Gujarat Elections II: Incumbent Modi may retain Power, Thanks to his Opponents

Note: A modified version of this article is published in Fair Observer, international magazine: Read here 

Courtesy: Modi's Blog

Usually, elections in India’s western state of Gujarat would get headlines in national media for only a couple of days and would have little relevance to the national politics. However, things have changed in recent elections. Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has rose to great political heights and is considered a strong prime ministerial candidate for the Lok Sabha elections in 2014. As a result, the upcoming Gujarat polls are getting unprecedented coverage in national and international media.  

Modi’s rise has much to do with his projection of mutually incompatible personality-traits. Over these years, he has succeeded in polarizing masses into two camps –Pro-Modi or Anti-Modi, not just in Gujarat but in India as well. For ‘pro’ camp, Modi is a rockstar politician, a future prime minister, a reincarnation of Sardar Patel who integrated India; the one who will turn Ahmedabad into Singapore, Surat into Hong Kong, Katch into Dubai, and Dholera into New York, keeping the soul subtly Gujarati. On the other hand, the Anti-Modi camp considers Modi an arrogant vindictive capitalist autocrat who wants to control everything by repressing all others of equal or higher competence and a reincarnation of Hitler with Hindu identity and anti-Muslim agenda. The anti-Modi perception mainly stems from his alleged in-action during post-Godhra riots; while the pro-Modi perception is due to his administration’s governance and economic development in state.

The rise of Modi’s popularity can partly be attributed to the nonstop negative reporting on him for many years in national media. Apparently, anti-Modi camp has had louder voice at least in Delhi-based English media. However, as years passed, Gujarat’s economy and infrastructure grew steadily. Modi administration begged occasional headlines for its good governance. In addition, no allegations against Modi have been proved in the court of law so far. It is obvious for the common citizens to be curious about Modi, as despite loud anti-Modi buzz in the media there was no charge-sheet filed against him and simultaneously his government received accolades nationally and internationally. Then Modi’s marketing genius came into the play. With the spread of internet and social networking, Modi found a medium for connecting directly with people. Unlike his opponents, he has the oratory-skills to connect with the intellectuals as well as the masses and shares all of his speeches on his youtube-channel. When he addresses the investor-summit, he talks about state’s business friendly policies and infrastructural facilities; while addressing farmers, he talks about irrigation techniques, soil-analysis and water preservation – in-short, Modi does his homework well. It is possible that many of those who had only presumed Modi to be a demon saw his human side and were sold by seeing a politician talking about developmental vision, which is very rare in India. In total, Modi was infamous earlier, but he managed to convert that into his glory through bringing in the discourse of “development”. By all accounts, Modi is the most followed Indian politician on the internet.

However, just as fixation on “anti-Modi” sentiments was problematic, branding of a politician by attributing entire state’s success-story to him is unfortunate. Gujarat BJP and the pro-Modi mob have created a “Modi” brand of politics, which links every achievement of Gujarat to Modi, the poster man. Even when there is no election, Modi-posters are everywhere: on hoardings across cities, on government websites and reports, and even on government distributed school-begs of elementary children. It is especially interesting because the BJP boasts of its Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) roots where the team-spirit is central phenomenon. But, in Gujarat, BJP itself has turned into a person-centered party, while it continues to criticize the Congress for being family-centered at the national level. In addition, over the years most of the senior BJP members have been either kicked out or have resigned from the party on their own. This, in a way reflects Modi’s intolerance for a second voice in his party, at least, in Gujarat.

Many of the BJP rebels, including ex-Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel, have formed a new party- Gujarat Parivartan Party (GPP). This party hopes to beg some traditionally BJP strongholds especially in the region of Saurashtra. Its campaign is anti-Modi for obvious reasons, but they do not provide alternate vision for Gujarat’s progress.

The largest opposition party, the Congress is in reactive mode. Whatever Modi does, the Congress reacts to it. There is no proactive thinking or action. Moreover, it is repeatedly shooting self-goals by its plagiarized ad-campaigns, using abusive language and simply trying to catch up with BJP. Instead of taking on Modi administration’s policy decisions and tabling better plans, Congress still lives in historic era where politicians would promise “free-stuff” to illiterate masses. Only difference is that now it is offering free laptops to the youth. To add to their pain, the congress led central government is performing miserably and is perceived to be the most corrupt Indian government to date. In conclusion, the Congress has serious problems with credibility, leadership and (lack of) vision.

