Even bypoll jolt can’t keep Modi down
BY RK MISRA
A wise man gets to benefit
more from his enemies than a fool from friends. And so with
Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister.
On September 16, 2014 all
manner of media craftsmen went to work dissecting the result of 29
Vidhan Sabha seats spread over five states in India to surmise that Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s magic is on the wane. There are approx. 3826 Vidhan
Sabha seats in the country and 29 would constitute a very distant fraction. He is
the very same man who secured 282 seats, largely on his own steam to give
his party, the BJP a clear majority in the 543 member Lok Sabha in the 2014
general elections. Four months down the line he is careening downhill, is what
the wisdom machines of New Delhi would have you believe.
Modi knows the inner
mechanics of the media too well to be perturbed by such pre-pressed, instant
analysis that is hardly incisive and tends towards the facetious. Most tend to
miss the woods for the trees, not used to dealing with a person who
defies stero-types, keeps his own counsel, thrives on unpredictability and
prefers a boss-subordinate relationship with the closest of associates. Not
even an Amit Shah can ever think of taking him for granted. Modi ruled
from a pedestal in Gujarat and he is doing so in Delhi as well.
True, the by-election
results for nine seats in Gujarat, where the BJP lost three sitting seats, had
been forewarned. Chief minister Anandiben Patel herself had pointed
out the inherent dangers but national party chief Amit Shah had his way.
In UP and Rajasthan, where the BJP lost eight of the 11 and three of the four
seats respectively, gives the Samajwadi Party and the Congress a much needed
booster shot, but it is unlikely these results are giving Modi
sleepless nights.
Gujarat is known as the
laboratory where calibrated hindutva experiments had been going on for long.
These were crude in content. Modi refined it into a fine art over time
but only for sparse use like the long range Bofors guns which boom to
soften targets before the infantry attacks.
The 2002 communal riots
that followed the Godhra train carnage is a case in point.BJP had
lost ground rapidly in the aftermath of the 2001 earthquake when Modi walked in
to play his one day match, as he termed it. Post the riots, the Chief
Minister embarked on a statewide “Gaurav Yatra’, polarized the electorate
but brought the BJP back to power with a blockbluster majority. That was in
2002, and he won fame as the ‘Hindu Hriday Samrat’. He affected a gradual
switch to development mode but his dictatorial style of functioning also had
him grappling with an internal rebellion as the 2007 polls neared
and the dissidents smelt blood. Modi who had switched to development mode
as the campaigning began, had to cut back to a mix of communal and baser
regional chauvinism in the absence of a popular response. Sonia Gandhi’s ’maut
ke saudagar’ remark was the chance yorker which Modi moved onto the front
foot and lifted over the fence to pocket the polls. Thereafter it was time to
eye the national pie and it was back to the drawing board for fine-tuning
the developmental agenda.
If one closely
studies the Modi manoeuvres in the campaigning run up to the 2014 general
elections, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate espoused a developmental
agenda occasionally venturing into hindutva territory but returning back
soonest to strike a secular note. In contrast, man Friday Amit Shah overseeing
Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 general elections played the old ‘polarising’
game, additionally cleaning out Mayawati’s dalit vote vault , to strike it
rich. The strategy paid rich dividends, pitchforking Modi to prime-
ministership.
The September by-election
can at best be described as a laboratory experiment under controlled
conditions. While Modi maintained a statesmanly countenance with his highly
publicised foreign policy moves designed to earn him brownie points, the ethnic
onslaughts (love-jihad etc, etc) scripted by Shah but voiced by the likes of
Yogi Adityanath played out in full. The polarization experiment flopped
but the tabulated results are highly useful. Even Amit Shah caught up in the
heady adulation will be in a more receptive frame of mind. That’s vintage Modi!.
Contrary to what analysts
are predicting, Modi is a net gainer of the by-election results with no loss
except of media steam. This hardly matters to a person who has long since
developed the art of direct communication with the masses to teller
effect.
The by-election results
will come in handy to Modi in tackling hardliners who have been increasingly
mounting pressure through RSS and other Sangh Parivar set- ups for taking up a
flauntingly high profile saffron agenda. Modi has been indulgent so far
but will use this to put them in their place. As his cabinet ministers know by
know, he can be pretty bitingly businesslike when he decides to .And stingingly
harsh as well!
In Gujarat, he had to face
a near similar situation. A Sangh Parivar set -up which ran it’s office from
the MLA’s hostel in Gandhinagar found its belonged hurled on the street when it
flexed it’s muscles against Modi. The VHP was put in it’s place in Gujarat and
a senior state level office -bearer spent a long time behind bars after he was
slapped with a sedition case for criticizing Modi. About 200 roadside ,illegal
temples which had sprung up over the years in the state capital of
Gandhinagar were razed in a sustained demolition drive while Modi was abroad by
the present chief minister, who was then holding charge of the Roads and
Buildings department with hardly any protests worth it’s while.
Similar fare will follow suit. Modi has a phased agenda but he believes in being the boss of all that he surveys. He knows very well that in a diverse country like ours hard hindutva is good for occasional shockers but can repel in large doses and it is leading from the front fortified by developmental medicine that will keep him and his government going in the long run. His recent interview praising the muslims of India should be seen in this backdrop.
Similar fare will follow suit. Modi has a phased agenda but he believes in being the boss of all that he surveys. He knows very well that in a diverse country like ours hard hindutva is good for occasional shockers but can repel in large doses and it is leading from the front fortified by developmental medicine that will keep him and his government going in the long run. His recent interview praising the muslims of India should be seen in this backdrop.
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