Holding my book on Narendra Modi, titled ‘Modi to Moditva:
An Uncensored Truth’, my daughter Tanvi the other day said in her childish
innocence that the word ‘Moditva’ has similarity with her cousin’s name
‘Aditya! The pun is actually well hidden as the word/name Aditya literally
means (Aa - ditya – second to none). Now, that’s Namo mantra, I am afraid, is all
about.
One of his admirers in BJP recently said, Modi is a politician who is willing to make a
“pitch for himself” even at the cost of
being called arrogance.
The social networking anti-Modi brigade has dubbed him
‘Feku (a desi version of bluff master). But is that really a vice, which Indian
neta is today not a ‘feku’. Dr Manmohan Singh perhaps would lead the gang
promptly so would Arun Jaitley—look at his ‘silent performance’ in BCCI and the
vocal demand to stall parliament proceedings for public probity etc.
Even
veteran L k Advani has his share as despite his efforts to offer himself as a
man with certain firmness – the iron man as MMS mocks at him, it was during
Advani’s tenure terrorists were safely landed in Kandahar
If he is trying to be a neo-statesman he forgets he undertook Rath Yatra and played a key role, being still investigated by CBI, on Babri demolition.
Coming back to Modi and his ‘phenomenon’ type image – that
he cannot be ignored -
In July 2011 issue the magazine
The Economist said rather caustically, “so many things work properly in Gujarat
that it hardly feels like India
Taking a closer view on Modi’s
administration, I find there is logic in describing him as a ‘part CEO’ with
prodigious management abilities, part a Hindutva poster boy. He could also be a
part modern time revolutionary, who is helping to accommodate rural labour in
growing manufacturing sector but in doing so, is he neglecting the core
agriculture sector? The human development index in Gujarat
under Moditva has already faced immense criticism.
Now as the stage is almost set
in Goa for according a higher role to the Gujarat chief minister, whose 2002
mayhem ridden image remains as a lasting feature,
one
finds left to him Narendra Modi sees himself as an architect of
change.
He only wants to sell the development card to his voters and the rest
of the world. That way the story of Gujarat in
the last decade though is the story of Modi, but he also remains a source of
both strength and weakness for BJP.
Despite the Godhra train inferno and the
subsequent unprecedented anti-Muslim carnage of 2002, Gujarat
has attained its developmental success stories, yet, it remains a ‘Hindutva
laboratory’.
His challenge, therefore, has been to tread a path which could
ensure that all cynicism or suspicion about him from being a Hindutva zealot is
supplemented by the confidence of his works for development. However, he does
not quite want the Hindutva poster-boy image to be erased completely.
In 'India Today' conclave on 16 March this year, he refused to
yet again tender an apology for 2002 and asserted in his own style, "The way I am working is my USP. I don't think till date there is
anything wrong in that”.
To another question on need
for healing touch, a veiled reference to the 2002 mayhem, he had skirted any direct reply and
merely said, "I have answered all these questions in the past".
Whether he still is a 'divisive figure,' the chief minister said, "I
cannot analyse that myself... but in my every day life I have never experienced that.. But if there is
something like this, will take a corrective step".
The 2002 riots truly is a too
strong and powerful influence in Gujarat graph
that it cannot be easily erased by a decade of development model as is pursued
relentlessly by the state chief minister Narendra Damodardas Modi.
In 2002, the
English media in particular in the country and also the western countries like
the European Union and the US
made their intention clear about their assessment regarding Gujarat, and more
particularly perhaps on the people of Gujarat .
My assessment as I recorded in my first book ‘Godhra- A Journey to Mayhem’
published in 2004 was that such merciless killings of a battered community –
the Muslims - could take place only on a soil “fertile” with religious
“prejudices”.
There was truly a climax
situation as hardliner communalism had assumed ominous spectre in a state,
which otherwise took pride in a growth rate equaling that of China
The real challenge in writing a
few passages on Gujarat lies in understanding
and explaining well this paradox. The challenge is definitely immensely much
bigger for Modi himself as well as his party BJP which wants to storm back to
power by defeating a Congress-led dispensation which enjoys an advantage of
being a ‘secular formation’ and a regime which does successful tricks to win
over votes from fragmented sections of population.
None has really asked the vital question, if Modi is a Muslim-hater, why Rajiv Gandhi (RIP) was not a Sikh-hater.
Ends