It is not that Modi is invincible. His government has many flaws. Gujarat is far from developed. There are serious problems pertaining to public-health, education, and food security, issues that really matter to the people. Though Modi has published a book on Gujarat’s efforts to tackle global warming, it is difficult to breath in cities during rush hours because of immense air-pollution. Modi boasts of 24X7 uninterrupted power supply to the entire state, but in reality even in the second biggest city Surat receives power cuts at least 3-4times/week by Gujarat Electricity Board (GEB). In addition, there are serious corruption charges on Modi administration whether it be fisheries scam, Adani land scam or oil and gas scam. If the opposition can get its act together, give a plan of action for producing inclusive growth-rate of 10%, generate employment and create quality educational institutions at every-level, bring-in investment and make agriculture more productive, the people will give serious consideration to it. The Gujaratis would be happy to vote Modi out, if they have a better alternate. In present scenario, there is no other politician in Gujarat who is at par with Modi. His opposition is out of touch with the ground realities. There are clear indicators suggesting that 54% of voters are youth, who find very little resonance with either Congress or GPP.

Modi is a shrewd politician. He is increasingly using Hindi rather than Gujarati, indicating that he is definitely looking beyond Gujarat. While others remain silent spectators attempting to decode him, Modi has already begun his national campaign for 2014, it seems. Even if he falls, he knows how to use it to gain sympathies of masses. This election is definitely going to affect political permutations and combinations at the center.   

Gujarat Election- 2012 Special

I am unlikely to cast my vote in this upcoming state election, since I am out of the country. But, I have been keen observer of Gujarat; and in this post I’d like to present some ideas to the fellow Gujarati voters. 

Image Courtesy: http://www.mapsofindia.com/gujarat/

When I see Gujarat today, I find mainly two types of people: 1) Political loyalists, and 2) People who don’t give a s#!t to politics.  

Political loyalists are the one who have jumped in the camps of one or the other political party (e.g., BJP, Congress, or GPP etc). Caution- I’m talking about common voters and not party workers. These loyalists look at all issues very superficially and dichotomize everything in ‘us and them’. Unfortunately, the past decade has been such that almost entire Gujarat has turned into Political loyalist, mainly because of the severe public castigation and praise of Narendra Modi, the chief minister. This guy has completely polarized my Gujarat into two camps –Pro-Modi or Anti-Modi. Whatever the issue is, the Pro-Modi camp only has praise for the Modi-administration, and the Anti-Modi camp –criticism. In this constant battle over the past decade, the intellect and rationality have mostly remained absent from the political discourse.

For pro people, Modi is a rockstar politician, a future prime minister, a super hero, a reincarnation of Sardar Patel or possibly Vivekanand; the one who will turn Ahmedabad into Singapore, Surat into Hong Kong, Katch into Dubai, Dholera into New York, and so on (of course, keeping the soul subtly Gujarati). On the other hand, the Anti-Modi camp considers Modi an arrogant vindictive capitalist autocrat who wants to control everything brutally repressing all others of equal or higher competence, who is a Saffron-Nazi, a reincarnation of Hitler with Hindu identity and anti-Muslim agenda. (In another article, I have explained the reason for this polarization. To read Click here.)

It’s obvious that both these perceptions are incompatible – how can a person be both - Patel and Hitler!!! If we go deeper, it’s not so difficult to understand: ‘Though the reality is one, it has many dimensions’. Accordingly, though Modi is one, his persona has many dimensions. The problem arises and the lack of understanding becomes explicit when people pick and chose a few dimensions and present that as an entirety of Modi or his administrations. Projecting Modi or his administration as either extreme standpoint is just not fair to Modi, his administration, his opposition, or to the people of Gujarat.

It is worthy of mention that political loyalty to Congress has diminished in Gujarat. Whatever support Congress harnesses, it mainly stems from Anti-Modi sentiments. Those who are unable to find any resonance with Congress are now turning to the newly formed Gujarat Parivartan Party (GPP), formed by ex-BJP leaders.

The other type of voters, people who don’t give a s#!t to politics, may not even bother voting. Enough has been said and written by many to engage people in political discourse constructively. I have only one question for these “I hate politics" people: What makes you think you deserve to live in a democracy???  

So, what kind of voters do we need?

