Praful Bidwai: Modi's victory in Gujarat is a triumph of religious bigotry, communalism

The News International
29 December 2007

Democracy's dark side

by Praful Bidwai

Narendra Modi has surpassed even optimistic forecasts made for the Bharatiya Janata Party's performance in Gujarat to win 117 of the assembly's 182 seats. Although the tally is 10 seats lower than the BJP's 2002 score, the victory is convincing. The BJP's vote is estimated to have marginally increased. It swept three of Gujarat's four regions. It's only in central Gujarat, which witnessed the worst violence during 2002 -- and where the BJP had won 38 of 43 seats -- that it suffered major losses (20 seats). The BJP's victory is more impressive because it defies "normal" electoral arithmetic, based on caste, class, ethnic group and region.

The BJP's return to power under Modi's authoritarian leadership is a triumph of the forces of intolerance, religious bigotry, communalism, dangerous hypernationalism and ruthless social regimentation based upon hatred of the underprivileged and celebration of the despotism of the powerful. It represents a setback for democracy, public decency and constitutional values. But it cannot invest the BJP's politics with legitimacy. Modi has proved a successful, diabolically crafty demagogue, who can descend to any level of spreading hatred to win votes. His victory is clearly his own. Indeed, he defied the Sangh Parivar. Neither the RSS nor the Vishwa Hindu Parishad campaigned for him. He ignored dissidence within the BJP.

Modi set the ideological and political agenda for the election, and ran a warlike hate-filled campaign, eclipsing all other BJP leaders, including LK Advani, who couldn't attract even a fraction of the audiences he did. The extensive use of the Modi mask by his followers only visually underscored the election's nature as a referendum on Modi. He won it unambiguously. One of the greatest myths about the election is that it was fought on the "development" agenda. In fact, Modi played the communal card from the beginning, when he agitated the Ram Setu issue, and highlighted "terrorism"-- shorthand for Muslims. The communal tone became shrill when Modi shamelessly justified the cold-blooded killing of Sohrabuddin Shaikh. Hindutva shadowed the campaign all the way through. Modi's very persona exudes vicious communalism.

The Congress didn't mount a half-way credible challenge to Modi. It did its utmost to duck issues pertaining to the violence of 2002, whose victims continue to be excluded, discriminated against and re-victimised. It carefully avoided any reference to the pogrom, to the state's culpability in planning and executing it, and to the BJP's failure to deliver justice to the victims.

Right since it came into power nationally, the Congress hasn't lifted its little finger to secure justice for the victims. In Gujarat too, it refused to take a clear stand against Modi's brazenly communal political mobilisation strategy. It adopted a "soft Hindutva" posture, and competed with Modi on his own terrain. Each time Modi cited Godhra, the Congress would talk about the Akshardham temple attack.

Even worse, the Congress recruited anti-Modi BJP rebels, many of whom deeply implicated in the 2002 carnage, such as former junior home minister Goverdhan Zadaphia. It gave tickets to many, thus damaging its own credibility and undermining the possibility of projecting itself as secular. It's only in the very last leg of the campaign that the Congress took a spirited anti-communal stand. Sonia Gandhi deplored "merchants of death" (maut ke saudagar) and Digvijay Singh assailed "Hindutva extremism". But this came far too late and was unrelated to the party's basic strategy and the way it ran most of its campaign.

There's some speculation on whether the saudagar remark cost the Congress loss of support. This exaggerates Modi's ability to exploit all adversity in his favour. The loss was at best marginal. In any case, the remark was apt. But Modi mounted a disgracefully dishonest defence of his violation of the electoral code of conduct and refused to tone down his murderous rhetoric even after the election commission mildly reprimanded him -- and in an unconvincing show of even-handedness, also snubbed Gandhi.

The Congress also completely failed to take on Modi on human development, poverty, minimum needs, income and regional disparities, and other livelihood questions. Gujarat has undoubtedly recorded high GDP growth. But this hasn't helped it abolish poverty or mass deprivation. As many as 74 per cent of its women and 46 per cent of its children are anaemic.

Gujarat's society remains hideously iniquitous, with wages among India's lowest. Agriculture is thriving but child labour is rampant in the fields. Hazardous industries flourish as nowhere else. Coercion drives industrial growth through crony-capitalist schemes like Special Economic Zones and private ports, which involve forced land acquisition. However, the Congress had absolutely no alternative to offer to such maldevelopment or to Modi's celebration of greed and elitism. It wasted a precious opportunity to build on the gains it made in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, when it won in 91 assembly segments against the BJP's 89. The only silver lining for the Congress is that it recovered its traditional base amongst the Adivasis, and won a majority of the seats reserved for them. It did better where it distanced itself from BJP rebels, as in central Gujarat.

Its too-clever-by-half strategy of trying to win Leuva Patel support through the pro-Keshubhai rebels came a cropper in Saurashtra-Kutch, where the BJP improved its tally from 39 to 43 seats (of 58). Only one of the "rebels" won. So did only one of the 10 Kolis the Congress fielded.

Ultimately, Modi won because of his demagogic appeal based on militant Hindutva, Gujarati hubris, and a despotic personality that respects no democratic values, but is admired for its strong will, determination and decisiveness. Modi "gets things done" by any means as long as they feed his perverse values. If Bt-cotton is to be promoted to please agribusiness, it'll be rammed down the throats of peasants -- no matter that 500 farmers have committed suicide. If fertile land is to be procured for a toxic chemicals plant, it will be acquired no matter how reluctant the owner to sell it. If labour unions resist non-enforcement of the minimum wage, they must be smashed.

The admiration this ruthless decisiveness evokes among the middle classes is similar to the spell that Hitler and Mussolini cast because of their "efficiency": the "trains run on time". This speaks to a cult of personality, and of a quasi-fascist personality at that. Why else would thousands upon thousands of Modi supporters choose to suppress their own identities by wearing masks moulded after his face?

The bulk of the Hindu middle class doesn't feel even an iota of remorse for what happened in 2002. This speaks of a deep social pathology in a state that has graduated from a Hindutva laboratory into a large-scale Hindutva factory under the longest spell of BJP rule anywhere. Communalism serves many functions in Gujarat: disenfranchising Muslims, consolidating upper-caste domination, and enforcing oppressive social regimentation against the labouring poor. Gujarat is one state where the upper-caste elite has successfully -- and violently -- suppressed any Dalit or OBC self-assertion since the 1980s. Modi will now seek a larger, national-level role for himself. The Sangh Parivar will find it hard to contain him. That task has fallen to all those who believe in secularism, freedom and inclusive growth.