Don’t feed on the intolerance of Patna bombers

By Swapan Dasgupta

Had the bomb planted just beyond the secure D-area of Patna’s Gandhi Maidan actually exploded last Sunday during Narendra Modi’s Hunkar rally, the country could well have been suffering the fallout of a colossal tragedy. It was plain lucky that the explosion, which would inevitably have resulted in a stampede and ensuing acts of violence, didn’t happen. Yet, it is a commentary on the growing bitterness of politics that the significance of this close shave has been deliberately underplayed. Indeed, attention has been sought to be wilfully diverted from a sinister act of subversion.  

The expression of political differences that invariably happen in the long run-up to any general election is an indispensable part of democracy. The general election of 2014 has become doubly interesting because the battle of political parties has been peppered by a riveting clash of personalities.

The announcement of Modi as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate happened on September 13—not that long ago. However, it has taken just 50 days for the political atmosphere to be electrified. Thanks to the energy generated by the supporters of Modi,  the country, it would seem, has been divided into those who support the Gujarat Chief Minister enthusiastically and those who oppose him with equal passion. Despite being the challenger, Modi has quite successfully managed to catapult himself into the centre-stage, to the point where he is now setting the agenda and invoking the editorial ire of The New York Times which gratuitously found his rise “deeply troubling to many Indians.”

Whether India, as an opinion poll suggested, cries out for a leader blessed with decisiveness and integrity is for voters to decide. The general election will also be the occasion for voters to give their verdict on other lofty questions such as the preferred economic path, dynastic rule and the divergent perceptions of the so-called idea of India. On the other hand, many voters may prefer to view the contest through the prism of localism and community identities.

It is improper to be judgmental about the thinking that leads individuals and communities to decide which side to back. There is nothing called the ‘right’ way of thinking; and the accusing finger of ‘false consciousness’ that Marxists love to point at those who disagree with them is based on the dubious premise that there is something resembling ‘true’ consciousness. An Indian election is fascinating precisely because the expressions of self-interest and national interest happen through so many different—often bizarre—routes.

Take the vastly different perceptions of those who support Modi. To a handful, he epitomises a viable alternative to statist economics; to others, he is a modern-day variant of Shivaji, crusading against a ‘Delhi Sultanate’; and to yet others, he is an Indian Bismarck capable of ruling a fractious country with decisive leadership. In Bihar, his appeal is often based on his backward caste status and the fact that he began life selling tea on a railway platform.  

Likewise, those who oppose Modi do so for vastly diverse reasons. Some are deterred by the 2002 riots in Gujarat, others question the viability of an economic model that is insufficiently mindful of entitlements, and the likes of Nitish Kumar and the Communists liken him to a fascist. Yet others dub him ‘authoritarian’ and are fearful that he invokes strong Muslim opposition.

The importance of the election campaign is that it allows all these range of perceptions to play out. Unfortunately this rich democratic tradition is seriously compromised by two strands. First, there is the belief that the failure of one side to prevail will involve the disintegration and death of India. Such heightened certitudes are based on the presumption that only one side has the monopoly of truth, wisdom and political power. It leads to equating opponents as enemies.

Secondly, there is the associated belief that all means are legitimate to prevent the other side from winning. It was possibly this misplaced rigidity, as much as security lapses, which gave those who have no faith in either India or democracy the space to undertake the serial bombings in Patna.

Nominally, the Indian Mujahedeen was responsible but those who chose to look the other way and pretended nothing happened must bear some moral blame. 

Sunday Times of Indioa, November 3, 2013

Political versus Personal

By Swapan Dasgupta

Chief Minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar is an experienced and consummate politician with a firm grip on the administration of his economically backward state. As such, his speech to a Janata Dal (United) convention in Rajgir on October 29 was a masterly performance and constitutes the most coherent attack on the prime ministerial candidate of his erstwhile coalition partner, the Bharatiya Janata Party. Indeed, I would go so far as to suggest that his articulation of his scepticism of Narendra Modi was more effective than anything proffered by Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi and his colleagues in the Congress Party.