Today we need voters, who support parties based on issues. For example, I totally support Modi’s Gunotsav program for accountability in public education. Though there are areas of improvement (e.g., raw data-files must be public), but it’s much better than nothing. However, I find Modi’s views on Pakistan very amusing, especially his speech on “Mia Musharraf”. I also don’t like that BJP has turned into one man show in Gujarat. In his speeches Modi gives credit to the “Team”. What is this “Team”? Faces in the team are never revealed; and in the end all credit is granted to Modi, the poster-man.

Let’s look at the candidates in our polling station. Let’s check their criminal background, and the assets that they have. It’s a slap on the face of the voters’ prudence when a politician with criminal charges, as in the case of Amit Shah of BJP, wants to fight election and is sure of victory. Let’s force politicians to reveal their concrete plan of action for the next five years (I highly doubt if they prepare any plans, but at least they’ll think momentarily). Finally, let’s ask politicians how they plan to balance the budget. Increasing debt is not only foolish, but is criminal in nature for future generations. And last but not the least, let’s question politicians at every possible forum. Gujarat is the economic engine of India. Now is the time, we should lead India with political intellect. Perhaps something greater will unfold in the 2014 Loksabha elections.

The Global Beings: Binding the Humanity

Human societies have always encountered divisions based on religion, caste, race, gender, colour, economic class, nationality, and language and so on. Whenever I come across contents of hate-speeches, abuses, violent events, and wars, some difficult questions resurface and drag me into never ending internal struggle – stuck with thoughts meeting dead ends. I often wonder – given all divisive forces that are so prevalent in human societies, why don’t we, the human beings, fight all the time? If all of us have so much of hatred for one another, why don’t we just call for all-out war and finish each other off? Why do we sustain?

If we go deeper into the question – “why conflict exists”, it is apparent that there are at least two perspectives on any topic of interest. When we are unable to find a common element which holds both perspectives together, the conflict arises. In other words, conflict is born out of incompatibility of different perspectives. Let’s see a very simplistic example: a wife wants to watch a romantic movie with her husband, whereas the husband wants to watch sports on TV. Both options are not feasible, and the conflict has generated. The question remains how the couple responds to the incompatibility – who holds on to the personal desire and who accommodates the other person’s choice. 

Conflicts are inevitable. It is just impossible for us to have compatible perspectives all the time with everyone. Therefore, whether we spend energy fighting with each other or collaborate for taking the mankind forward depends on how we respond to the conflicts. The zone in which we respond with kindness and consideration, I shall call it “conflict-free” zone. Different people have different areas of conflict-free zones. The figure (below) shows possible categories of conflict-free zones. As we move in upward direction from “I” to “Global Being”, the area of conflict-free zone widens. 

            People in “Myself” category are ready to pick up fights with all others who have incompatible perspective with their own. They are unwilling to identify any common grounds between themselves and others. They can be highly self-centred and egoist.

At level two, lies people concerned only for their family. These people are willing for resolving all conflicts within their “family” peacefully; but can neither forget nor forgive anyone outside of it. A conflict with a non-family member results into never ending battle for this category people.

On similar lines, “My Caste/ State/ Language/ Gender/ Religion/ Nation” people proactively lookout for conflict resolution within those respective boundaries. They invest all their resources not only for resolving conflicts within zone-people, but for fighting against the “other sides”.  

People in all the categories so far dichotomize the human population in – “I” & “You, or “We” & “Them”. The focus is almost always on –“We are not like them; and they are not like us”. The “others” are always demonized and considered as the existential threat. The aggressive response to the conflict is often justified by “victim” mentality. People rationalize their prejudices that lead to aggressive reaction saying –“We are victims of their deeds. We were better off in the past; and they tarnished us. Whatever we are suffering is because of them” – and so on.  Once this is understood, it is not difficult to understand the genesis of hate-speeches, abuses, violent events, and wars that we see in the world today.

The biggest challenge for the mankind is then revealed –“Can a human being rise above these dichotomies of ‘we’ and ‘them’?” So far, a very few have taken up this challenge in the history of mankind. Though small in number, these people have had the biggest impact on the human societies. An individual who takes up this challenge is called “The Global Being”. Instead of getting trapped into the cycles of revenge and violence, these people work towards conflict resolutions by identifying compatible long-term interests.  They recognize the binding forces and succeed in transcending all divides.  They realize the higher dimension of life that links them to all fellow human-beings; and feel for them, share their suffering, pain, joy, and love. As long as these “Global Beings” exist, the human society will sustain. The peace and harmony will triumph over war and hatred.

So next time when you face a conflict outside your “conflict-free zone”, here’s the challenge – Can you rise beyond that zone?