COSTLY STUMBLE ALONG A POLL TERRAIN
No matter how winsome the package of Vibrant Gujarat looks, it may yet go the way of India Shining, writes Mahesh Rangarajan.
Too many weak patches?
The race for the assembly elections in Gujarat did not begin a month before the polls. The chief minister, Narendra Modi, was in campaign mode well before the election schedule was out. The high point of the entire exercise was to package the picture of a vibrant and prosperous Gujarat. To paraphrase what Ronald Reagan said about George H. Bush, peace and prosperity were the watchwords. A strong and capable pair of hands that could keep the state safe for investors and from all terrorists was on offer.
Somewhere along the line, the plot went out of the control of Modi’s media managers and script writers. In politics, these things sometimes happen. To be sure, Gujarat has much that it can justly be proud of. The question is not whether Gujaratis are enterprising — farmer and stockbroker alike. Nor is it whether the economy continues on a high growth path. The issue is whether these positive secular shifts can be said to be the results of government policy or not.
It is here that a dualism has become evident as the campaigns have unfolded. Seen from afar, the figures speak for themselves. So does the skyline in any city. The port at Mundhra, the refinery of Jamnagar are evidence of the way in which home-grown capital has managed to reach international standards. Unlike in the early 20th century, the creation of wealth has not been confined to a few merchant elites. A Patel owns the largest selling detergent powder in the country. Another, a Khoja Muslim, is one of the state’s largest truck operators.
Agriculture has clocked an impressive double-digit growth rate. Both wheat and cotton have done well over the last five years. The bounty of the monsoon cannot explain this growth completely. Thousands of check dams dot the countryside even in Saurashtra, a region where time is still measured against the disaster of the chhapiniyo kaal (the famine of 1856 in the Vikram samvat calendar). A new study shows the Jyotigram power programme providing assured power supply to village houses round the clock and to pumps for eight hours a day. This has helped disperse small units like flour mills and diamond polishing factories into the countryside.
There is little doubt about the vibrancy of Gujarat. The enterprise of its Banias and Nagar Brahmins was well known. What the reform period has done is to align agrarian capital with modern industry in new ways. The process can be traced back to the second Chimanbhai Patel period after 1990.
Yet, all is not well. Nothing else can explain how surely Modi and his campaign team fastened on to cultural issues even before Sonia Gandhi’s fateful speech where she criticized the state government’s record on riots. Everyone knows about the election results of 2002 when the Bharatiya Janata Party won a two-third majority. But talking about 2002 has shifted attention from the chinks in the Modi government’s armour.
The assembly elections of December 2002 were held almost nine months after Godhra. In the interim, there was no occasion when the plight of the passengers who perished in Godhra was not played upon by the then ruling party for political ends. In an uncanny if extended echo of the tactics put to play by the Congress in the mid-Eighties on the Khalistan issue, the Hindutva party appealed to voters on an explicitly divisive platform.
It was no doubt helped by the larger balance of forces. A friendly Union government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani did little more than make sympathetic noises. Advani, the deputy prime minister, even singled out the government of Gujarat for praise. The stand-off on the border with Pakistan in 2002 gave Narendra Modi the handle he was looking for. A state election became an opportunity to thumb noses at the Pakistani dictator. No doubt, “Mian Musharraf” was a code word for divisions within.
The entire scenario of 2007 is a different one. Five years ago, the central belt of Gujarat saw a lead for the ruling party of a staggering 19 per cent of the popular vote. By 2004, the Congress had reversed this and actually pulled ahead with a victory. Men like Bharat Solanki and Dinsha Patel won from seats like Anand and Kaira respectively. The polarization on religious lines which was so marked in the riots had not faded away. It had simply ceased to matter so much in rallying others round the lotus symbol.
Even now, the repeated insistence on Gujarat as a safe haven from terror may have an unintended side effect. It reminds the voters of a single-point agenda in a time when other bread-and-butter issues jostle for attention. This is all the more marked when one looks at the electoral map of the state. The first phase saw polling on December 11 for 87 seats, all in Saurashtra, Kutch and south Gujarat. Most, though not all of these areas were hardly affected by the violence in 2002. In the second phase of the polls in central and north Gujarat, there are 95 seats, of which the ruling party won as many as 73 last time.
The most crucial region in the first lot is that of Saurashtra. Mostly consisting of small principalities, it is famous for the shrine of Girnar and the temple at Somnath where Advani began his rath yatra in 1990. What is less widely known is that the Hindu-Muslim divide has historically mattered a lot less in this region. The ascendancy of the saffron party here through the Nineties was largely built on a resurgence of the Patel community in politics under its favourite son, Keshubhai.
While such sentiments are now back in play, the sub-regional tide is now not in favour of the ruling party. If anything, the assertion of the Kolis may cost it dear. This efflorescence of caste and community loyalties places a lot of strain on the project of unifying on a Hindutva platform. The process of political change has made it more not less difficult to sustain such an umbrella cultural identity over time.
The central region is equally prone to such divides. This is most pronounced in the adivasi belt. The macro picture of Gujarat’s prosperity does not do justice to the level of exclusion and poverty of the scheduled tribes. Although they make up a sixth of the electorate, they lag behind in all key economic indicators. In 2004, the Congress won 3 of the 4 reserved Lok Sabha seats and led in most of the 26 assembly segments.
The adivasi factor is one of the areas where the Vibrant Gujarat rhetoric — even more than the record of sectarian speech or policies — may trip up the front-runner. The towns and cities that make up about 45 per cent of the population will still favour Modi’s party over alternatives. But beyond them, the record becomes patchier.
Waters from the Narmada were to slake the thirst of the land in several districts, but over 90 per cent of the canals are yet to be completed. The marginal and landless farmers find that they are paying a lot more for water from pumpsets owned by larger landholders. The latter in turn have larger power bills than ever before, with stringent jail sentences for those who cannot pay. Such disaffections find outlets in a poll season.
The election is still open. But there is little doubt that the front-runner has stumbled. Relying on a card played quite a few times in the recent past is always a risk. Barring a last minute polarization, Vibrant Gujarat may yet go the way of India Shining.
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