Don't forget you're here to govern, Mr Modi

What is happening to our country? From the beginning the Modi government has been embarrassed by what may be called fringe elements. Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, a Union MoS, divided Indians into "Ramzadas" and "Haramzadas." After the uproar in Parliament and in civil society went on, she was made to apologise. But ministers have been made to resign for such comments. Meanwhile, after consulting colleagues and senior bureaucrats, plans were made to bring black money illegally parked abroad back to India to supplement FDI. The PM had high hopes that this would give his development package a fillip. However, relatively little black money has come back. Now the famous lawyer Ram Jethmalani has criticised both the Congress and BJP, especially P Chidambaram and Arun Jaitley responsible for the failure to disclose the names of persons holding the black money.

The highly respected lawyer has publicly stated that the German government had the names of 1,400 people who had stashed their money in tax havens abroad. German governments are known to be very strict in punishing tax evasion. Steffi Graf, the legendary tennis player's father was sent to jail for two years for inaccurate income tax returns. So, according to Jethmalani, the German government was ready to share this information, with the condition that there should be a written request from the Indian government, a fairly usual condition. The senior lawyer claimed that he "wrote a two-line letter to BJP leaders and none of them signed the letter". Obviously, someone at some level did not think this worthwhile. But why not write this letter to the Germans? India had nothing to lose and a lot to gain. The highly respected Jethmalani argues that if the government had been successful in bringing back the black money, it would not have been facing financial problems in accepting OROP.

The prime minister also has to face some problems squarely. The support given to absconding Lalit Modi by external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on "humanitarian grounds" to stay on in the UK, since his wife was having a cancer operation, might have made some sense, even though it was irregular, if she had got an iron clad assurance that Lalit Modi would have immediately returned to India. Lalit Modi is a notoriously slippery character, and true to type, the couple went for a world tour. So much for humanitarianism. The redoubtable Vasundhara Raje, CM of Rajasthan, also found the Modi a worthy cause, whose case she also supported for refuge in UK. She also had a tie-up with the cancer hospital in Portugal to set up advanced medical facilities in Rajasthan.

Once all this leaked, the media and the opposition went to town. Intriguingly, the prime minister was quiet for weeks. Some speculated that after his experience on International Yoga Day, he had developed an "ostrich asana" shutting out unpleasant realities. His tactics appear to have worked. But this will, most likely, come up again. But this is not good governance, and Narendra Modi, with his substantial political experience knows this full well. There are, of course, other things happening like the Dadri communal incident, in which the local BJP leader is an accused. The SP and others are claiming that this is a plot to polarise UP. Sadhvi Prachi of the VHP is making inflammatory statements, so is Sangeet Som, BJP MLA an accused in the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013 who had been indicted by the Commission of Inquiry Report. The PM is silent. But he is the senior most leader. He must pour oil on the troubled waters. He mustn't let things drift as in the instances cited above. He must deliver governance in these difficult times.