However, every political intervention has a context. In the case of the Bihar Chief Minister, that context was defined by the massive Hunkar rally addressed by Modi in Patna last Sunday. It was not merely Modi’s combative address and the fact that there were at least five lakh people from all over Bihar, not to mention the countless millions who heard his speech on television, which shaped Nitish’s response. Equally significant was the fact that the rally was conducted in the midst of serial blasts that left six people dead and nearly 100 people injured.

Having been at the rally and having observed the proceedings from a discreet corner of the large podium, I would suggest that it was nothing short of a miracle that the event did not end in a monumental tragedy where the casualty figures could have been horrific.

In planting 18 or more timer bombs at different parts of the large Gandhi Maidan, the activists of the Indian Mujahedeen—the believed perpetrators of the attack—had two principal objectives. First, they wanted to kill those who were unlucky enough to be situated near the explosion sites. More important, they placed the explosives in such a way as to create panic in the crowd and trigger a stampede that would undoubtedly have taken a larger toll. In the process, the rally would have had to be terminated abruptly, perhaps even before Modi had the opportunity of speaking to those who had come to cheer him enthusiastically. The aftermath of the chaos could even have led to rioting in the streets of Patna.

It is either fortuitous or even an act of providence that nearly half the low-intensity bombs failed to explode. For example, had the bomb which was placed just outside the ‘sanitised’ D-area exploded, the forward rush of a panic stricken crowd would have endangered the podium and could even have brought it crashing down.

The seriousness of the planned attack cannot be minimised and Nitish Kumar is too experienced an administrator not to have realised it. Predictably, there were fingers pointed at the state administration for the casualness with which it treated security arrangements for such a huge public meeting. The Bihar Chief Minister knew that the charges were grave, especially because there were intelligence inputs that suggested the Modi rally could be targeted by subversives who have scant respect for democratic traditions.

Under the circumstances, Nitish Kumar did what adroit, if cynical, politicians are prone to doing: diverting attention from his area of vulnerability. At Rajgir, he insisted that no intelligence alerts had been received and that, in any case, he had instructed his administration to take all necessary security arrangements. Having brushed off the charges levelled against him and his government, he proceeded to couch his opposition to Modi in hyperbolic overstatements. Modi, Nitish insisted, was not an ordinary politician: he was a fascist, a follower of Adolf Hitler who was prone to using the methods of Josef Goebbels to mislead people.

Mercifully, India has become accustomed to witnessing political attacks being laced with references from inter-war European history. In the mod-1970s, it was the Communist Party of India, then in alliance with Indira Gandhi thanks to Moscow’s strategic partnership with Delhi, which routinely labelled Jayaprakash Narayan a “fascist”. In the early-1990s that abuse was hurled at L.K. Advani in the wake of the Ayodhya movement. And today, Nitish Kumar has deemed it fit to use similar invectives against Modi.

Whether the popular yearning for a strong leader automatically reeks of fascism is a worthy subject of debate. However, whatever may be the Bihar Chief Minister’s understanding of the man on whose account he unilaterally broke his long-standing alliance with the BJP, the fact remains that the Bihar administration had an obligation to ensure the safe and peaceful conduct of the Hunkar rally. He claims to have done so but facts suggest otherwise.

The conduct of the state administration is revealing. First, it put obstacles in the way of the BJP holding the rally in the whole of the Gandhi Maidan. Secondly, it invited the President of India to be in Patna on the same day as the Hunkar rally, knowing fully well that the President’s security drill would create near-insurmountable obstacles in the path of those wishing to attend the rally. Thirdly, in an act of astonishing churlishness, the Bihar Government let it be known that it neither possessed bulletproof SUVs or jammers for Modi’s use. In short, the Bihar Government put out a clear message to its officers that Modi being an unwelcome guest, it wasn’t necessary to oblige the BJP.

