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Opinion Lead

The man who would rule India

Ramachandra Guha

Indian democracy must see off both Modi and Rahul. One is an aggressive authoritarian and the other reluctant to takeresponsibility

A journalist who recently interviewed Narendra Modi reported their conversation as follows: Gujarat, he told me,merely has a seafront. It has no raw materials no iron ore for steel, no coal for power and no diamond mines. Yet ihas made huge strides in these fields. Imagine, he added, if we had the natural resources of an Assam, a Jharkhand

and a West Bengal: I would have changed the face of India.(see The Telegraph, January 18, 2013).Tall claims

This conversation (and that claim) underlines much of what Narendra Modi has sought to do these past five years remake himself as a man who gets things done, a man who gets the economy moving. With Mr. Modi in power in NeDelhi, says or suggests Mr. Modi, India will be placed smoothly on the 8 per cent to 10 per cent growth trajectory,

bureaucrats will clear files overnight, there will be no administrative and political corruption, poverty levels will sinkrapidly towards zero and lest we forget trains and aeroplanes shall run on time. These claims are taken at face

value by his admirers, who include sundry CEOs, owner-capitalists, western ambassadors and lest we forget columnists in the pink papers, the white papers, and (above all) cyber-space.

Mr. Modis detractors who too are very numerous, and very vocal seek to puncture these claims in two differentways. The unreconstructed Nehruvians and Congress apologists (not always the same thing) say he will forever be

marked by the pogrom against Muslims in 2002, which were enabled and orchestrated by the State government. Eveif his personal culpability remains unproven, the fact that as the head of the administration he bears ultimateresponsibility for the pogrom, and the further fact that he has shown no remorse whatsoever, marks Mr. Modi out as

unfit to lead the country.

The secularist case against Mr. Modi always had one flaw namely, that what happened in Gujarat in 2002 was

preceded in all fundamental respects by what happened in Delhi in 1984. Successive Congress governments have donnothing to bring justice to the survivors, while retaining in powerful positions (as Cabinet Ministers even) CongressMPs manifestly involved in those riots.

With every passing year, the charge that Mr. Modi is communal has lost some intensity because with every passinyear it is one more year that the Sikhs of Delhi and other North Indian cities have been denied justice. (They have nowaited 28 years, the Muslims of Gujarat a mere 11.) More recently, the burden of the criticism against Mr. Modi has

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shifted on to his own terrain of economic development. It has been shown that the development model of Gujarat iuneven, with some districts (in the south, especially) doing very well, but the dryer parts of the State (inlandSaurashtra for example) languishing. Environmental degradation is rising, and educational standards are falling, wimalnutrition among children abnormally high for a State at this level of GDP per capita.

As a sociologist who treats the aggregate data of economists with scepticism, I myself do not believe that Gujarat isthe best developed State in the country. Shortly after Mr. Modi was sworn in for his third full term, I travelled througSaurashtra, whose polluted and arid lands spoke of a hard grind for survival. In the towns, water, sewage, road andtransport facilities were in a pathetic state; in the countryside, the scarcity of natural resources was apparent, aspastoralists walked miles and miles in search of stubble for their goats. Both hard numbers and on-the-ground

soundings suggest that in terms of social and economic development, Gujarat is better than average, but not amongthe best. In a lifetime of travel through the States of the Union, my sense is that Kerala, Himachal Pradesh and(despite the corruption) Tamil Nadu are the three States which provide a dignified living to a decent percentage oftheir population.

To be sure, Mr. Modi is not solely responsible for the unbalanced development. Previous Chief Ministers did not do

enough to nurture good schools and hospitals, or enough to prevent the Patels of southern Gujarat from monopolisinpublic resources. Besides, Mr. Modi does have some clear, identifiable achievements among them a largelycorruption-free government, an active search for new investment into Gujarat, some impressive infrastructuralprojects, and a brave attempt to do away with power subsidies for rich farmers.

