From Mail Today, 19 September 2011
Fast is a ploy to confuse voters
by Jyotirmaya Sharma
Modi is creating a smokescreen to cover his fragile position in Gujarat
DESPITE certain television channels consecrating Narendra Modi as a prime ministerial candidate for 2014, the sober view that still prevails is that prime ministers in India are elected by the voters and citizens of this country and not named by excitable anchors. And despite the increasingly presidential character of our election campaigns, people still vote for parties and political formations rather than individuals alone.
Therefore, the travesty of much of the media actually pushing the lie of Modi being exonerated by the Supreme Court will one day be found out. That the reverse has happened is something that ought to worry Modi and his promoters within the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The story here is a simple one.
Mrs Jakia Jafri, widow of Ahsan Jafri, who was brutally murdered by a mob during 2002, approached the Gujarat High Court asking her complaint to be treated as an FIR. The Court rejected her plea. She approached the Supreme Court against the order of the Gujarat High Court.
Motivation
The Supreme Court has now admitted the evidence of the SIT investigating the case, allowed the placing of the findings of the amicus curiae, and asked the SIT to file a report under section 173( 2) of the Cr. P. C., which amounts to filing of a charge- sheet. The magistrate in Gujarat will now consider the case as directed by the Supreme Court.
Narendra Modi has sought to convert his misfortune into an advantage by announcing a fast for peace and amity in Gujarat and has attempted to project the apex court’s verdict as a sign of his innocence.
Given the media’s appetite for street- corner spectacles after the recently concluded one in Ramlila grounds, Modi has sought to capitalise on this and announced that he will fast for sadbhava or peace and harmony. But for the fast to have any moral legitimacy, the legitimacy of the individual has first to be established.
Here again, there is no attempt at the Gandhian idea of self- purification. And even the Gandhian idea of self- purification is open to question, since it diverts attention from the issue on to the individual.
The truth of the matter is that Modi’s national ambitions are a smokescreen to cover his fragile position in the state. The sense in Gujarat among BJP voters currently is one of deep disquiet about Modi’s governance and his misplaced priorities.
Modi’s greatest worry is to win the next assembly elections, scheduled for late 2012, in Gujarat, without which all his ambition will amount to nothing. Therefore, his fast is really an early start to his re- election campaign in Gujarat. The hype that Modi has generated for his attempts at good governance and creating Gujarat as a Mecca for economic investment is just that: hype.
Challenge
Here, he is following the footsteps of N. Chandrababu Naidu. During his tenure as chief minister, Naidu liked to be known as the CEO of Andhra Pradesh. Everyone from Bill Clinton to Bill Gates came to Hyderabad and Naidu stood with them and got himself photographed. Business leaders extolled Naidu’s virtues as a great administrator and as someone who had tamed the bureaucracy, cut red tape and had launched Andhra Pradesh as the model for the rest of India.
All of this came down like a pack of cards in the 2004 assembly elections, when Naidu and his former ally, the BJP, did not even manage a three figure tally in an assembly of 294 seats. Modi knows that a similar fate stares him in the eye.
But unlike Naidu, Modi has an even tougher act to follow. While he might make whimpering noises about hurting certain sections in Gujarat, namely, the Muslims, and show a degree of remorse, there is no way in which he can express unconditional apology for what happened in Gujarat in 2002. The people who have voted for Modi over the years believe that the carnage in 2002 was right and legitimate. They neither have regrets for what happened, nor do they even remotely want to be contrite about it.
If he appears to be more liberal than the most illustrious liberal, he risks losing support of his key constituency. If he thinks his hype about good governance will propel him to the national stage, he is mistaken, as the NDA allies will refuse to accept him without his having offered an unconditional apology to the Muslims of Gujarat. If he does so, it would amount to a clear admission of guilt. If he doesn’t do it, he will carry the burden of 2002 for as long as he is in public life.
The sadbhav gimmick is nothing more than a ploy to confuse the voters of Gujarat. It keeps his core constituency in good humour, while confusing them about who he really is, just in case they started entertaining doubts about him. Those who had voted for him earlier, but are not in the category of committed voters would get even further confused, especially because Modi is attempting to wrest the middle ground from the Congress in the state.
He hopes that the Congress would shoot itself once again in the foot by attacking him. He can, then, flash his pseudo- liberal persona and taunt the Congress and its potential voters. The many masks of Modi, it is hoped, will help him win Gujarat.
Endorsement
If he fails to win Gujarat, his national ambitions will certainly be over and his rivals in the BJP will have much to celebrate.
His message to the people of Gujarat is: ‘ the nation is poised to accept me as prime minister, so you would be foolish to reject me just because I played a little trick on you in the name of good governance’. Neither is the bit about endorsement from some alleged “ congressional committee” in the USA likely to tip the balance in favour of Modi. The United States is now a badly governed country and can neither manage its economy nor large scale corruption in its banking and corporate sector.
Any endorsement from a poor cousin is hardly what Modi is looking for, except that he can do nothing to make the United States realise that it is no longer the superpower it used to be, and that it ought to forget the cold war habit of giving certificates to all and sundry. For once, Modi stares nemesis in the face and feels that the ground under his feet is slipping.
Indian democracy has forced him to sing a different tune, but will that tune top the charts is something that even Modi in his saner moments does not believe.
The writer is a professor in the University of Hyderabad
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