It was this attitude that led to not more than six constables being deputed for sanitising the Gandhi Maidan on the day prior to the rally, the complete absence of any CCTV cameras at Gandhi Maidan and the absence of any senior police officer at the rally site last Sunday. Nor, for that matter did the Bihar Police have any emergency evacuation plans ready, not even after the bombs had started going off. There was no bomb disposal unit present at the venue to even take care of the explosives that had been detected by the crowd.

If my personal respect for Nitish Kumar wasn’t so high, I would even have suggested that he wanted the rally to end in chaos. What he probably didn’t calculate was that his antipathy would be picked up by the terrorists to try and turn chaos into disaster.  

ASIAN AGE, November 1, 2013

BJP SHOULD CASH IN ON GOA ENTHUSIASM

By Swapan Dasgupta

From the anointment of Narendra Modi in Goa and L.K. Advani’s Sunset Boulevard act in Delhi to Nitish Kumar’s notice of separation and divorce from the NDA, it has been a bit too much of a rollercoaster ride for the BJP. It is just as well that all the drama has been packed into one week of June, at least 6-7 months before the election campaign formally begins. There is nothing more disastrous for a political party than to be confronted with indigestion in the midst of an election campaign—as happened in 2009 when Naveen Patnaik parted ways during the seat-sharing talks. It is best to get over the inner rumblings before the blueprints of the campaign have been finalised.

That Advani and Nitish were party poopers and dampened the post-Goa celebratory mood in the BJP isn’t in any doubt. At the risk of floating a conspiracy theory, it can be said that the duo was acting in concert. The JD(U) was banking on Advani to keep the Gujarat Chief Minister confined to the Gir forest; and Advani in turn was leaning on Nitish and Sushma Swaraj’s personal equations with the Thackeray family to maintain his own primacy in the party. After the BJP tersely informed Advani of the difference between Formula-1 racing and a vintage car rally, Nitish was left in doubt Modi had prevailed inside the party. He was requested by those he would leave orphaned in the BJP to stick to his original December 31 deadline because Advani still commanded a majority in the BJP Parliamentary Board, but by then things had gone too far for the JD(U) to apply the brakes without completely losing face.

As it is, despite his grandstanding and his ability to retain control of the state government, Nitish remains in danger of being squeezed between a re-invigorated Lalu Yadav and a gung-ho BJP—a predicament that could even force him into an alliance with the Congress in 2014. Since the JD(U) departure from the NDA was packaged as a bout of ‘secularism’, Nitish will have to demonstrate to the community he is courting that he stands a better chance of slaying Modi than Lalu Yadav. That may only be possible if he has the Congress by his side.

That Nitish’s imminent departure from the NDA has led to some soul-searching within the BJP is also undeniable. At an over-simplistic level, the BJP is witnessing a curious battle between its heart and its head. A section of the well-established leadership who saw political power in 2014 as a low hanging fruit curse Modi for injecting new complications and making the BJP’s task challenging.

The Advani objection to the projection of Modi was centred on the belief that the sheer weight of anti-incumbency would decimate the Congress and result in the NDA emerging as the clear front-runner for power. In other words, neither the BJP nor its allies would have to do much more than get its caste sums right and work up the crowds with the same messages about corruption, economic mismanagement and the legacy of Atal Behari Vajpayee. In short, it would be the 2009 campaign again with, hopefully, a better outcome thanks to the extent of the UPA’s misgovernance.

The emergence of Modi and particularly the way his rise has been interpreted by a large section of people have upset those calculations. It is now clear that a conventional campaign that, at best, promises to substitute the strategic silences of the 80-year-old Manmohan Singh with the unending reminiscences of the 85-year-old Advani will not yield optimum results. Indeed, another insipid NDA campaign could even revive attractions for the Congress’ all-too-familiar strategy of sops and handouts.

