Modifying the Modification
I am writing this some three weeks before the results of the
national elections come out, and barring some major miracle, this present
Congress led government is history. But boy, what an election it is. I don’t think that in recent times we have
seen an election that is so full of vitriol and scorn being hurled at each
other by the rival camps. It has all
come down to one -man and what he stands for. I don’t know if any one political
leader has polarized public opinion so much as has Mr Narendra Modi. This three time chief minister carries excess
baggage from his dubious past. His admirers see him as this strong and decisive
leader who has turned his state of Gujrat into a land of untold prosperity and
riches and given a chance, would wrought similar transformation across the
whole of India. On the other hand, there
are legions of his detractors who are pathologically opposed to him and believe
that he’s got blood on his hands of innocent Muslims who were systemically
butchered in a pogrom unleashed in the aftermath of the ghastly burning alive
of over sixty Hindu devotees in a train coach when they were returning to Gujrat
from the holy town of Ayodhya.
If you ask me, where do I stand in all this, then for a
wishy-washy liberal like me, I would say that I am neither in this camp or that
but am firmly sitting on the barbed fence of public opinion and as anyone can
see, it can be a very uncomfortable experience!
I am not somebody who is hopelessly in love with Modi and identify with
his muscular nationalist impulses, in fact, once upon a time I positively hated
him. But with the passage of time and gaining of perspective, this has changed
somewhat. And I am certainly not from
the club of bleeding hearts, who see in him the Devil incarnate. As is usually
the case, there are facts and there are interpretation. For every argument made on his behalf by his
admirers, there are counter arguments offered by his detractors, and since the
principal opposition party the BJP has named him as its prime ministerial
candidate, and there is more than a good chance that he would become one,
thanks to the appalling level of economic mismanagement and stinking corruption
by the present Congress led government, we have to be ready for the
possibility. Now that Mr Modi from the
early age of eight has been trained by the RSS.
This right wing Hindu cultural/religious/nationalist organisation must
have had a profound effect on the man in his formative years. The RSS is a bigoted entity whose world view
is imbued with a strong sense of Hindu chauvinism and large scale antipathy
against the religious minorities, particularly the Muslims. Once Modi famously refused to wear a
skullcap, a common headgear for the Muslims and when recently asked about this
in an interview, his reasoning went something like how it is his choice to
honour his tradition and ethos, but that doesn’t mean that he disrespects the
cultural ethos of others, and anyway, he has never believed in the politics of
tokenism, according to him, it should be justice for all and appeasement to
none. Of course, any intelligent
interviewer would have asked then how come on the campaign trail he is seen
putting on all sorts of gear, from Sikh turban in Punjab to tribal headgear in
Nagaland, why he even wore Mundu, the traditional attire down south when he visited
over there. Wasn’t that appeasement or pandering to a particular ethnic group?
Or does he believe that at a subliminal level, these groups are part of the
larger pan-hindutva heritage? In that case the targeted sections are hardly
likely to be amused. But it was not asked and we would never know.
To go into cynical politics behind the communal violence in
this country is beyond the scope of this write-up, except it would suffice to
say that no, absolutely no political party worth its salt in this country is
above using religion, caste or ethnicity to promote its vote bank and even justify
their existence. Just that some have
done it brazenly and some have been more subtle and devious about it. Coming back to Modi phenomena, first, you
have to understand what has gone before.
We have had such a lacklustre and uninspiring leadership over the last
decade under Manmohan Singh that the vast majority of the voters are thirsting
for change (yours truly included). Our
current prime minister is a very shy, retiring and self-effacing kind of
personality. Although a decent human
being and a scholar to boot, he has always been conscious of the fact that he owes
his job to the goodwill of Sonia Gandhi.
Add to the fact that he is not given to the rhetorical flourish of an
Obama, you are saddled with a man who has brought a baffling timidity to the
job that has led to all round drift and paralysis in governance.
Now turn all these attributes around hundred and eighty degrees,
and you’ve got Narendra Damodardas Modi. In fact, never in the history of an
Indian elections has anyone been putting himself forward for the top job with
such a gung-ho approach as Mr Modi is doing. He looks like a man possessed with
a messianic zeal, our own Moses leading his followers to Mount Sinai to deliver
Ten Commandment! He not only will and does relish the heat of the battle, but
seems right at home. For most of the
middle class and poor Indians, life is a hard slog at the best of times in
India, and these are far from the best of times if you have to survive on a
modest income. In comes a person who
promises a complete rupture from the past and who knows how to tap into the
simmering discontent of the people, he is selling them the dream of rapid upward
social mobility, and the masses are lapping it all up. In the final analysis,
elections in a poor and under developed country like India are almost always
about protests. And to that extent,
people are really coming out in numbers to register their, support for Modi,
who has seemingly evolved over the years.
Only time will tell whether so many people are buying into false dawn or
a paradigm shift has indeed taken place. I am neither apologising for Modi nor
am I demonizing him. I have only stated what I have felt and observed.
