HindustanTimes.com » Columnists » Vir Sanghvi Modi, his Leaders & the Young Jerks
COUNTERPOINT | Vir Sanghvi April 2, 2005|00:41 IST So Narendra Modi is going to stay. And by that I don't mean only that he's going to stay in India — because no other country will welcome him. I mean that he's going to stay as Chief Minister of Gujarat. On Thursday, Venkaiah Naidu (remember him? He's the one with the silly snarl who used to be on the TV news every night in the old days) told the media that he had met the dissidents and had decided (or more correctly, that his boss L.K. Advani had decided) that there was no question of removing Modi. Experts on the internal politics of the BJP — a category that certainly doesn't include me — say that we should not take Naidu too seriously. The vote of confidence in Modi, we are told, is merely a tactical ploy. The hirsute, nouveau Sardar is really on his way out. The RSS, it seems, has decided that he has to go. But the high command does not want to give the impression that it is (a) giving in to pressure from the MLAs and (b) unduly perturbed that Modi has become an international pariah. Give it a little time, say the BJP experts, and Modi is certain to get the shove. Well, perhaps he is. And perhaps he isn't. There was a time when the prospect of Modi's ouster would have filled my liberal, secular heart with joy. But now, frankly, I couldn't give a monkey's. If Modi does go eventually it won't be because somebody high up in Nagpur wakes up one fine morning and recognises that genocide was A Bad Thing. His exit — if and when it happens — will arise from a combination of factors. The RSS's belief that he's getting too big for his chappals. The BJP high command's annoyance at his failure to know his own place. And the anger of BJP MLAs who were once quite happy to fight the election under his leadership and to win votes on the basis of his genocidal record. So, how does it matter to liberals or secularists whether he stays or goes? The truth is that even if he does go, it won't be for the right reasons (because his government collaborated in a campaign of systematic massacres) but for reasons that are so wrong as to be morally irrelevant. But even so, I wonder sometimes if the BJP's top leadership recognises how much harm Narendra Modi and Gujarat did to the party's image and reputation. Does L.K. Advani recognise that all his attempts to repackage himself as a moderate will flounder each time anybody recalls how he backed Modi during the riots? Does A.B. Vajpayee realise that Gujarat — and his subsequent loss of nerve in Goa — will remain the blackest mark on his prime ministership? And what of the Young Turks (or Young Jerks, depending on your point of view) who revolted in Goa when the issue of Modi's resignation came up and whose rebellion guaranteed his continuance? Do they know that each time they claim to represent the reasonable face of the BJP, there will always be somebody who asks: "and where were you when Gujarat was burning?" My guess is that the BJP is only just coming to terms with the damage that Modi and Gujarat did to the party and its international image. The BJP's proudest boast — when it came to foreign policy — was that it had forged the kind of bond with the US that no Congress government could ever have managed. The Congress was stuck in a pro-Soviet time warp, we were assured. But the BJP understood America. And America understood the BJP. If this is true then obviously America understands the BJP only too well. Challenged over the refusal of a visa to Modi, the US explained that it had only followed past precedents. It had once even refused a visa to Kurt Waldheim, President of Austria, because he was — wait for it! — a Nazi. Reassuring explanation, that. It must have gone down a treat at BJP headquarters where they are always busy telling us that the Sangh-Parivar-is-a-fascist-force theory is a silly Congress construct that nobody buys any longer. Nobody? Their pals in Washington sure as hell seem to be buying it. Ditto for London. The Brits are subtler than the Americans. So they didn't actually refuse Modi a visa. They just made it very clear that he would be as welcome in London as a man with a communicable disease would be at an orgy. The international response may have done something to persuade the BJP leadership that — in retrospect — it went seriously wrong when it decided to back Modi. Even before the visa denial, Pramod Mahajan told a group of visiting intellectuals that he thought that Gujarat contributed to the BJP's defeat. Pramod may have fibbed a little to tell the liberals what they wanted to hear. And he still has to explain why, in that case, he was at the forefront of the group of Young Jerks who saved Modi's job in Goa. But even so, the admission represents some sort of forward movement on previous BJP positions. I don't know how Advani feels. Asked at the India Today Conclave about Gujarat, he admitted that Gujarat was a black spot but seemed to suggest that the India Shining campaign was the bigger disaster. (Have you noticed how the BJP's position on Gujarat is identical to its stand on the Babri Masjid? In the case of the masjid demolition the party-line is to say "it was unfortunate" but to either refuse to accept responsibility or offer strong condemnation. Likewise, on Gujarat: "it is a black spot" but the party will neither accept responsibility nor express any sorrow for the Muslims who were massacred.) I gather that Vajpayee has told people that he went wrong when he failed to push through the sacking of Modi in Goa but I can't seem to find the exact quote. In any case, even if he has said this, he has to explain (a) why he lost his nerve, (b) why he then made that shameful speech about two kinds of Islam and (c) why he turned up at Modi's victory celebrations and tried to share the credit. Which, of course, brings us to the more interesting questions. Speak to anybody who was in government during the Gujarat riots; find a policeman or bureaucrat who was in a position to see things up close, and he will tell you that the Modi government acquiesced in the massacres. Within the administration, there are simply no doubts on this score. (Though, of course, officers are always reluctant to criticise governments on the record, no matter how critical they are in private.) Why, then, did so many otherwise normal and decent people in the BJP allow Modi to get away with it? Why didn't they stop him then? Why did they fight for his continuance in office? Why did they allow him to run that disgraceful election campaign in which he tried to link all Indian Muslims with Pakistan? There are two answers. Though neither reflects well on the BJP, one is slightly more charitable. That explanation is that the party was desperate. It had been losing Assembly elections. It desperately needed a victory. It believed that Modi would deliver that victory and so, otherwise decent people turned a blind eye to what was going on. The second explanation is more sinister: there is a core BJP constituency of Muslim-bashers, of people who believe that Hindus have suffered too many humiliations at the hands of Muslims for too long. The destruction of the Babri Masjid was one way of restoring Hindu honour and avenging centuries of humiliation. And the massacres of Muslims in Gujarat were revenge for Godhra, a way of showing Muslims that for every kar sevak who perished in that tragedy, a hundred Muslims would die. The BJP cannot alienate this core constituency. These are the people who campaign for the Sangh Parivar and whose votes can always be guaranteed. Once this constituency cast Modi in the role of Hindu avenger, he was too powerful to be removed by anybody in the BJP. I don't know which of these two explanations is valid but I suspect the truth lies in between. At the time, even those BJP leaders who were genuinely horrified by Modi's actions (though, frankly, I have to say that the only one who struck me as being appalled then was Arun Shourie), decided to ignore what was happening because they knew that the support of the rank and file had made Modi invulnerable. Of course, he's far from invulnerable now. The dissidence is mounting, the resentment is growing and, what's more, he's become an international embarrassment. So, if I were Modi I would be very careful. If the ghosts of those who died in those massacres don't get him first, then the knife in the back of his political career will be thrown by one of his own colleagues. -- Cheers, Gabe Menezes. London, England P.S. Parrikar watch your back!