October 5, 2025 07:26 AM IST First published on: Oct 5, 2025 at 07:14 AM ISTWhen I view our beloved Bharat Mata from the remoteness of a faraway land, a comical absurdity about our politics becomes painfully obvious. I am still in that Swiss village of peridot meadows and autumn mists from where I sent you last week’s column and because I have been here for a while, I missed the celebrations of the Prime Minister’s 75th birthday. So, it was only last week that I caught the many interviews our Home Minister gave to our ‘independent’ private TV channels in which he sang paeans of praise to his old friend and political comrade, Narendra Modi.In one of these interviews the Home Minister was asked to name the one quality about Modi that distinguishes him from prime ministers of yore and his reply both astonished and embarrassed me. He said, “You have probably never seen a prime minister of India who when he is seated on the stage at an important meeting never gets up to ‘freshen himself’.” Those of you who understand Hindi know that ‘fresh hona’ in Hinglish means going to the lavatory. It is indeed remarkable that a man in his mid-seventies should have such control over the natural functions of his body, but should this be considered his most outstanding quality? His great gift to India? Would it not have been better for Amit Shah to have said, for instance, that this is India’s first prime minister who works tirelessly 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to make the country strong? He could have added that he is able to do this because he has neither family to care for, friends to fraternise with nor frivolous hobbies on which to waste time.AdvertisementClearly the Home Minister simply tripped over his own better judgement in his fervor to show pure, unmitigated sycophancy. I draw attention to this because similarly sycophantic statements are heard these days from Modi’s other ministers and high officials. They never take credit for a single achievement without first saying that the achievement was possible only under the ‘visionary leadership of the Prime Minister’. While writing these words, as I gaze out of my window at trees changing into autumn livery, I brood seriously over whether the prime minister likes sycophants and sycophancy?He has been prime minister for more than a decade now and this is more than long enough for the finest men to acquire not just an overweening taste for high office but also an overweening taste for sycophants. If this has happened, may I as a patriotic Indian, humbly suggest that Modi rid himself of this habit as soon as possible because it harms India to have a leader who does not want to hear anything that does not come out of the mouths of sycophants. He has only to take a quick look at what his ex-best friend Donald Trump is up to and see how he has damaged the country that the world once saw as that ‘shining city on a hill’. Today if there are still people who believe in American exceptionalism, you could fit them into a small anteroom of the Oval Office.Durbari culture has deep roots in our own ancient land. The Prime Minister likes to believe that India is the mother of democracy, but the truth is that we have been ruled by kings, conquerors, tyrants and colonisers for so long that rulers and rajas are things we understand better than democracy. This is the reason why even the useless progeny of political families get elected instead of people who are in public life because of their passion for public service. I have said this before and am happy to say it again, if I were a voter in Bihar, I would vote for Prashant Kishor instead of any other leader on the menu. He deserves to win because he has shown that he is really interested in helping Bihar become what it could be. But it will be a miracle if he wins.AdvertisementWhat attracted Indian voters to Narendra Modi when he first set foot on the national stage was that he promised a new, modern political culture. In Lutyens Delhi, people who had long lived in feudal splendor quaked at the thought that he would become prime minister and rid them of their privileges and expose the concealed grandeur of the cocoon in which they lived. For his first couple of years in office, he delivered on this promise but then something seemed to change, and he became just like any other politician. This is one of the main reasons why he failed to win the BJP a full majority in last year’s general election.As he approaches the end of the second year of his third term, he should spend a few sober moments of reflection on why the only card he appears to have left to play at election time is the Hindu-Muslim card. He may find that one reason is that there is not a single person in his inner circle who would dare tell him the truth about anything anymore. All leaders need advisors who can help them manoeuvre through the complex political and economic issues that exist at every turn in the difficult business of running a country the size of a continent. Sycophants are what they do not need because they cause more harm than good.