Narendra Modi and Indian Politics

Modi is probably the most successful Chief Ministers in the history of India and also the victim of a much derided projection of his personality by the media. There have been calls for him to step out of Gujarat and enter the National political arena - many see him as a potential Prime Minister who can get rid of the corruption and inefficiency that has got institutionalized in the country. Some believe the latest fast for harmony was one such image make-over attempt by him to become likeable across the spectrum. That brings me to the question, does he really need an image make-over. He has an image of an honest and strict task master who has, delivered more than a decade of uninterrupted growth, rein in corruption, made the bureaucracy efficient and accountable. On top of it, he has proven himself a politician par excellence by winning three successive and overwhelming mandates for governance in a state of 60 million people.

Modi however is not liked by the 'intellectual class' because he does not represent the typical appeasement oriented politics we have got so used to in India. If a Hindu gets robbed, it just an act of crime; if however a Muslim or a Dalit is robbed, it is an act of hatred perpetrated by a jealous majority on the susceptible minority. That's how our politicians and media see things and sadly, in a country of indifferent middle class, it is an easy task to accomplish. Our politicians, led by the Congress Party, have for years propagated appeasement policies under the veil of secularism which has deepened the divisions along religious and caste lines since independence. Is it any surprise reservation quotas have gone up more than twice and new castes/classes/tribes keep adding up for a share of that pie. Very soon, we would have reservations along religious lines as well. The reservation system was proposed to last for 10 years at the time of its inception but Congress Party and the Nehru-Gandhi family took their clue from the British to divide and rule and kept extending the quotas and timeline to keep the fractions and divisions intact. BJP emerged as a party that did not believe in appeasement policies but in a uniform civil code but has since lost way.

Modi is their last hope and to my mind he does make the cut to lead India. There is however the issue of 2002 Gujarat Riots that continues to haunt him.

Gujarat, despite being home to the Mahatma, has always been a highly divided state plagued by communal violence. If we let the facts speak, then the reality is that 2002 riots were brought to an end and situation returned to normalcy in a lot less time than previous instances. The 1969 riots in Ahmedabad continued much longer and claimed many more lives - the city remained under curfew for nearly two months. Communal disturbances in many parts of the state in 1985 continued for more than five months, with Godhra reeling under curfew for almost a year.

Also, what is never reported in the media and is often shrugged aside by the pseudo-secular in our country is that Gujarat police killed more than 200 rioters(mostly Hindus), arrested more than 18,000 Hindus compared to 3,800 Muslims and fired more than 10,000 rounds of bullets to control the situation. This doesn't mean there were no lapses, there definitely were. But I would also refrain from saying those lapses were deliberate and state promoted. It is not easy for the police or army to fire on their own people. For some, their personal bias must have gotten better of their responsibility as the guardian of law and order - the Hindu rioters were, in the mind of many, venting out years of anger against appeasement and burning of pilgrims at Godhra. We also cannot loose sight of the fact that since 2002, there has not been a single act of communal violence in the State of Gujarat and economic development has led to upliftment of people across all religions and societies.

These facts and arguments do not make the 2002 riots any less abhorrent but only provide a context in which to analyze the reaction of the Gujarat Government and Narendra Modi. What happened was extremely unfortunate and must never happen again. In a country like ours with a diverse population and strong religious beliefs, communal tensions are bound to arise when a large section of population is poor, uneducated and without hope. Such a section is easy to manipulate into voting for appeasement and entitlement based policies and is also the most vulnerable to the preaching of extremist religious views. The only way to make them less vulnerable and feel a part of a great nation is to provide them with quality education and economic development so that they can look to the future with hope and optimism. We today need a leader who has the courage to take all the criticism for being in favor of a uniform civil code in his stride and work to create a civil society where everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed. A leader who can look beyond appeasement and promote secularism in the real sense. A man of character who can make bureaucracy and judiciary efficient and accountable to gradually root out corruption. When I look around, I only see one man who can do it - that's Narendra Modi. Even if one was to hold him accountable for the 2002 riots, we ought to give him a chance. Afterall, we have voted Congress into power many times despite the much Cherished Nehru-Gandhi family being the perpetrator of Sikh Riots and hundreds of thousands of forced vasectomies.