The colossus of Gujarat

The success of Narendra Modi has posed a number of questions to not only the minorities in the country but also large sections of the Sangh Parivar. It is obvious that having demonstrated that his brand of politics can successfully break away from the influence of the RSS he is now tempted to repeat the experiment in the rest of the country. With Moditva proving robust than the Hindutva of the Sangh Parivar, the established leaders are feeling threatened.

by SUDHA RAMACHANDRAN

Narendra Modi’s detractors and rivals are in utter despair His emphatic win in recent elections to the Gujarat state assembly has not only brought him back as chief minister for a third term but also, his strong showing in the polls appears to have pumped up his political ambitions.

Modi is now said to be eyeing a larger role for himself on the national stage. This is cause for concern not only for India’s religious minorities - Modi failed to act against, if not sanctioned, attacks on Muslims by Hindu mobs in Gujarat in 2002 - and secular democrats but also for Modi’s rivals within his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP won 117 seats in the 182-member Gujarat Assembly, marginally less than the 127 the party won in 2002 at the height of communal polarization in the state but substantially more than predicted by opinion polls.

The victory in the election was Modi’s alone. His personality, the smart propaganda of his government’s achievements, his stoking of communal passions and his clever invocation of Gujarati pride worked like magic, far outweighing the impact of caste, incumbency, dissidence, memories of the 2002 riots and other factors that worked against him.

Modi’s autocratic style of functioning, his mounting political ambitions and the personality cult around which his campaign revolved came under fire from the Sangh Parivar, a family of Hindu right wing organizations of which the BJP is a part. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which functions as the ideological fountainhead to the Parivar, in fact, distanced itself from Modi during the elections. In the 2002 election support from Sangh Parivar cadres propelled Modi’s victory. This time, he won despite their cold response to him.

In this election, Modi achieved what no other BJP leader, including Atal Behari Vajpayee or Lal Krishna Advani have: he broke free of the RSS. He did not defer to the RSS, he defied it. Having vanquished the Congress and silenced powerful opponents within the Sangh Parivar, Modi has emerged from the election as a virtual colossus.

“Modi is today, without doubt, the first among equals, the biggest crowd puller, the main financier and an across-caste mass leader who stands head and shoulders above his colleagues in the BJP,” admitted Outlook, a weekly newsmagazine that is critical of Modi.

An ambitious politician, Modi is said to be eyeing national politics although he has dismissed reports of his likely national role as media speculation. In a bid to thwart his ambitions, a nervous BJP announced on the eve of the Gujarat elections that Advani would be its prime ministerial candidate.

Modi’s win has unsettled the BJP calculations. Of course, the party wanted Modi to win. But with a smaller margin that would have clipped his wings to some extent.

The RSS sees Modi as a loose cannon, completely out of their control. Sections in the BJP, including its current president Rajnath Singh fear Modi’s entry onto the national stage. He may well oust them. They would like to keep Modi confined to Gujarat. But, the truth is Modi can no longer be confined.

The BJP’s dilemma is whether Modi and his brand of campaigning is an asset to the party or not. Modi’s aggressive cocktail of Hindutva and economic reform, the mix of modern economics and shrill nationalism worked in Gujarat. Will it work in the rest of India? Can Gujarat be equated with India? The BJP’s Hindutva plank has failed to cut ice with the voters in general elections. It is unsure whether Moditva, which is more muscular than Hindutva, will work.

In the electorally crucial state of Uttar Pradesh for instance, which controls the bulk of seats in the lower house of parliament, Modi is not popular. His public rallies in the run up to the Uttar Pradesh assembly election earlier this year were thinly attended.

An important worry for the BJP is that a bigger role for Modi in the run up to general elections could turn away potential electoral allies. Vajpayee’s moderate image was an important factor that drew parties to join the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. If the BJP won previous elections it was because of the respectability that Vajpayee’s leadership gave the party, something Modi lacks.

However, several NDA allies hailed Modi’s victory signaling that they are not averse to holding hands with him if he will enable the alliance to ride back to power.

Modi is unlikely to challenge Advani’s bid for the post of prime minister in the coming general election. Advani is 80 years old. The next general election could possibly be his last stab at the prime minister’s post. Modi, who is only 57 years old, will use the coming general election to test the waters.

Advani will pull him in to campaign. Advani is after all now an old war horse, no more a crowd-puller. In contrast, Modi draws “rock star-like packed houses”. Both have axes to grind with the RSS and they will work together in the next election.

In a sign of his growing role in strategizing and campaigning for the party at the national level, Modi, who was earlier dropped by Rajnath from the BJP’s parliamentary board, was invited by Advani within days of the Gujarat victory for a meeting of the party’s informal strategy group. He was the only chief minister to be invited.

Even if Advani is the BJP’s shadow prime minister in the next election, Modi will be the BJP’s key campaigner, writes Shekar Gupta, editor-in-chief of Indian Express. Modi’s “kind of politics, his style of campaigning, his lexicon of cryptographic saffronism and even his short-sleeved kurtas will define the BJP campaign in the next general election”.

If the next general election will be a battle between Modi and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi rather than Advani and Sonia, in the long run Modi “will emerge as Rahul Gandhi’s main challenger,” Gupta writes.

Modi’s rise will influence the strategy of the Congress and the left as well. With the threat posed by Modi looming, the left, which has been snapping at the Congress over the past year over economic and foreign policy issues will tone down its attacks on the Congress. Now, they will close ranks. Modi’s rise “will unite parties that need the Muslim votes, thereby strengthening any Congress-led coalition,” Gupta points out.

Modi’s role in the 2002 communal riots remains a serious blot on his image. This, say his critics, will stand in the way of his rise to the top. What is worse, Modi has stubbornly refused to apologize or even express regret over the horrific killings. He has been reluctant to take even a small step towards healing the wounds or towards reconciliation with Gujarat’s religious minorities. Whether the lure of a role in national politics will make him tone down his hate rhetoric remains to be seen.

His supporters point out that the Gujarat riots will not block Modi’s rise to the top. They insist that memories of 2002 will fade under “Modi’s magic”.

Whether or not the Indian voter will forgive and forget Modi’s role in the 2002 riots is hard to predict. Indian voters did after all forget the Congress’ role in anti-Sikh riots in 1984 when around 3,000 Sikhs were killed.

But Sikhs are a small minority in India, not an important voting block in the country as are the Muslims. Modi, it seems, might have to trim his prime ministerial ambitions if not polish his image. But meanwhile he will define the agenda in national electoral politics in the near future.