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Modi versus the rest in Gujarat

— PHOTO: AP

Congress supporters at an election rally in Ahmedabad on Thursday.

As I wound up my 30-minute meeting with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh functionary, he called after me. “Remember there is another possibility. We could have a hung House with the rebels forming the third block.” He seemed delighted by the prospect but the “third possibility” only further queered the pitch in an Assembly election where the pendulum seemed to swing back and forth between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Ten days into my tour of Gujarat, I was still doing my math and weighing the two main parties against each other. The Congress had arithmetic and Sonia Gandhi on its side. The BJP seemed under siege, with the party structure, the larger sangh family, and the State machinery all in an adversarial relationship with Narendra Modi. There was also a veritable army of rebels against the man. Yet who would dare write off Mr. Modi? He leapt out of every corner, held the crowds in thrall, and had admirers in the remotest parts.

As if this were not enough, lately Narendrabhai had also whipped up a frenzy on the campaign trail, making it difficult to tell which element would win: The Congress’ arithmetic advantage or Mr. Modi’s incitement to revenge. The theme of the 2002 election was back and the Gujarat Chief Minister quite clearly revelled in the new twist. Ms Gandhi, the Election Commission, the Supreme Court, the media were all against him, he told his audiences, undoubtedly marvelling at the turn of events that once again placed him in splendid isolation. “Modi versus the rest” was his best bet to win the election, and that is precisely how the battle lines were being drawn up.

A compact State with neatly laid out geographical regions and only two political parties, Gujarat should have been a picnic for the travelling reporter, especially compared to the minefield called Uttar Pradesh. Yet it proved to be a challenge, starting with the topography. In Uttar Pradesh, villages beckoned the visitor. They were easily accessible with the people so politically plugged in that conversation started naturally, and within no time you had the details of the candidates down to their sub-castes and a micro-analysis of their prospects as a bonus.

In Gujarat, there is an expressway to every destination, as a consequence of which the rural landscape is often a blur along the journey. Take the bumpy de-tour to the villages, and you are apt not only to see a different and unshiny Gujarat, you would also meet the vexing Gujarati khedut. The khedut (farmer) is a reluctant speaker, and when he finally consents to speak it is in colloquial Gujarati, which means that the visitor must agonise over how much of the sub-text — so important to gauge the mood in an election — has been lost in translation.

Even so, a broad picture emerged. Saurashtra, the scene of a massive peasant revolt in September, was mellower in December but nonetheless a serious trouble spot for the Gujarat Chief Minister. Kolis, Gujarat’s largest caste group and the BJP’s mainstay along with Levua Patels, seemed to have shifted in considerable numbers to the Congress. Leuva Patels were divided but considering how overwhelmingly they had voted BJP in 2002, this division could only help the Congress.

North Gujarat is visibly prosperous but it also has some of the poorest areas, a fact graphically brought out at Ms Gandhi’s Idar rally. The turnout was humungous, but more significantly, it was made up of the very poor, Adivasis and Dalits. Many in the audience had voted for the BJP in 2002, and they now seemed to want to retrace their steps. The villages here were split between the BJP and the Congress while in the urban areas Mr. Modi was still quite the favourite.

Central Gujarat, once the bastion of the Congress and now the proud mascot of Mr. Modi’s vibrant Gujarat, was where the anti-Muslim pogrom left its most horrific marks. The region went almost wholly with the BJP in 2002. It speaks to the impact of the violence that the Congress drew a blank in the 15 Adivasi-dominated seats here.

In 2007, the region presented spectacular contrasts. In the tribal areas, there was awakening and anger — against the BJP and the larger sangh parivar. Poor road condition and dense forest terrain rendered these parts almost inaccessible but a visit here was worth the effort. Conversations inevitably turned to tribal exploitation by the saffron groups: Mr. Modi’s use of tribals in the 2002 pogrom particularly rankled but also recalled was the old hurt over being called Vanvasi, which was seen as a deliberate attempt to obliterate the antiquity of Adivasi. The frenzy of 2002, when activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad camped here to ensure tribal votes went to the BJP, seemed to have been replaced by a very different mood: quite anti-BJP, not fully with the Congress — whose prevarication over the Forest Rights Act was an issue — but slowly and surely getting there. It helped the Congress that this time the VHP was conspicuously absent.

Away from this belt, Central Gujarat could be another planet where Mr. Modi and only Mr. Modi reigned. The young especially sang paeans to him, claiming to love his arrogance, his audacity, and yes, his communal talk. Mr. Modi’s work — water and electricity in abundance — was a talking point. But so was “Hindu hit ka rakhsa (protection of Hindu rights).”

Did all this point to a clear pattern? The urban better-off with Mr. Modi and the poor and the marginalised castes with the Congress? Yes, largely so, but there were breaks in the model. Off the highway in Vadali, Sabarkantha, in north Gujarat, an angry voice interrupted the Narendrabhai chant. The highways were for the rich, and uninterrupted power supply only meant bigger, unpaid bills, said Parasbhai Chauhan, a well-dressed youth typically fitting the pro-Modi profile.

The reverse was equally true. In Kheralu in Mehsana, also in north Gujarat, I met Vasant Kumar in a tea shop. He eulogised Ms Gandhi — “she has a natural empathy for the poor” — and heaped abuse on Mr. Modi. “He speaks of five crore Gujaratis but he is only for five crorepatis,” he said, repeating a well known wordplay on Mr. Modi’s affection for industry. The mood did not seem any different in his village. Suddenly, an old man in rags seized Vasant Kumar by his collar and thrashed him for insulting Narendrabhai. He ought to have been in Soniaben’s rally.

The Modi myth is difficult to escape. A picture that lingers is from a Modi rally in Mahuva, off the coast of Bhavnagar in Saurashtra. The road to the venue was badly pot-holed. But unconcerned, the crowds clapped and cheered him. Outside the pandal, I met a group of Narendrabhai enthusiasts, all of them standing on a pothole the size of a crater. Yet that did not seem to stop them from listing his achievements, magnificent roads included.

Gujarat 2007 is tailor-made for a Congress victory. The caste equation favours it. Indeed, should a section of Leuva Patels vote Congress, the party will have pulled off a KHAM (Kshtriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim)–Patel combination, unseen in the history of Gujarat. Sections of the RSS and the VHP are indirectly supporting it. The police seem to be with the Congress and against the BJP. As many as 50 BJP rebels are in the fray, many of them strong in their constituencies. Teachers are angry, bureaucrats are unhappy. It just cannot get any better for the Grand Old Party.

In the 2004 Lok Sabha election, the Congress, in fact, won a majority of Assembly segments — 91 to the BJP’s 89. It could repeat this feat. But there is also Mr. Modi’s undeniable popularity, not to forget the return of the communal angle. It is a strange contradiction. A popular leader with the math gone wrong. And a party with its math seemingly right but without a popular leader. Perhaps Gujarat will throw up the RSS man’s third possibility?

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