How and why Modi model spells trouble for many
Gujarat CM breaks the Nehruvian template of a national leader, and nobody is sure if such a persona can deliver in 2014 - Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay
What is it about Narendra Modi that any development related to him is either preceded or followed by a huge controversy? That this is true was acknowledged even by him in an interview with me. He had said, “Whatever Narendra Modi does – either then or even now, those who want to create a controversy generate one.” Then he had blamed the media and his political detractors as he was speaking about the situation after the 2002 Gujarat riots.
But this time the hullabaloo in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was over Modi’s appointment as chief of the party’s campaign committee. The decision, announced on a sodden Sunday in Goa, was preceded by frenzied anticipation of the elevation and was given the name of the Biblical sounding ‘anointment’ by an imaginative scribe only to have others zeroing in on the word. This was followed by veteran LK Advani’s public bawl that had party leaders huddling together, TV channels getting another opportunity to go ballistic and for the Congress to show again the virtual absence of steel
But, more than Modi’s authoritarian style, it is his political orientation that has unsettled peers in the party. Beyond doubt, Modi is the first mainstream political leader who has completely broken from the stereotype of a political leader cast in the Nehruvian mould who carries along every section and community, especially underprivileged and religious minorities. Very consistently, in the years since 2002, Modi has taken the BJP into political territories where even Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Advani did not tread. Even in his heydays as the original polariser, Advani sugar-coated venom in a language that aimed to convert the intelligentsia first and the masses later. In contrast, Modi’s approach was that the masses needed to be wooed first and the intelligentsia would follow in search of relevance.
Modi, however, has broken from this mould and does not believe in the politics of goodwill gestures. Modi opted to be a full-fledged practising-Hindutva leader within moments of the Godhra carnage. True, Modi since the 2007 victory consciously projected the ‘development man’ persona. But it was to add variety – the ‘demolition man image’ was never negated.
The BJP was virtually co-opted into the system of governance and is no longer the party with a difference that its leaders claimed. The BJP has become another Congress albeit of a different hue and leaders have been complacent that they will eventually get their turn. Modi with his majoritarian approach threatens this comfort level. He wishes to take greater risks because Modi thinks the yields will be greater. The pressure from below was the reason for his appointment. But, no one – except Modi – is sure if this pressure will correspond with the mood of the electorate. This is the main reason for turbulence within BJP.
