Why this man is not invincible

With BJP/VHP dissidents upbeat, Narendra Modi is in a state of panic. His party’s defeat in Gujarat is not an impossibility anymore, unless the Congress decides to self-destruct

Sanjay Kapoor Ahmedabad

These days Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi trusts no one. Engaged in a no-holds barred contest against the Congress and his Sangh Parivar dissidents to win another term for himself, Modi seems in a state of panic. And he has his reasons — because he just can't hide anymore behind the façade of aggressive, macho, Hindutva bravado. Or the hate machine branded as 'Moditva'.

Despite his high decibel campaign used to assiduously cultivate his own image of invincibility, there is a growing impression in political circles that this is an election that Modi could really lose. If Modi indeed comes to grief, the blame would rest on his arrogant ways, and the policies of social and economic exclusion that he has pursued during his eventful term as the lord of all he surveyed. Surely, he is fighting a debilitating impression that he is supporting “five crorepatis at the expense of five crore people of the state”.

Significantly, opinion polls by two media organisations show that the Modi Empire's fortress — like the Babri Masjid — might crumble if Congress, BJP dissidents and other allies give one big push. Remember the Hindutva slogan on December 6, 1992 at Ayodhya: (Ek dhakka aur do, Babri Masjid tor do — Give one more push, break the Babri Masjid).

Modi, who has long years of working on the ground as a committed RSS pracharak, knows this more than anyone else, but hubris prevents him from bringing about mid-course correction in his strategy. His desperation has been visible of late when he used the offices of a swami to convince the estranged BJP leader Uma Bharati to withdraw her candidates from the Gujarat assembly elections. She has little presence here but could do substantial damage to the Modi's saffron vote bank. The mercurial lady first agreed to oblige the harassed 'Hindutva Hriday Samrat', but blanched when she was confronted with undisguised hostility from her supporters to such a move. It was clear that her followers in Gujarat viewed the ground reality differently. And they have sensed a kill. 

Bharati's supporters are all RSS and VHP loyalists who hate Modi's attempts to project himself as bigger than the party and the organisation. They are all working closely with the Congress and hoping that their alliance — albeit tacit — would prove to be Modi's nemesis. Modi, who has enormous resources at his disposal, is unlikely to give up his efforts to consolidate the angry members of the Sangh Parivar to prevent the division of votes. But there are strong counter-currents that could bring to a naught his relentless exertions. And here is where the Delhi factor comes into play.

From this standpoint, these Gujarat elections have far-reaching national implications. There is a growing belief in Delhi that if Modi could be stopped in his tracks, it would embolden the Congress to push the civilian nuclear deal to its logical conclusion — even if the Left parts ways — and go for mid-term elections. Hence, a lot would depend on how the Congress is able to absorb the votes brought in by the BJP dissidents and how it impacts upon its traditional character and support base.

The putsch against the BJP is coming from the dominant Patel community which is nursing a grievance against the high-handedness of Modi. This bugle of revolt was first sounded in Surat on June 11 this year when they collected under the rubric 'Patidar Samaj' and showed the determination to reclaim their lost political glory. Although former Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel, Modi's arch-rival, did not attend the meeting, there were enough indications that he was backing the meet. He has been the one who has suffered the most due to Modi's aggressive ways and most of his supporters have been keen to correct this.

Patels are only 16 per cent of the state's electorate, but they are synonymous with 'Gujaratiat' or what is essentially the old Gujarati essence. Prosperous, the Patel community originally dominated the state's agriculture, but in recent times control small and medium-scale industry, and the diamond and oil business in Saurashtra.  Patels are clannish and are known to work together — hence a fearsome political force.

For many years they were close to the Congress, but after Madhavsinh Solanki wove together a Kshatriya-Harijan-Adivasi-Muslim alliance (KHAM) to make them politically irrelevant, they began to drift towards the BJP. That the Patels are angry was best epitomised by the fire-breathing Hindutva leader, VHP's Pravin Togadia, who had threatened to repeat the “successful Gujarat experiment” all over India after the 2002 genocide. But in the current scenario, he hates Modi who has effectively sidelined him. During the patidar conference, he cautioned against the attempts made by some people (read Narender Modi, who is called 'Chotte Sardar' by his loyalists) to usurp the legacy of Sardar Patel. He exhorted the people to vote against such people.

It would be a mistake to think that Togadia is giving up on his cherished Hindutva values. He believes that this is an opportunity to saffronise the Congress. In his interactions with the local media he has been candid: he says he will back the “Hinduvadi” (those who believe in Hindutva) candidates of the Congress.

For the benefit of this mindset, Congress, to the chagrin of its own secular members and supporters, have given tickets to many established Hindutva supporters. “The first list of the Congress is good and it would get more seats then the BJP in the first round,” claimed former chief minister and dissident BJP leader, Sureshbhai Mehta, speaking to Hardnews. Others belonging to the Keshubhai Mehta camp endorsed this view.

Understandably, Congress is not attacking Modi for his manifest communal record and what his regime has done to the minorities during the Gujarat genocide after the Godhra train fire. They display abject amnesia to one of the most gruesome carnages witnessed in independent India as any articulation of this issue would stop the new surge of anti-Modi voters in their direction. Despite great expectations, the process of justice has not moved under the UPA regime and Muslims continue to be ghettoised and condemned as second-class citizens in Gujarat. The Srikrishna Commission has been dumped by the Congress-NCP regime in Maharashtra, while the Mumbai blasts accused have been packed off to jail.  In Gujarat, Muslims still live in refugee camps and others have not been able to return to their old jobs or homes. Several languish in jails.

