After weathering the storm of the riots in the state in the following year when he was called a “modern-day Nero” by the Supreme court for his failure to control the communal outbreak, Modi went on to win three successive assembly elections notwithstanding the criticism he faced inside the country and outside for his suspected complicity in the violence which claimed 1,200 lives.

When Modi made his pitch to be the prime minister, he was opposed by stalwarts in his party like L.K. Advani. But to no avail, for not only did Modi win and lead the BJP to a comfortable victory in the Lok Sabha with 282 seats, but he also acquired nationwide popularity because of his promise of ushering in development-oriented “achhey din” or good days in the wake of the previous government’s policy paralysis.

It is possible that Modi’s series of successes over nearly two decades has fostered a sense of invincibility in him and an attitude of contempt for his opponents. Having faced virtually no opposition for over 10 years in Gujarat, he apparently began to see his tenure at the centre in the same light.

This feeling of ruling over the country as he had done in Gujarat may have been strengthened by the presence by his side of his former political companion from the state, Amit Shah.

Two other factors appear to have boosted the confidence of the party and its leader of being unassailable. One is obviously the absence of comparable figures in the opposition with Modi’s popularity and Amit Shah’s organizational skills. The other is the fawning support from a section of the media to the Modi dispensation.

There are also bloggers who have seen the new government as one which represents a seminal change from all those which came before it by being rooted in an indigenous, primarily Hindu, worldview unlike its deracinated, anglicized predecessors

The reason for the government’s recent policies is the conviction born of these factors that the path is clear for implementing on a national scale the lessons of the “Hindutva laboratory” for which Gujarat was known from the days even before Modi took charge. In fact, the 1969 Ahmedabad riots were said to mark the beginning of the Hindutva “experiment” in the laboratory.

What the Modi-Shah duo is probably finding strange and unacceptable, therefore, is the resistance which their policies are facing, especially after the government’s success in pushing through other items on its pro-Hindu agenda such as revoking Article 370.

The current obstacles on its path are not something which they experienced in Gujarat or after assuming power at the centre. They are a novelty for them and, understandably, the party and the government do not quite know how to deal with the presence on the streets almost on a daily basis of thousands of angry students as well as social and political activists.

The BJP’s first reaction has been to brand the protesters as anti-nationals and pro-Pakistani. These have been the standard terms which the party has used against dissenting voices. But it is possible that the charges are losing their sting because of overuse.

What is worse for the party and the government is that the protests against the citizenship law are being made not only in India, but also abroad and notably in prestigious academic institutions in Oxford and Harvard. The charges of being anti-national or pro-Pakistani will not wash in these cases.

Since the citizenship law and the registers for citizens and populations have become additional sticks in the hands of the Western media with which to beat the Indian government, the entire protest movement is acquiring an embarrassing diplomatic overtone as well.

As it is, the government has been finding it difficult to live down the infamy it has earned in the West over the crackdown in Kashmir with only China applauding the shutting down of Internet in the valley and welcoming India’s growing distance from Western democratic values, as the Chinese publication, the Global Times, has said.

Now the government is having to counter the allegation of being anti-Muslim. Even if the BJP’s core group of supporters will find nothing wrong in such a label which the Hindutva brotherhood has worn ever since the formation of the RSS in 1925 with the U.P. chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, classifying Indians into two groups - Alis or Muslims and Bajrang Balis or Hindus – the BJP still shies away from formally flaunting such an Islamophobic attitude. What the BJP is realizing, therefore, is that the policies which passed muster in Gujarat can run into roadblocks at the national level. (IPA Service)