On May 26, 2026, Narendra Modi completed 12 years as the Head of the Government of India. History will record his rule as the most vicious regressive period in post-independent India, marked by divisive communal politics and misgovernance. He downgraded the Office of the Prime Minister so much, by his various acts of omission and commission, basing his narrative and rhetoric on lies and half-truths, and downright denigrating the Nehru-Gandhi Family, crossing all the limits of civility, with the sole objective of misleading the people and winning elections by hook or crook, that it is difficult to assess. He inflicted irreversible damage on India since he assumed office.

The Demonetisation
Addressing the nation on November 8, 2016, Modi announced the demonetisation of all ?500 and ?1,000 banknotes, which invalidated the currency valued at ?15.44 trillion. Demonetisation came into effect from midnight that day. The main objectives were to curb black money, terror funding, and counterfeit currency. It was an ill-conceived, disruptive exercise.

It caused severe economic disruption, wiping out an estimated 2% of GDP. Invalidating 87% of the currency in circulation overnight triggered a massive cash shortage, around 1.5 million job losses, and severely affected the informal and small-business sectors. The sudden demonetisation crippled the informal economy, which relied heavily on cash. Small businesses, mom-and-pop shops, and wholesale traders experienced steep sales declines, with many forced to shut down. The All-India Manufacturers' Organisation estimated severe job losses, particularly in macro and small-scale industries. The daily-wage labourers and those in cash-dependent sectors suffered the most.

The government estimated that a large portion of illicit wealth would not return to the banking system. However, the Reserve Bank of India reported that 99.3% of the demonetised banknotes were deposited, indicating that most illicit cash was successfully laundered. And counterfeit notes detected during the process were far below alarmist estimates, rendering the impact on terror financing and fake currency negligible. The severe cash crunch led to massive queues outside banks and ATMs, with over 100 fatalities caused by exhaustion.

The nationwide lockdown
On March 24, 2020, Modi, yet again, issued a broadcast ordering a draconian 21-day lockdown effective from midnight on March 25. It was the first devastating nationwide lockdown by any nation to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, confining 1.4 billion people of the most populous country in the world to their homes. It sent shockwaves through the people. With factories and workplaces shut down, millions of migrant workers had to deal with the loss of income, food shortage and uncertainty about their future. Many of them and their families went hungry. With no work and no money, thousands of migrant workers were seen walking hundreds of kilometres to go back to their native villages, and many died of exhaustion or in accidents on the roads.

People were prohibited from leaving their homes, and public transport — railways, metros, and domestic and international flights — was suspended. All educational institutions, places of worship, and non-essential commercial and industrial establishments were shut down. The sudden shutdown left daily-wage workers and migrant labourers stranded without income or food, triggering one of the largest mass migrations across the country since the 1947 Partition. The nationwide shutdown was extended multiple times, causing untold misery and suffering for the people. According to the WHO estimate, nearly 4.7 million people died in India. Many dead bodies were seen floating in the river Ganga.

The lockdown was more of a panic reaction rather than a reasoned decision. It could have been handled more humanely. Incidentally, this writer never received any vaccines or booster doses during the COVID pandemic, as he didn't believe the treatment was based on any scientific study or was necessary, given that doctors and hospitals were amassing money from wrong diagnoses and medication. The dos and don'ts prescribed made no sense in the countryside and slums in urban areas.

Controlling the Media
During the past 12 years as the Prime Minister of the world's largest democracy, Modi has held no press conferences. He doesn't face the Press out of fear of being exposed for his false narratives and unsubstantiated public statements. He calls India 'mother of democracy' in public utterances, but what he does is anti-democratic.

Modi was on a two-day official visit to Oslo (Norway) from May 18 to May 19, 2026. And when he was asked, during a joint press appearance with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, by a journalist, Helle Lyng, why he does not take questions from the Press, he walked out, showing India in a poor light and lowering her image, and losing his credibility in the process. In contrast, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, held nearly 130 press conferences, fielding questions and giving extempore answers.

At home, the Modi government controls the Media Houses owned by his billionaire industrial friends, with the media becoming a mouthpiece of the political establishment, scrupulously avoiding any criticism of the government policies and actions. In fact, the electronic media have become an instrument of false propaganda. India is ranked 157 out of 180 countries in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders, dropping 6 places from its rank of 151 in 2025 and ranking below its neighbours — Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan. India continues to fall under the "Very Serious" category for press freedom. It highlights growing legal pressure on journalists, judicial harassment and the increasing use of national security laws.

The media is not realising the damage it is inflicting on the Indian democracy, sidestepping its larger national cause of making the government accountable for its misdeeds. It surrendered the role of the Fourth Estate in a free and open society. The fourth Pillar of Democracy has become the 'Fourth Estate Agency' of the regime.

Capturing the Public Institutions
The Modi government has successfully captured every public institution. The Central agencies, which are expected to be independent and function impartially, have been captured to toe the establishment line. The investigative agencies, such as CBI, ED, and NIA, have been misused to subserve the interests of the ruling party and demonise the Opposition.

