Thus, a purported godman threatens to decapitate those who refuse to chant Bharat Mata ki Jai, a chief minister says that such renegades have no right to stay in the country and a Pakistani singer is prevented from performing in Delhi as he was earlier stopped from singing in Mumbai.

Since both Modi and the saffron groups are on the same side of the ideological fence, they might appear to be working at cross-purposes since the prime minister’s economic agenda can be scuppered by the menacing attitude of the godman, chief minister and others which cannot but fuel social tension.

The obvious element of schizophrenia in the ruling dispensation – the dichotomy between peaceful economic growth and violent xenophobia - is difficult to explain unless it is assumed that there is a method in the madness.

It has to be remembered that the Hindu Right has no interest in Modi’s economic programme. The extremists care little for GST or industrial development. All that they want is the establishment of their cherished Hindu rashtra, especially now when the BJP has been able to secure a majority in the Lok Sabha and reduce the Congress to a shadow of its former self.

As for Modi, the nearly two years in power must have taught him that it is not easy for him to implement the promise of vikas. As a result, he is caught in a bind. As the economy remains sluggish – the rate of investment has fallen from 33.4 per cent in 2013-14 to an anticipated 29.4 this year – the middle class has begun to turn away from him.

The defeats in Delhi and Bihar and the uncertainty about the Assam outcome point to the waning of the Modi “magic”. Sections in the urban areas still retain some hope in him if only because they see no alternative at the national level.

But as Modi loses his appeal and finds the forthcoming electoral battles increasingly tough – in Uttar Pradesh, for instance – the BJP will have the need to seek the help of the RSS cadres as well as other members of the Hindu Right to come to the party’s aid.

It is not possible, therefore, for the BJP to alienate the extremists. If some of them have been silenced, such as Yogi Adityanath and Sakshi Maharaj, the reason is that they are M.P.s and, therefore, amenable to party discipline.

But the BJP knows that it can ask them to unleash their ghar wapsi and love jehad campaigns if and when the going gets tough. Theirs is a temporary retreat. However, the BJP’s problem is that it cannot control others like Baba Ramdev or the Hindu Sena, switching their antics on and off.

To keep such elements in line, the party is apparently depending on the “Bharat Mata ki Jai” campaign to keep the hardliners engaged.

It is also undeniable that the programmes on Afzal Guru and Yakub Memon in the Jawaharlal Nehru and Hyderabad central universities have given the Hindutva forces an opportunity to lambaste the “anti-national” students.

At the same time, the delight expressed by the Kashmiri students in Srinagar’s National Institute of Technology (NIT) over India’s defeat in the cricket world cup semi-final has put the saffron brigade in a quandary, for neither Rajnath Singh, nor a pliant police officer like B.S. Bassi (former Delhi police commissioner), nor a group of hoods masquerading as lawyers (as in the Patiala House Court) can be deployed against the anti-national students.

Even the sedition law cannot be applied. Instead, the BJP’s double standards have been exposed, for what is sinful for Kanhaiya Kumar in Delhi is not a crime in Srinagar.

The self-appointed patriot par excellence, Anupam Kher, tried fishing in the troubled waters of the NIT, but was held up at Srinagar airport. He is learning the hard way that nationalism is not one-dimensional in a multicultural country. So has the BJP. The responsibilities of power have taught it the value of restraint.

The pity, however, is that if confrontations of this nature – over beef, patriotic slogans – continue, the country’s economic advancement will be put on hold.

As it is, the reforms were stalled at Sonia Gandhi’s behest in the last years of the Manmohan Singh government because the fastest reduction in poverty between 2005-06 and 2011-12, as the Modi government’s chief economic adviser, Arvind Subramanian, has said, was enhancing the then prime minister’s credit and putting Rahul in the shade.

The same tragedy can overtake the country if Modi’s hope that rapid economic development will persuade the saffron militants to give him more time is not fulfilled.

If he, too, takes the foot off the accelerator of reforms, as P. Chidambaram said the Manmohan Singh government did in its twilight years, then it will be back to the Hindu rate of growth and a plunge into penurious conditions. (IPA Service)