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Sunday, Jun 27, 2004

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The Modi factor

What explains Narendra Modi's strength and longevity despite a seeming proliferation of detractors? Jyotirmaya Sharma on the man and his methods.

SINCE THE declaration of the Election 2004 results, Narendra Modi and his blemished record during the post-Godhra riots came under attack, first, from a host of allies of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Soon, there was a dinner party where a substantial number of MLAs expressed their disenchantment over Mr. Modi's stewardship in Gujarat. Just when the central leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party was mounting a fire fighting operation in Gujarat, the party's `tallest' leader and former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, chose to ignite the Modi issue from the cool climes of his vacation destination in Manali. He launched a frontal attack on Mr. Modi and his handling of the communal conflagration in Gujarat in 2002.

Even as the three-day national executive of the party was under way in Mumbai from June 22, the former Gujarat Chief Minister and Mr. Modi's chief bete noire, Keshubhai Patel, likened the Modi rule in the State to a mini-Emergency. Amidst this growing clamour for his removal, Mr. Modi chose as his weapon a virtue increasingly rare among Indian politicians: silence.

The result of this tactical move is that hardline BJP leaders are now gloating privately that Mr. Modi has `vanquished' Mr. Vajpayee, not to speak of lesser leaders like Mr. Patel.

What explains Mr. Modi's strength and longevity despite a seeming proliferation of detractors, not to mention the most diabolic record of fanning state-sponsored communal violence in post-independence India? Mr. Modi represents the politics of Hindutva in its purest form. The Sangh Parivar has always been dismissive of India's orientation as a secular, democratic, liberal and pluralistic society. Its preference for a more controlled and regulated polity, woven around its interpretation of cultural nationalism, has been an abiding aspiration and the basis for a future Hindu utopia.

Mr. Modi's achievement is to have accomplished a slice of this mission within the limitations imposed by a democratic order. While individual leaders in the Sangh Parivar might express unease over his style of functioning and his alleged megalomania, his model provides a near-perfect identity-kit picture of Hindutva politics.

This is where Mr. Vajpayee misread the potency of the Modi model for the Sangh Parivar. To blame Mr. Modi, a former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharak, for what happened in 2002 is to implicate the entire Parivar in that guilt, something that the ideological constituency of the BJP refuses steadfastly to do.

In the last two decades or more, urbanisation and industrialisation in Gujarat has created a severe identity crisis for the middle class. The traditional structure of professions, most of them caste-based, has given way to newer professions. The exodus of Gujaratis to the United States in large numbers, proportionately larger than the earlier trend of emigration to Africa and the United Kingdom, created its own dynamics. The rupture from direct caste affiliation led to the Hindu identity becoming the sole anchor of the urban middle class and of the NRG (non-resident Gujarati).

In its early years, the BJP capitalised on this search for identity. Mr. Modi's contribution to this process is very significant. He added a parochial dimension to the growing affiliation with Hindu identity by constructing a Hindu-Gujarati identity, anchored on slogans such as Gujarati asmita (Gujarat's pride and glory) and Apnu Gujarat, agavun Gujarat (our Gujarat, unique Gujarat). Even his severest critics admit that in demagoguery, Mr. Modi has no parallel. His effective use of colloquial terms such as `agavun', on the one hand, and naming his water scheme sujalam sufalam, invoking the memory of Vande Mataram, on the other, are a clever manipulation of language to create a politics around the Hindu-Gujarati identity axis.

Born in Vadnagar in Mehsana district, Mr. Modi has travelled a long way from his start as an RSS pracharak in 1972. He caught the eye of the party leadership for his successful organisation of L.K. Advani's rath yatra in 1990. He was formally drafted to the BJP and became its national general secretary with effective charge of Gujarat. In this role, he made life for the then Chief Minister, Keshubhai Patel, difficult.

He first became Chief Minister in 2001, and was seen by a large section of the OBCs, Dalits, Brahmins and Banias as their hope against the hegemony of the Patels in Gujarat politics. He might have lost some of his sheen since, but still has the backing of the Sangh Parivar. Despite unrest among farmers in the State and opposition to his policies from the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, an RSS affiliate, he has at least temporarily blunted dissidence against him. In doing so, generous help was doled out by Mr. Vajpayee, whose outburst against him only seems to have strengthened his position. The BJP's recent back to the basics policy, namely a return to Hindutva, has only further consolidated his standing.

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