The Constitutionally independent organisation, the Election Commission of India (ECI), whose prime duty is to safeguard democracy, is unable to function as a neutral umpire to ensure free and fair elections. In the name of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, the ECI is violating the very electoral process based on the universal adult franchise, resulting not only in millions of eligible voters being disfranchised but also in vote chori (vote theft) determining election outcomes. The ECI has failed to check the electoral malpractices. By amending the law relating to the CEC and Other ECs (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) in 2023, the government has provided them immunity from any penal action, a protection not provided to any other constitutional authority, including High Courts and Supreme Court judges, not even to the President of India.

This explains why the current CEC, Gyanesh Kumar, has become a law unto himself, accountable to no one except his political masters, and has acted in a manner unheard of in a democracy: in the most authoritarian and partisan manner. Some 193 MPs from both Houses of the Indian Parliament, submitting a notice to the Presiding Officers demanding his removal, have made no difference to his arbitrary exercise of power. The Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Om Birla, and the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, CP Radhakrishnan, have rejected the notice outright.

And while holding the view that the ECI has the power to conduct the SIR, the Supreme Court has failed to address the nitty-gritty of the SIR exercise that arbitrarily disfranchised millions of citizens, particularly the poor and vulnerable sections. The Court has not addressed the issue of shifting the burden of proving citizenship to the people.

Even the independence of the Supreme Court of India is not beyond doubt. The sound judgments come in piecemeal, depending on the individual judges. Prashant Bhushan says the judges are under pressure not to pass judgments that run counter to the government, making a mockery of judicial review.

During the May 15 hearing on a petition by an advocate seeking designation as a senior advocate, the CJI, Surya Kant, used very offensive language in open court. This is what he said, as reported in leading newspapers on May 16:

"Jobless youngsters like cockroaches attack the system, working as parasites to weaken institutions. There are youngsters like cockroaches who don't get any employment... some of them become media, some become social media, some become RTI activists, some become other activists, and they start attacking everyone… expressing doubts about the genuineness of the law degrees of many advocates. CJI wants the CBI to verify their law degrees. And thousands of them are fraudulent people, wearing the black robes."

What a diatribe! Is the CJI not aware of the fact that the Government of India moved heaven and earth to prevent the disclosure of any information relating to fraudulent degrees allegedly acquired by Narendra Modi, and that the Judiciary is a party to that? Earlier, the CJI expressed outrage over the inclusion of a chapter on corruption in the Judiciary in an NCERT school textbook, prompting the CBSE to withdraw it. This selective outrage, couched in such an abusive tone by the CJI, is unacceptable. It is an indication of how intolerant even the Judiciary is of criticism, something we thought was the prerogative of the ruling class alone.

It is interesting to recall what transpired at the May 12 meeting to select the next Director of CBI, as the current Director, Praveen Sood, is due to retire in July. The LOP Rahul Gandhi, while dissenting on the selection process in the presence of the CJI Surya Kant, a member of the selection panel, spoke strongly against it and left the meeting. Then he wrote a letter the same day to Narendra Modi, reiterating what he said in the meeting:

"I write to record my dissent. Your government has repeatedly misused the CBI, intended to be India's premier investigative agency, to target political opponents, journalists, and critics. It is to prevent such institutional capture that the Leader of the Opposition is included in the Selection Committee. Regrettably, you have continued to deny me any meaningful role in the process. Despite repeated written requests, I was not provided with the self-appraisal reports of the eligible candidates. The 360-degree reports were denied to me outright. A detailed review of these records is crucial to assess each candidate's history and performance. This deliberate denial of information, without any legal basis, makes a mockery of the selection process and ensures that only your predecided candidate is selected. By denying the Selection Committee crucial information, the government has reduced it to a mere formality. The Leader of the Opposition is not a rubber stamp. I cannot abdicate my constitutional duty by participating in this biased exercise. I therefore dissent in the strongest terms."

Surprisingly, the CJI did not say a word about this development. The CJI has not acted as an independent member from outside the political system. He should have concurred with the LOP's dissenting note to set the record straight. Consequently, the term of the current Director is extended by a year, for the third time.

These are some signs of the irreversible damage that the Modi government has inflicted on the nation. Some other factors equally damaging are: (a) saffronisation of education to influence the thought process of the young tender minds, appointing the persons subscribing to the Sangh ideology to positions of leadership in institutions of higher learning and their regulating bodies; (b) corporatisation of India and concentration of wealth in the hands of few to the detriment of common good; (c) divisive communal agenda and the rise of majoritarian authoritarianism; (d) reducing the Parliament to a 'Rubber Stamp'; (e) engineering defections and toppling elected opposition governments: (f) using the draconian laws UAPA, PMLA and NSA to silence and intimidate the critics: and (g) surrendering the sovereign foreign policy and national interest to the imperial Trump's America.

Many governments have come and gone, each with its own baggage of failures. But the current regime is totally different. It is bent on subverting the constitutional democracy, with a political agenda of establishing a 'Hindu Rashtra' of the extreme right-wing that is dangerous and suicidal.