For the BJP, the likely exit of the JD(U) has cleared the decks for a very new type of election campaign. Yes, the possible absence of regional allies in states other than Punjab, Maharashtra and, possibly, the Telengana region of Andhra Pradesh and Assam, pose an exceptional challenge. If the general election becomes an aggregate of state elections, the BJP is unlikely to be in the driver’s seat of a new coalition government. And the impossibility of a BJP-led government being sworn in by President Pranab Mukherjee in 2014 is what the pundits and the media will hark on incessantly. Arithmetically, they will tell you, a BJP Prime Minister after the general election has been ruled out by Nitish, Mamata Banerjee, Naveen Patnaik and Jagan Mohan Reddy.

They may well be right. I recall in 1991, Atal Behari Vajpayee ruing that the BJP tally would be around 50 because it had no alliances. At a National Executive meeting, Kalyan Singh, the then BJP chief of Uttar Pradesh, indicated that the party’s popular vote in Uttar Pradesh would, at best, rise from nine per cent to 18 per cent. In the event, the BJP won 121 seats, including more than 50 seats from Uttar Pradesh. Indeed, had it not been for Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination a day before the second phase of the three-phase poll, the BJP tally would perhaps have touched 160 seats.

The Index of Opposition Unity (IOU) model that was used to forecast elections was demolished in 1991, an election where the Ayodhya issue dominated. This was entirely due to the fact that the BJP campaign was novel: it was unorthodox, strident and centred on the creation of a new India. Never before or since has a BJP campaign been so full of raw energy as it was in 1991.

The issues of the 1991 campaign have become history. Today’s India has changed far more than its politics. There is raw energy of a youthful population desperate for self-improvement and, by implication, national resurgence; and there is raw anger that periodically manifests itself in spontaneous explosions against corruption and rape. To this can be added the social churning created by upwards social mobility, urbanisation and regional pride. And, finally, there is waning faith in the ability of the existing political class to effect meaningful change.

In a nutshell, while the existing arithmetic is tilted against Modi, the emerging chemistry of politics favours an outsider who encapsulates this churning. It is Modi’s ability, as campaign chief, to harness these energies and social trends that will determine whether the enthusiasm witnessed in Goa is translated into parliamentary seats. There is no half-way house left for the BJP. To win it will have to reinvent its approach to politics. Fortunately for it, the sheer determination of its supporters to break the mould overrides the innate conservatism of its leadership. In the past week, hard decisions were forced on the party. Now it will have to take them voluntarily and with imagination. 

Sunday Pioneer, June 16, 2013

Political Manthan

By Swapan Dasgupta

Contrary to what some people love to believe, politics isn’t all about plots and conspiracies. Politicians normally base their actions on the strength of assumptions which may or may not turn out to be correct. And often, like players in the marketplace, they embark on high risk gambles based on nothing more than instinct.

That Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was clear in his mind that he would not fight an election with Narendra Modi as the face of his main alliance partner was no secret. His allergy to his Gujarat counterpart stemmed from a combination of personality mismatch and electoral calculations, and he had clearly warned the BJP that he would jump ship if Modi was anointed de-facto leader. Yet, despite making preparations for the survival of his government in the event of his Janata Dal (United) breaking with the BJP, the Bihar Chief Minister refrained from taking any hasty action. In hindsight, the reason was quite obvious: Nitish was banking on the BJP old guard led by L.K. Advani to prevent NAMO from dominating the BJP centre-stage.

To what extent, Nitish and Advani planned their symbiotic relationship is a matter of conjecture. However, ever since Modi quietly refused to host the inauguration of Advani’s zero-impact yatra against corruption and black money, there has been a growing convergence of interests of Nitish and Advani.

