On two days in a year – Republic Day and Independence Day – political rivals are expected to set aside their differences to echo the uplifting sentiments of our people for the unity and integrity of our nation and to uphold the letter and spirit of our Constitution. This is what every President and Prime Minister has done since we attained freedom in 1947 and after we became a republic three years later. Opposition parties refrained on these occasions to score brownie points. They observed decorum if only to underscore their regard for the offices of the head of state and the head of government.

Some political leaders, however, failed to observe this decorum. For example, Jammu & Kashmir chief minister, Omar Abdullah, came down heavily on the BJP for exploiting the communal fracas in Kishtwar to advance its electoral agenda. Abdullah may have good reasons to berate the Hindutva outfits for their alleged misdemeanours. But an Independence Day Address was not the proper forum to vent his anger and anguish.

On his part, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar took a dig at Narendra Modi, without naming him, for failing to provide ‘inclusive development’ in Gujarat. Here, again, he sought to settle political scores with his erstwhile allies. He, too, gave short shrift to republican tradition. He doubtless has his reasons to target the Gujarat chief minister. But Independence Day was not the moment he ought to have chosen for this purpose. He acted like a satrap, not as a statesman.

The one who takes the cake for violating every norm, convention and etiquette that public figures are expected to respect on Independence Day is Narendra Modi. He had the gall to announce that the nation should decide whose address was more effective: his own in Bhuj or the Prime Minister’s address from the ramparts of the Red Fort. It does not appear to have occurred to him that he is one among more than a score of chief ministers to speak to citizens. Such is his conceit that he placed himself on par with the executive head of the republic and challenged him to debate his own achievements in Gujarat with the achievements of Dr Manmohan Singh’s government.

Modi is of course free to pick holes in the Prime Minister’s speech. There are indeed holes in it that need to be picked. (No reference to women’s security, inflation, the demand for new states.) But what possessed him to place himself on par with the Prime Minister to do so? The answer is: overweening ambition. If comparisons have to be made, they must be made on a number of widely accepted criteria. Dr Manmohan Singh, we know, is not endowed with oratorical skills. Modi’s demagogic flourishes enthral crowds. That, too, is known. The Prime Minister’s body language is one of restraint. That of Modi’s is redolent with words and gestures that recall those leaders who have been high on exploiting atavistic emotions, but are low on substance: from Mussolini and Hitler to Chavez and Morsi.

The tenor and tone of Manmohan Singh’s address were in keeping with the office he holds. Those of Modi were akin to the rants of Hyde Park cranks or, better still, to the often obscene fulminations of Bal Thackeray at Mumbai’s Shivaji Park or those of Akbaruddin Owasi in Hyderabad. Indeed, there are times when you detect disturbing similarities between the oratorical style of Modi and, Heaven forbid, of Hafiz Saeed: the same venom, the same conceit of a Saviour-in-waiting, the same promise of redemption from enemies. The result is that even when Modi makes sense – which he does once in a while – he goofs. The reason is that he is attempting to pit Gujarat against the rest of India and to pit himself, as Gujarat’s benefactor, against everyone else. It is as if he has convinced himself that he is Destiny’s chosen leader to deliver India from its corrupt, incompetent and unaccountable rulers.

Arrogance on this scale doesn’t go down well even within Modi’s political and ideological family. It is one thing for the Congress and for Nitish Kumar to berate him for his trespasses. But when a leader of L K Advani’s stature goes public to state that Independence Day is not an occasion to criticize any one he, in fact, expresses his disdain for the drama that Modi staged in Bhuj. Why does the Gujarat chief minister not compare his self-proclaimed achievements with those of other states where – both in terms of economic and social development – progress has been distinctively superior? This includes, especially, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

The mood in the country may well be against the Congress on a number of counts – often with good reason. But Modi will be living in a make-believe world if he thinks that India is rearing to hail him as a Messiah. Indians have an uncanny instinct to distinguish between genuine wheat and chaff.