Modi:Rider of the Storm

[Guest guest]

Title: Modi:Rider of the Storm

Author: Sandhya Jain

Publication: Pioneer

17th December 2002

 

Few men in modern history have dared to meet a tide in flood and ride

out boldly

into the open sea. Yet, this is precisely what Narendra Modi has done.

Baptised

quite literally by fire, battered by a sensation-mongering media,

charge-sheeted

by ideologically committed activists and hounded by an irrationally

oppositionist Election Commission, the cornered Chief Minister batted

formidable

odds to present the BJP its most credible electoral victory in recent

years.

 

The Gujarat elections are a major watershed in national politics.

First and

foremost, they have upheld Mahatma Gandhi's desire to give India's native

religious and cultural traditions a place in the public arena. Gujarat has

demonstrated that Hindus, whether Adivasis, Dalits, or educated middle

and upper

classes, perceive themselves as one community. Surely it is poetic

justice that

this has happened in the Mahatma's own state. Of course, this centre-

staging of

the nation's civilizational ethos has gone down badly with Congressmen

who blame

Modi's `communal' campaign for his spectacular victory. But this only

proves

that Congress was insincere in accommodating Hindutva in its electoral

strategy,

and that it actually hoped to win the election on the basis of the old

formula

of en bloc minority vote plus support from certain castes.

 

Gujarat has given a fitting reply to such vulgar communalism, which lacks

respect for the dharma and way of life of the majority community. It has

demonstrated a grand affirmation of Hindu identity and self-respect.

Henceforth,

political parties hoping to come to power on a minority of the total votes

polled, and functioning on the basis of colonial stereotypes about the

Hindu

community being a mere aggregation of castes, will have to do serious

re-thinking.

 

I emphasize this because I have noticed the crystallization of Hindu

sentiment

across the country, affecting the core support base of each party.

Therefore, no

political party will be able to trifle with Hindu sentiments while

seeking votes

on the basis of caste affiliations and minority vote banks. The Uttar

Pradesh

Chief Minister, Ms. Mayawati, was the first major leader to discern

this trend,

and accordingly made startling changes in the Bahujan Samaj Party's

political

rhetoric and electoral strategy. The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms.

Jayalalithaa, showed equal deference to Hindu concerns by enacting the law

against forcible conversions, brushing aside the protests of rootless

secularists. Now, following Gujarat, Hindu-baiting parties may find

the going

politically counter-productive.

 

Politicians, however, can be trusted to learn some lessons, some

times, but not

so the media. It would be an understatement to say that the media was

biased

against Mr. Modi. Sitting in the capital and subscribing to five

newspapers

daily, I can say that most newspapers failed to even hint that the BJP was

heading towards a landslide victory. Common sense said that he could

not lose

after Godhra; that after Akshardham even the Patel community could not

afford to

sulk over the loss of Keshubhai; and that the people of Gujarat were

bound to

give a sharp snub to the shameless aggression of Mr. J.M. Lyngdoh. But

I had no

clue about the mandate heading his way because the newspapers told me

to place

my bet on Mr. Vaghela.

 

Besides the biased coverage, what is unforgivable is the complete

failure of the

media to introspect and take responsibility for the communal

polarization that

it lays at Mr. Modi's door. Now that the elections are over, it is

time to state

a few home truths. The entire media approach towards Godhra was driven

by the

attitude that it was a tragedy richly deserved by innocent children,

women and

men because they had dared to visit the Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya.

That Godhra

occurred without any provocation was simply blacked out. Even more

despicable

was the manner in which the subsequent riots were de-linked from the

Godhra

carnage and treated as a suo moto aggression on the part of the Hindu

community.

The media-assisted international vilification of India was simply

outrageous.

 

The scandalous commentary and visuals relayed by a television channel

during

those troubled times upset citizens across the country, yet the

channel itself

remains benignly unrepentant. On the very day of counting, a programme

was aired

live from Ahmedabad. And, in a city that gave a thumping mandate to

Mr. Modi,

the organizers were unable to find even a sprinkling of persons favourably

inclined towards the BJP! Talk about fair play!

 

As if this was not bad enough, some sections of the media have taken

to playing

up minority fears, as though planned pogroms are in the offing. I

think it is

time to bell the cat about the so- called minority fears and to challenge

outright the media dishonesty in this regard. To begin with, there is

no truth

in the insinuation that the minorities are in danger in this country

by virtue

of being minorities. This may be true in societies that practice

monotheism (of

whatever persuasion), but it has never been true of Hindu society on

account of

the enormous tolerance and innate decency of the sanatana dharma. So,

we must no

longer tolerate such canards about ourselves; nor should we permit

people to

disarm us with such vicious falsehoods.

 

The second issue we need to face is the sheer aggressiveness of the

minorities

and their intolerance towards the native faith and traditions of this

country,

as witnessed in their insistence on the right to convert. Moreover,

readers may

recall that Leftist historians have claimed for decades that medieval

invaders

who razed Hindu temples did not do so because they were iconoclasts

but because

they wanted the enormous wealth of the temples. This Leftist assertion was

falsified by the accounts of the invaders themselves, but citizens

were not

allowed to utter such politically incorrect truths! Yet today, given

the fact

that Hindu temples continue to be soft targets of fundamentalists, we

need to

ask why this is so. The fig leaf of an economic motive does not exist; so

another explanation will have to be found. I am waiting for our secular

apologists to offer it.

 

Some Muslim analysts have noted with dismay the sharp drop in the

number of

tickets given by the Congress party to Muslim candidates. Indeed,

falling Muslim

presence in state assemblies and Parliament has been a matter of

concern to

Muslims for some time now, but has been generally disregarded on

account of the

specious claim for proportional representation. My own suggestion is

that the

Muslim community can no longer avoid a long overdue introspection

about its

future course in a modern, forward- looking nation like India.

 

Muslims believe that secular parties take Muslim vote en bloc but do not

transfer their own committed Hindu vote to Muslim candidates (of

whatever party)

on account of a secret communal bias. This is not true. The reality is

that

Muslim candidates are unable to appeal to other groups in society

because they

do not have a modernizing or non-communal agenda. For instance, why should

Hindus vote for a candidate who opposes the Shah Bano judgment giving

alimony to

an abandoned wife or supports triple talaq and polygamy? Muslim

intellectuals

have long lectured us about the nation's composite culture - it is

time let it

take root on their own home and hearth.

 

End of matter