The chronology tells its own story. Last week, Advani didn’t attend the National Executive meeting in Goa as a last-ditch attempt to stop or delay the announcement over Modi. He calculated (as did many commentators who hadn’t grasped his growing marginalisation in the BJP) that the party leadership wouldn’t dare go ahead with Modi’s anointment out of deference to him. Yet, when the announcement was made last Sunday afternoon amid boisterous celebrations and the bursting of crackers, the reaction of the JD(U) was uncharacteristically muted. “It is an internal matter of the BJP”, was the matter of fact reaction from its TV brigade. In short, there was still a strong belief that even at this late stage, Advani would be able to pull a rabbit out of his hat and puncture the Modi balloon. By last Monday evening when it was clear that the BJP Parliamentary Board would not be pressured by Advani’s resignation and churlish letter, the JD(U) strategists wrote off their involvement in the NDA. Their continued alliance with a party where Modi was the unquestioned star would only serve one purpose: provide some relief to a very beleaguered Advani and give him some time to regroup his forces. However, after the outcome of the Maharajganj by-election, Nitish’s own elbow room was limited. The JD(U) could either strike out on his own now or risk being squeezed between a re-energised Lalu Yadav and a charged-up BJP. For Nitish, his own political self-respect counted more than being Advani’s life-guard. And he seems to have decided to part ways with the BJP.

Of course that leaves a very crucial question unaddressed. On the face of it, Nitish appears to be on the verge of joining hands with Babulal Marandi, Naveen Patnaik and providing substance to Mamata Banerjee’s Federal Front dream. At the same time Nitish has also despatched an advance team which has been in contact with the Congress. The reason is simple: Nitish would rather have the Congress and Ram Vilas Paswan on his side in the triangular fight for Bihar’s Lok Sabha seats. In the battle of competitive minority wooing, he may well believe that the incremental addition of the Congress would convince Muslim voters that the JD(U), rather than the RJD, has better ‘secular’ credentials to check the Modi advance.

Nitish, it would seem, is banking on the presence of Modi raising the communal temperature in the country. His reading of the BJP campaign is based on the assumption that Modi’s appeal is primarily that of a miltant Hindu and, by implication, an anti-Muslim leader. In the last months of its regime, the UPA Government too is driving home this perception with renewed enthusiasm, as witnessed by its frenzied interest in the so-called encounter killing of terrorist Ishrat Jehan in Gujarat, 2005. The UPA has decided that at all costs Modi must not be allowed to rise above controversies that are rooted in sectarian issues.

However, what if Modi disappoints his opponents by travelling down a very different path?  This would seem impossible for those who are unable to transcend the image of Modi 2002. For them, Modi minus strident communal politics is a big zero. However, the more awkward reality is that Modi made the transition from a regional leader to the BJP’s national icon precisely after he shifted Gujarat’s agenda from communal politics to economic development. In the past decade or so, Modi has carefully steered clear of all issues that are remotely associated with militant Hindu nationalism. This explains why the likes of Pravin Togadia view him as a traitor to the cause.

My guess is that the BJP campaign in 2014 will not resemble the strident 1991 campaign which made it the principal non-Congress party. On the contrary, it will be a campaign that will be focussed on national pride, youth energy and the appeal of Modi. We may have the bizarre situation of the Congress and the likes of Nitish talking incessantly about ‘secular’ politics and the BJP bypassing that for the “one India” theme.

Moreover, the demonization of Modi is based entirely on his unacceptability to Muslim voters and the assertion that Gujarat isn’t India. What has been insufficiently factored is the likelihood that the anti-Modi campaign has increased the levels of curiosity about the man. If, within the next three months, opinion polls show a far greater measure of awareness about the BJP’s new leader, he has only to thank his detractors from Advani to the foul-mouthed JD(U) spokesman. Quite unwittingly, they have cast Modi as the man who is being relentlessly hounded at the behest of a pampered few. For the Gujarat leader, that is excellent publicity. 