Both the secularist case and the welfarist case against Mr. Modi have some merit as well as some drawbacks. In myview, the real reason that Narendra Modi is unfit to be Prime Minister of India is that he is instinctively and

aggressively authoritarian. Consider that line quoted in my first paragraph: I would have changed the face of India.Not we, but I. In Mr. Modis Gujarat, there are no collaborators, no co-workers. He has a chappan inch chaati a56-inch chest as he loudly boasts, and therefore all other men (if not women) in Gujarat must bow down to hispower and his authority.

Mr. Modis desire to dominate is manifest in his manner of speaking. Social scientists dont tend to analyse auditoryaffect, but you have only to listen to the Gujarat Chief Minister for 15 minutes to know that this is a man who willpush aside anyone who comes in his way. The intent of his voice is to force his audience into following him on accounof fearing him.

The proclamation of his physical masculinity is not the sole example of Mr. Modis authoritarianism. Like all politicabullies he despises free speech and artistic creativity thus he has banned books and films he thinks Gujaratis shounot read or watch (characteristically, without reading or viewing these books and films himself). He has harassed

independent-minded writers, intellectuals and artists (leading to the veritable destruction of Indias greatest school oart, in Vadodara). His refusal to the spontaneous offer of a skull cap during his so-called Sadbhavana Yatra, while

read as an example of his congenital communalism, could also be seen as illustrating his congenital arrogance.

The most revealing public display of Mr. Modis character, however, may have been a yoga camp he once held for theIAS officers of his State. They all lined up in front of him DMs, DCs, Secretaries, Under-Secretaries, of various sizeshapes, ages, and genders and followed the exercise routine he had laid down for them. Utthak-baithak, utthak-baithak, 10 or perhaps 20 times, before a diverting Surya Namaskar was thrown in by the Master.

I do not know whether that yoga camp was held again (it was supposed to be an annual show), and do not know eithehow Mr. Modi appears to these IAS officers when they confront him one-on-one. But that the event was held, and thathe Chief Ministers office sought proudly to broadcast it to the world, tells us rather more than we would rather wishto know about this man who wishes to rule India.

To be sure, Mr. Modi is not the only authoritarian around in Indian politics. Mamata Banerjee, J. Jayalalithaa, andMayawati (when she is Chief Minister) also run their States in a somewhat overbearing manner. Naveen Patnaik andNitish Kumar are intolerant of criticism too. However, the authoritarianism of these other State leaders is erratic ancapricious, not focused or dogmatic. This, and the further fact that Mr. Modi has made his national ambitions farmore explicit, makes them lesser devils when it comes to the future of our country.

Resemblance to Indira Gandhi

Neither Mr. Modis admirers nor his critics may like this, but the truth is that of all Indian politicians past andpresent, the person Gujarat Chief Minister most resembles is Indira Gandhi of the period 1971-77. Like Mrs. Gandhionce did, Mr. Modi seeks to make his party, his government, his administration and his country an extension of hispersonality. The political practice of both demonstrates the psychological truth that inside every politicalauthoritarian lies a desperately paranoid human being. Mr. Modi talks, in a frenetic and fearful way, of Rome Raj

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and Mian Musharraf (lately modified to Mian Ahmed Patel); Mrs Gandhi spoke in likewise shrill tones of theforeign hand and of my enemies.

There is something of Indira Gandhi in Narendra Modi, and perhaps just a touch of Sanjay Gandhi too as in thebrash, bullying, hyper-masculine style, the suspicion (and occasional targeting) of Muslims. Either way, Mr. Modi isconspicuously unfitted to be the reconciling, accommodating, plural, democratic Prime Minister that India needs andeserves. He loves power far too much. On the other hand, his presumed rival, Rahul Gandhi, shirks responsibilityentirely (as in his reluctance, even now, to assume a ministerial position). Indian democracy must, and shall in time,see off both.

(The writer is a historian. Email: ramachandraguha@yahoo.in)Keywords: Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, Prime Ministerial candidate, Indian democracy, Indira Gandhi, Gujaratgovernment, Lok Sabha 2014, Lok Sabha elections, growth trajectory