The Congress, clearly, has accepted the effective communalisation of Gujarati society and fear that their reiteration of old, aggressively secular positions could hurt their electoral cause. Predictably, many Congress leaders displayed unease over the latest Tehelka sting. They felt it will only reinforce the credentials of Modi as the defender of Hindu faith and polarise fanatic Muslim-haters of the Hindutva fold in his favour. Some even alleged that the sting could have been the doing of some BJP leaders in Delhi who wanted to stop Modi at the national level, or as a possible prime ministerial candidate — even while the expose benefits the BJP's Gujarat campaign.

Congress calculations are simple: position itself as the B-team of the BJP. They want to get all the anti-Modi votes plus the usual minority, tribal and traditional votes that would come their way. If this works in Gujarat, there is a possibility of these votes swimming the Congress way in the event of mid-term polls precipitated by the civilian nuclear deal. Besides, this may help in creating a wave in other states, especially in the BJP-ruled states in the Hindi heartland.

It may be recalled that the RSS has forced the BJP leadership to back the nuclear deal every time they gave an impression of demurring on it. If Gujarat swings in Congress's favour, this would also give its leadership the courage to dump the Left. And who will be the happiest of the lot with these developments?  US managers, politicians, corporates and lobbyists who are desperate to cement strategic and economic ties with India.  

At a local level, the Congress strategy is being guided by the dissidents who have been trying to take the sheen off Modi's development and personal integrity plank. People like Suresh Mehta and Gordhan Zadaphia (Modi's home minister during the 2002 carnage and allegedly directly involved in the killings), have been addressing press conferences and public meetings to show how venal the chief minister is. They have used the right to information (RTI) to cull out information about how Modi has benefited a clutch of favourite businessmen and given them land at throw-away prices. “His claim to integrity is a Goebbelsian lie. He repeats it so many times that people end up believing him,” says Zadaphia.

According to him, there was a scam of Rs 500 crore in a water sanitation programme and despite the best efforts of the opposition parties to force the government to act on a house report there was no action. The rebels point out that the law and order situation has worsened in the last six years. The condition of farmers, tribals and minorities has deteriorated steadily. He has not only lost the support of the Patels, but also the Kolis and tribals.

Opposition to Modi from large sections of the BJP, VHP and RSS workers also stems from their growing devaluation in the present dispensation. Modi has done away with these intermediaries for garnering support and is making a direct appeal to his constituency. At some level this policy has worked as he enjoys considerable goodwill among middle-class and upper-class Gujaratis. However, there have been a number of instances in our contemporary political history where alienation of these political intermediaries (fixers) has caused massive damage to popular politicians.

The case in point is that of Chandrababu Naidu, once celebrated as the best 'virtual reality chief minister' and 'cyberspace CEO' of Andhra Pradesh. Before he lost, he was the darling of the industry and the media. His personal popularity was sky high and the elite in Delhi thought that there was nothing that could bring him down. According to James Manor who studied the Andhra Pradesh debacle of Naidu, “These fixers applaud state- level politicians with a relaxed 'pluralistic' approach who allow people from other parties to exercise influence at lower levels. But they take a dim view of senior leaders who are 'control freaks', who undermine informally and formally rule-bound governance in the interests of partisan advantage or personal denomination.”

Naidu lost because these fixers, who help in connecting the leaders to the masses, refused to work in his favour. Besides, his World Bank-driven structural adjustment policies forced him to cut down on public interest programmes which starved a poverty-stricken countryside and effectively alienated and brutalised the masses, especially the poor and the farmers. More so, Naidu tacitly backed Modi after the carnage despite threatening to withdraw support to the BJP-led NDA.

By the look of it, Modi is also a 'control freak' mindlessly pursuing similar policies in an environment where plurality helps in acquiring a winning edge. Modi has tried to circumvent this by using the fear of the 'other' to bind the majority community. He is a master of this mass manufacture of phobia and the promise of violent retribution. “He has always believed that people will vote when they are afraid. During the 2002 elections he won because of the vicious campaign against the Muslims; but what will he do this time? The ground reality has changed,” claimed a BJP dissident.

What may compound his misery is that he would have a strict Election Commission (EC) breathing down his neck. “Last time there was seven per cent bogus voting in the elections that helped the BJP win so many seats. If the EC is able to take away the ruling party advantage from Modi and prevent bogus voting, it could result in a completely different story,” revealed a BJP leader who worked with Modi in the last elections. EC sources told Hardnews that they are capable of ensuring a “pure and fair elections” like the kind that they conducted in UP.

If that happens then all those marginal seats that swung over to the BJP in Saurashtra and Central Gujarat with very low margins could spring a surprise this time. All the opinion polls are showing a fall in BJP's popularity this time and if the Congress and the dissidents stay in form, Gujarat may prove to be a watershed in Indian politics.

However, it would be foolish to undermine Modi's undeniable ability to upset these calculations and emerge out of this difficult corner. Or else, typically, a spineless, demotivated and ideologically opportunist Congress could self-destruct by slowing down the campaign, or selling out their tickets to the highest bidder. The outcome of the Gujarat elections would show the direction in which our polity would travel in the coming days.