Who is Guruji modelled on? Tavleen Singh, veteran journalist and Indian Express columnist, sidestepped the question through much of the launch of her debut novel, The Actor, at the India International Centre on Wednesday evening.In the book, Guruji is a ruthless theocrat who rules a near-future India as its four-time Prime Minister. Singh was in discussion with Najeeb Jung, former Lieutenant Governor of Delhi.Asked if Guruji was modelled on Prime Minister Modi, Singh disagreed. Guruji, she said, was “a kind of warning” of where India ends up “if we continue to have a society that becomes less and less liberal and less and less pluralistic.”She did, however, name other inspirations. Naresh Khanna, the MP who lures a fading Bollywood star into a new secular party, is “very loosely modelled” on Prashant Kishor, founder of Bihar’s Jan Suraaj party. “Prashant Kishor is the only politician I have known in my lifetime, and I’ve covered politics for 50 years, who has actually done the hard work,” she said, pointing to his two years travelling through Bihar’s villages telling voters to stop voting on caste. “Which is why I support him.”But Kishor, Jung said, lacked Naresh’s “solid principles”. He offered former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi or his son Rahul Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, as more natural models, which drew Singh’s retort that dynastic politics began when former prime minister Indira Gandhi handed her younger son Sanjay “not just the Congress party” but the country. “When politicians bring their children into politics,” she said, “what they’re doing is starting a business. It’s not public service.”The actor of the title is Amit Singh, a superstar on the slide after three flops, whom Naresh recruits as the party’s face. The author said she had Amitabh Bachchan, Vinod Khanna and Rajesh Khanna in mind, all stars turned politicians. While researching the book, she had breakfast with lyricist and screenwriter Javed Akhtar, who told her that a real superstar would never have gone into politics.The two worlds, she argued, draw the same kind of person. “If you’re a good politician, you have to be an actor,” she said. Some of the most decent men lost out for want of that gift; former prime minister Manmohan Singh “was a bad speaker”.Story continues below this adJung steered the conversation to the treatment of Muslims, describing a “deliberate, conscious effort” over the past 12 years to make them feel like “second-class citizens”. “That’s what the book is about,” Singh replied. “Once religion becomes part of politics, then you will end up with a Guruji type figure.”She acknowledged the novel asks readers to read between the lines. “It is fiction, but it’s fiction about real things,” she said, adding that she had tried a more explicit version and “the lawyers stopped it.”The evening ended with Jung pitching a sequel in which the actor comes to power and gives Guruji a tough time. “Oh, that’s a good idea,” Singh said. “Maybe I will.”