid off.

Howard did not just lose the 2007 election. He lost his own seat. He was only the second sitting Australian PM to lose his own seat.

Such a dramatic and swift fall, and for no apparent reason. Howard did everything right, and even his critics had to grudgingly admit that he was one of Australia's best economic managers. Ultimately, the wind just shifted and, in the words of a columnist, "John Howard was yesterday's man".

Modi is not going to rule forever, even if it seems that way. One day, for no reason at all, the wind will shift, and that will be that.

Come Back, Peter Costello, All Is Forgiven

One hardly knows who is doing what to whom in the Liberal Party these days. I like many of the things Malcolm Turnbull stands for (e.g., ETS, the Republic), but I suspect his autocratic and idiosyncratic style will turn off voters just as it's turning off many of his party colleagues. I wouldn't trust either Joe Hockey or Tony Abbott with ten cents, the former because he comes across as somewhat shifty (on TV at least), the latter because he's a religious nut.

I must say I'm fairly satisfied with Kevin Rudd at the moment, although I question his resolve against illegal immigration (Howard was actually much better there) and I have increasing misgivings about his and Wayne Swan's commitment to bringing the budget back into surplus. I don't think these guys really get it on this fundamental economic principle.

So while I don't believe Australia is in a leadership crisis yet, it would be good for the Liberals to get their house in order. It's too late for 2010, because the psephologists tell us the swing to Labor in 2007 was a two-election swing, meaning that 2013 is the earliest the Liberals can hope to make it back. But the earlier they start, the better.

So who do I think is the best leader for the Liberals?

Peter Costello.

I think Peter Costello's journey to the very top has been a series of missed opportunities. He'd been repeatedly stiffed by John Howard who failed (we're told) to honour his promise to stand aside at some stage, and he (Costello) announced his retirement just when things were getting interesting. But who knows, he could yet be persuaded to come out of retirement and take charge.

He's one guy who understands the value of a surplus budget. Heck, he's the only guy in recent history who delivered one. And he took a strong stand in favour of cultural integration as opposed to weak-kneed laissez-faire multiculturalism. I'd vote for him, and definitely if the Labor jokers don't demonstrate serious intentions of fixing the budget soon.

The End of the Howard Era

Like a guest who has shamelessly overstayed his dinner invitation, John Howard has finally been shown the door. Embarrassing, to say the least. He could have left with grace and dignity had he voluntarily stepped down last year, and he would have departed with an abundance of public goodwill and nostalgia. Now while his electoral defeat today is being hailed as the end of an era, the sentiment is being accompanied by rejoicing.

I feel an enormous sense of relief. I feel as if something has finally happened that was long overdue.

I migrated to Australia in 1998, at the height of the xenophobic hysteria whipped up by Pauline Hanson. Well-meaning friends even asked at the time if I felt safe going to Australia, when it didn't seem to be very welcoming to migrants. Thanks to reassurances from Indian friends already in Australia at the time, my wife and I decided to press ahead.

Sure enough, the Pauline Hanson phenomenon died out soon after, and her party even went bankrupt (financially as well), but what disturbed me was how Prime Minister John Howard seemed to take the wind out of her sails by quietly adopting many of the policies she espoused. She didn't want to acknowledge aboriginal land rights or admit that any wrong was done to aboriginal people. Howard echoed that by publicly refusing to say "Sorry" to the indigenous Australians on behalf of white Australia. (While I have a strong personal distaste for political handouts and believe that communities must lift themselves up by the bootstraps, I can see that John Howard was playing to a certain gallery that was beginning to look Hanson's way).

He took a stronger line on immigration and refugees. The shameful incident when he turned back the MV Tampa carrying 439 Afghan refugees rescued in a shipwreck off Australian waters (and even alleged (untruthfully) that the asylum seekers were heartlessly throwing their children overboard) revealed to me the unsavoury side of his character.

I learnt the term that described his behaviour much later - he was "dog whistling" Pauline Hanson's policy. Without seeming to be the racist that Hanson clearly was, he succeeded in attracting back the redneck voters who threatened to desert his party. He attacked multiculturalism as political correctness. Under Howard, attacking political correctness became politically correct, and it became acceptable to roll back (in word at least) the multiculturalism that was so strikingly in evidence on the ground.

He showed the opportunistic side of his nature once again in the November 2001 elections when he cynically manipulated the fear that September 11 generated to win his third term.

He won his fourth term having wrapped himself in the national flag by going to war in Iraq alongside the US. In those days, when Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were a theoretical possibility and Western civilisation seemed under threat from the Islamic world, it must have seemed unpatriotic to white Australians to oppose Howard's policy. (In Western countries, who knows the difference between Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, or between Arabic, Farsi, Pushtu and Urdu?)

In the latest election too, he tried the same tricks of fear and xenophobia (of which a bit more in a moment), but it didn't work this time. His opponent Kevin Rudd was every bit as smooth and unruffled as himself, and played his game with the same degree of skill. I like to think that the Australian people ultimately saw through Howard's lies and showed him the door.

If I had two words to say to John Howard today, they would be "Mohammed Haneef." What angered me the most in the current election campaign was the character assassination of this doctor of Indian origin who was practising in a hospital in Queensland. In the run-up to the 2007 election, the government needed a bogeyman, and what better one than a Muslim who was related to one of the Glasgow bombers? The immigration minister, Kevin Andrews, has a lot to answer for regarding the utterly shameful treatment of Dr. Haneef, and if I were a religious man, I would say there is a special place in hell for cynical men who think nothing of destroying others' reputations and lives for their own political survival. Even after the charges against Dr. Haneef were proved baseless and he was released, Howard's immigration minister had his visa revoked "on character grounds", and the poor man had to leave Australia. I don't believe Kevin Andrews was acting on his own on such an important and explosive issue. John Howard was "dog whistling" again in the background. Getting Dr. Haneef out of Australia was a PR coup, because once the scandal dropped out of the headlines, the problem was over.

Ah, but not quite. In many people (myself included), the Haneef incident evoked deep and lasting anger. Mohammed Haneef is a Muslim and I am nominally Hindu, but I can recognise unfair treatment when I see it. I choose my words carefully here, but even if John Howard is not a racist, he is certainly anglocentric in his attitudes. And one of the real reasons why he has lost touch with Australia is that this country, at the grassroots level, is no longer anglocentric. Anyone can see the sheer ethnic and cultural diversity in Australia today by just walking down a Sydney or Melbourne street. No politician will cut ice with the contemporary Australian electorate by demonising minorities. The system of compulsory voting in Australia means that you cannot even count on minority alienation to keep hostile voters away from the polling booths. John Howard angered me, a voter. He's now history.

The election of Kevin Rudd is a fundamental generational shift in Australian politics. Whether it's merely symbolic or not, Kevin Rudd can speak Mandarin. How many anglophones can speak another language, much less a non-European one? When Rudd's family took the stage in Brisbane today during his victory speech, his Chinese son-in-law was on stage with him, dramatically illustrating the changing face of Australia.

I have no idea whether Kevin Rudd will make a good prime minister, but I do know that this country's future has no place for John Howard in a leadership role.

The end of an era? Thank goodness.