India Policy Watch: Those Mind Games Insights on issues relevant to India — RSJ Regular readers might have noticed the absence of posts analysing the political economy and politics in general in our editions of late. This isn’t intentional. There’s not much to write about. There is a strange sense of stasis all around. Every move, every act is a chronicle of a future foretold. This inertness stems from a complete absence of ferment in the political landscape. The external factors that could impact politics, like the economy or national security, appear stable. And those directly in the fray have to contend with a political juggernaut backed by a fawning media that takes no prisoners. It is a complete mismatch. So, what can one write about except rallies, speeches and opinion polls Into this state of ennui, this week walked the Court of chief judicial magistrate HH Verma, Surat. Here’s the Mint reporting on this: “The Surat District Court sentenced Congress MP Rahul Gandhi to two years of imprisonment in the criminal defamation case filed against him over his alleged 'Modi surname' remark. The Congress leader was later granted bail by the court. The court of Chief Judicial Magistrate HH Varma, which held Gandhi guilty under Indian Penal Code sections 499 and 500, also granted him bail and suspended the sentence for 30 days to allow him to appeal in a higher court, the Congress leader's lawyer Babu Mangukiya said. The case was filed against Rahul Gandhi for his alleged “how come all the thieves have Modi as the common surname?" remarks on a complaint lodged by BJP MLA and former Gujarat minister Purnesh Modi. The Lok Sabha MP from Wayanad made the alleged remarks while addressing a rally at Kolar in Karnataka ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.” In a remarkable feat of speed and agility, the Lok Sabha Secretariat disqualified Rahul Gandhi as a member of Lok Sabha the next day. As the Hindustan Times reported: “Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been disqualified as a member of Lok Sabha a day after the Surat court convicted him for two years in a defamation case. However, he was granted a 30-day bail in the case to allow him appeal in a higher court.  The Lok Sabha secretariat said in a notification that he has been disqualified from the day of the conviction under the Constitution’s Article 102(1)(e) read with Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act. As a next step, the Wayanad MP will have to appeal to the higher court seeking a stay on the conviction, in order to prevent the disqualification and the Congress said it will follow the procedure to move to a higher court.” Look, there’s a tired old way of looking at all of this. And that’s what the discourse has been about this over the past few days. The opposition reminds us how there’s an undeclared emergency at this moment in India. Dissent is being suppressed, the slightest criticism of the PM or his party is seen as an affront to the nation, and the state machinery is fairly quick in settling scores on those not falling in line. There is also the eternal optimism of a certain section of the commentariat that suggests that Rahul Gandhi has rattled the BJP with his Bharat Jodo yatra. And this is the response to keep him in check. I’m sure there is an alternate universe where this is all true. But none among us is turning into Michelle Yeoh anytime soon to enter that multiverse. As I have mentioned earlier, there’s still space for the opposition, as the response to the yatra shows. But Rahul Gandhi neither has the enterprise nor the ideas to turn that into electoral success. On the other hand, the BJP and its supporters initially argued that a sitting MP cannot make disrespectful remarks about the PM. Apparently, it is not done, especially when the PM is feted the world over for his leadership. Soon old videos popped up that showed we have a hoary tradition of calling our past PMs names. I’m old enough to remember the memorable r