Asian Age/ Deccan Chronicle, June 14, 2013

Modi is Nitish’s fig leaf to go it alone in Bihar

By Swapan Dasgupta

The Janata Dal (United)-BJP alliance in Bihar has endured for nearly two decades. Forged in the mid-1990s as a united front to take on Lalu Prasad Yadav who dominated Bihar politics after his initial victory over the Congress in 1990, the alliance was much more than a mere seat-sharing arrangement: it was also a social alliance. The BJP brought in the upper castes and a sprinkling of Backward castes, and the JD(U) complemented it with substantial support from the non-Yadav backward castes. In Nitish Kumar the alliance found a leader who had the right caste credentials and a personality that juxtaposed well against the flippancy and buffoonery of Lalu. After initial setbacks, the alliance came into its own and won two consecutive Assembly elections under Nitish’s leadership. 

Thanks to the seminal contribution of, first, George Fernandes and, subsequently, Sharad Yadav, the alliance also worked at the Centre. There were points of disagreement between the two parties but these were subsumed under the larger umbrella of anti-Congressism, an article of faith with Ram Manohar Lohia, the main inspiration of those leaders who had cut their teeth in the socialist and JP movements.  

The question that naturally arises is: why is this hitherto stable and time-tested alliance suddenly on the verge of collapse?

To blame Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for provoking a crisis in distant Bihar is facile, unless we are inclined to believe that the very idea of Modi is life-threatening to Nitish. So far, and despite many sniper attacks by B-grade politicians who claim to speak for the Bihar Chief Minister, Modi has not uttered a single word in retaliation. Despite the implicit humiliation, he silently bore Nitish’s cancellation of a dinner for the BJP National Executive in Patna three years ago and obeyed the party leadership’s directive to not campaign in Bihar’s Assembly election. Modi has steadfastly refused to engage in a verbal slug-fest with Nitish.

Nitish unfortunately has not exercised the same degree of restraint. Apart from his tantrums centred on Modi’s physical presence in Bihar, he went public some six months ago in a newspaper interview that more or less said that Modi would be unacceptable to the NDA as a national leader because he lacked the necessary ‘secular’ credentials. For the past six months, his spokespersons have repeated this ad infinitum on TV—some with a measure of subtlety and others with raw bluntness. Indeed, while the rest of the national Opposition concentrated on highlighting the UPA’s non-governance and corruption, Modi became the unending preoccupation of the JD(U) leaders from Bihar.

On his part, Nitish excelled in double-speak. He supported Pranab Mukherjee as President but was happy to endorse Jaswant Singh’s candidature as vice-president. He invoked Bihari pride with his demand for a ‘special status’ for the state but also indicated that he would support any government that would do justice to Bihar. When this utterance was naturally interpreted to mean that he was making overtures to the Congress, Nitish was quick to inform concerned BJP leaders that anti-Congressism was in his DNA. Last Satuday, he told BJP leaders that he owed his great success to the NDA and that his concern over Modi was due to his worry that under the Gujarat leader the alliance wouldn’t be able to maximise its gains. Yet, the very next day he went ballistic with a public attack on Modi. At the same time, he set a December deadline and didn’t discourage Sharad Yadav from trying to cool tempers.

Unfortunately, this over-cleverness has led to a reaction. Earlier, BJP leaders were inclined to give Nitish benefit of the doubt. Today, they are beginning to feel that the pro-Modi hotheads in the Bihar state BJP were right in claiming that Nitish has all along been planning an exit strategy. Today, the mood in the Bihar BJP has turned virulently anti-Nitish and even the party’s Central leadership appear to have concluded that the alliance is for all practical purposes over.

There are enough pointers to suggest that Nitish was planning to emulate Naveen Patnaik in 2009 and leave the BJP in the lurch at the last minute, a move that would have had a devastating effect on the NDA’s morale. Yet, apart from the fact that Nitish may not like Modi, what is the rationale behind his bid to divorce the BJP?

