The SIR Jugaad

The Supreme Court has already spoken. The Special Intensive Revision—SIR, as the babus love to call it—is to be implemented across the country. That should have settled the matter. But no, in our democracy, we thrive on noise, not on clarity. The shouting brigades—activists, politicians, and their ever-energetic echo chambers—cry hoarse that voters’ names are being deleted. Yet, when the Supreme Court asked for proof—just fifteen living souls whose names had been struck off—they couldn’t produce them. Out of eight or nine crore voters, not fifteen. The silence that followed was more deafening than their slogans.

So, the Court did what any rational institution would do—it said, “Enough. Let SIR roll nationwide.”

Now, Mamata Banerjee has decided to play David to the Court’s Goliath. If she blocks SIR in West Bengal, the matter will go right back to the courts. The Election Commission will shrug and say, “We’ve been ordered to do this.” Without the process, elections can’t be held. And once the Assembly’s term ends, the Constitution does what no politician likes—it imposes President’s Rule. In short, Mamata’s choice is between swallowing a bitter pill or choking on it.

But here’s the catch—Mamata thinks she’s in a battle of bureaucracy. She isn’t. She’s in a battle of jugaad.

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah don’t play by the book—they write their own. To predict Modi’s next move, one must understand his mind. He doesn’t think like a Western technocrat or a Delhi bureaucrat. He thinks like the archetypal Indian—the man who will fix a leaking pipe with an old rag and a bit of wire, not because it’s ideal, but because it works.

That, to me, is the 'Original Indian Thinking'. It doesn’t obsess over systems; it finds workarounds. The system will adjust later. It’s the same instinct that builds a house before the map is approved, or marries off a daughter before the dowry rules are rewritten. Modi embodies this ethos.

I once told a friend that Operation Sindoor wasn’t born in a week—it was conceived eleven years earlier. Since 2014, groundwork was being laid. When the Pahalgam moment came, they executed it like clockwork. The friend asked, “Eleven years? Who plans that long?” I told him, “An Indian father does. The day his daughter turns five, he starts saving for her wedding at eighteen.” That’s not strategy; that’s instinct.

So, when Mamata thinks she can corner Modi, she misunderstands him. She plays politics; he plays time. If SIR is delayed, the clock itself becomes his ally. When the Assembly term expires and the voter list is incomplete, President’s Rule becomes inevitable—and constitutional. Mamata may shout about democracy, but she’ll have scripted her own undoing.

Remember how Donald Trump built his post-election narrative on “vote theft”? Our desi politicians borrowed that playbook, hoping to stir sympathy. But in India, imitation seldom works. The idea of vote theft found no takers in Bihar, nor in Bengal. People will start crying foul only after they lose, never before.

And yet, this obsession with corruption and conspiracy fascinates me. I once compared it to catching a flight. When we’re late and the flight’s delayed, we feel relieved. When we’re early and it’s delayed, we curse the airline. The same delay, two emotions—context is everything. So too with “vote theft.” The less we understand, the more we shout.

Here’s a statistic that should shame us: barely 62 to 68 percent of Indians vote. The remaining 30-odd percent never step out. Whose votes are being stolen then? Democracy doesn’t vanish through deletion—it withers through disinterest.

Back in 2019, noted Marathi journalist Bhau Torsekar’s friends asked him how he managed to make political predictions without relying on data. Bhau smiled and said, “I trust the people, not the pollsters.”

He always believed that politics was not a science of numbers but an art of understanding human instinct. Anti-incumbency, pro-incumbency — he dismissed such terms as “academic toys.” He would often explain that in the 1990s, liberalization had changed India’s economy, but by 2000, it had changed the Indian mind. A new middle class had emerged — the beneficiary class. They began voting for continuity rather than change. Yet analysts, he would say with quiet amusement, still chased the ghost of anti-incumbency.

Bhau once made an observation that startled even his friends. “In Colaba,” he said, “where democracy’s biggest beneficiaries live, barely thirty percent vote. But in Gadchiroli, people walk ten kilometers to cast a ballot.” For them, democracy wasn’t theory — it was dignity. Their voter ID was their self-respect. “We, the privileged, talk about democracy,” Bhau said, “but they, the forgotten, keep it alive.”

When that discussion ended, one of his friends asked him to sum up the 2019 election in two sentences. Bhau smiled again and said, “I can do it in two words.” She looked puzzled. “Mackenna’s Gold.”

Two minutes later she asked, “Who’s Gregory Peck?”

“That’s Modi,” Bhau said. “The man who never cared about gold — but got it. And those who lusted for it — didn’t.”

That’s how Indian politics works. The man who doesn’t chase power ends up wielding it. The man who schemes to keep it, loses it. Modi, whatever one may think of him, has understood this truth better than anyone.

Mamata Banerjee might shout from the rooftops about democracy and central overreach, but in the end, she may find herself trapped in her own rhetoric. The Original Indian doesn’t fight battles head-on—he bends, twists, and finally turns the tide.

That’s the real politics of India. Not the politics of principles, but of jugaad. And in that g

ame, Narendra Modi remains undefeated.