Commentators have invariably spoken about the importance of the 16 per cent or so Muslim vote. The bulk of that vote was earlier secured by Lalu Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan’s party. The percentage of Muslim votes for the BJP-JD(U) alliance is, ironically, at about the same level as that secured by Modi in Gujarat. If Muslims haven’t been the key to Nitish’s electoral success, why is he afraid of a post-Modi minority backlash?

Nitish, it would seem, has had enough of coalition politics in Bihar and is now anxious to strike out on his own. Invoking ‘secularism’ and securing a Muslim shift from Lalu to JD(U) may, in theory, compensate for the loss of BJP votes. But there is a formidable hidden cost. By injecting identity politics into a debate that had hitherto been confined to strategies of development and economic growth, Nitish may have done a great disservice to the Muslim community. For electoral ends he has cast them as a community that insists on a veto. What if this perception generates a backlash? 

Asian Age, April 19, 2013

A sacrifice the BJP cannot afford

With the party’s rank and file squarely behind Narendra Modi, a parting of ways with Nitish Kumar may now be impossible to prevent

By Swapan Dasgupta

For the past two months, India’s powerful Left-liberal Establishment has been in a state of dejection on account of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.  

First, following his third consecutive election victory in Gujarat last December, Modi’s tag of untouchability was ceremoniously cut off. Corporate India, diplomatic missions and particularly the media which had hitherto shunned him, now joined the aspirational classes in seeing him as a possible saviour, a leader whose steely determination could enable India to realise its full potential in a globalised community. For the past month, Modi has carpet bombed the country with his infectious ‘India can do it’ message. He has certainly found many new converts but, more important, he has aroused considerable curiosity in parts of India that hitherto had only a hazy idea about the man. In the process, he has galvanised the BJP rank-and-file and given them a new-found political purpose.

Secondly, contrary to a pre-conceived notion of what constituted Modi’s appeal, the Gujarat Chief Minister has focussed exclusively on the twin themes of economic development and governance. True, his quasi-Thatcherite message of a minimum but purposeful state has been contested. But despite the criticisms of the “Gujarat model”, Modi has set the terms of an emerging debate. He has carefully steered the focus away from his earlier reputation as an icon of sectarian politics and into bread and butter issues—themes where he clearly outscores the Congress’ would-be challenger Rahul Gandhi.

It is in this context that a nervous Establishment has breathed a sigh of relief at Bihar Chief Minister’s robust intervention at the Janata Dal (United) convention last Sunday. In devoting almost his entire speech to the importance of a Prime Minister with unblemished “secular” credentials and a more inclusive development strategy, Nitish Kumar unambiguously expressed his big ‘No’ to the idea of Modi as a prime ministerial candidate of the National Democratic Alliance. In short, as a long-term ally of the BJP, Nitish resumed the debate on Modi as a possibly divisive figure, a man who couldn’t carry both the pugree-wallas and the topi-wallas.

That Nitish’s tirade against Modi stemmed from his long-standing belief that the latter’s presence in Bihar would be a liability is well known. With Muslim voters accounting for more than 16 per cent of the electorate, Nitish was mindful of the Muslim antipathy to Modi. A Modi-led NDA, he believed, would lead to aggressive Muslim voting to defeat anyone associated with the BJP, a situation that could potentially benefit his main rival Lalu Yadav. Nitish has also believed that if he was perceived as the man who punctured the Modi balloon, it would lead to Muslim voters seeing him (rather than Lalu Yadav) as the great champion of the community. And, if the RJD’s Muslim support was substantially eroded, it would make the JD(U) the dominant party in Bihar, much like the Biju Janata Dal in Orissa. Nitish was in effect attempting a socio-political realignment that would either nullify his dependence on the BJP or even allow him to break with it altogether.

In his private negotiations with the BJP, the Bihar Chief Minister has steadfastly maintained that he values the NDA and that he would have no problem if the BJP chose a leader who is more in the Atal Behari Vajpayee mould. Other JD(U) leaders have stated that the party is completely agreeable to L.K. Advani being given another throw of the dice in 2014.

On the face of it, this may appear to be a case of a coalition partner counselling the BJP against a decision that could potentially be inimical to his local interests. However, it is not as straight forward as it may seem. There are enough grounds to believe that Nitish’s public disavowal of Modi and his implied threat to quit the NDA was a consequence of his belief that his intervention would muddy the waters for the Gujarat Chief Minister and, in the process, leave the BJP deeply divided. It is a matter of conjecture whether Nitish was actually egged on by some BJP leaders to be assertive in his rejection. But there is no doubt that it was silently welcomed by those BJP leaders who are uncomfortable with the idea of Modi. The needle of suspicion invariably points to one individual.

In politics it is impossible to anticipate every outcome. Nitish, it would seem, grossly over-estimated the magnitude of the misgivings over Modi inside the BJP. The rapidity of the BJP’s sharp rebuttal of what it saw as gratuitous advice may well have taken him by surprise. Equally, it is unlikely he anticipated the sharp reaction of BJP karyakartas who are convinced that their best hope for 2014 is Modi.

A large part of the BJP rank-and-file anger against Nitish may well have been emotional, but it is worth remembering that the BJP has always depended on emotions for political motivation. In 2005, it was the emotional antipathy to Advani’s comments at the Jinnah mausoleum that led to the titan being displaced.

Nitish’s anti-Modi utterances have had the same impact. First, it forced the BJP leadership to overrule the do-nothing leaders and come out strongly in defence of Modi. In short, it once again reaffirmed Modi’s status as first among equals. Secondly, Nitish’s December deadline has egged on the more enthusiastic sections of the Modi fan club to demand an end to the ambivalence over the choice of the BJP’s public face for 2014. It is becoming increasingly clear to all the BJP stakeholders that any attempts to deny Modi his overriding role will lead to a grassroots revolt. Finally, Nitish’s Sunday speech which was preceded by many sniper shots directed at Modi, has vitiated BJP-JD(U) relations to the point of no return. It may prove extremely difficult, if not impossible, to prevent a formal parting of ways in Bihar in weeks rather than months. 

Maybe this is what Nitish actually desired, since it gives him a clear 10 months to forge a realignment of forces in Bihar. But no realignment can be one-sided. There are forces in Bihar that could make the outcome of a triangular contest in a Lok Sabha election terribly uncertain. The implications of trying to derail Modi on the strength of a sectional veto may have its own logic that could even override entrenched caste loyalties.

The Hindu, April 18, 2013

Modi is an idea whose time has come

By Swapan Dasgupta

Vishwanath Pratap Singh may have ended up as a false prophet who disappointed many who reposed faith in his ability to emerge as a wholesome alternative to the dynastic Congress. However, it can hardly be denied that between 1988 and 1989, he was at the heart of a massive realignment that challenged Rajiv Gandhi’s steamroller majority.

Yet, it is instructive to remember that V.P.Singh’s position as the focal point of the rising anti-Congress sentiment had to negotiate many hurdles. Apart from having to accommodate the BJP and the Left parties which were intent on retaining their separate identities, the formation of the Janata Dal involved tortuous negotiations with the regional bosses who had their own egos and sense of priorities. There was Devi Lal the boss of Haryana; Chandra Shekhar who believed that the leadership rightly belonged to him; Ramakrishna Hegde, the darling of the editorial classes and Delhi chatterati; and Mulayam Singh Yadav who insisted on a hegemonic role in UP.  

I also remember George Fernandes, then living in south Delhi and driving his own small Fiat car, shuttling between the different groups trying to bring them together. There was a memorable political convention in Delhi’s Mavalankar Hall hosted by Devi Lal which threatened to be a washout until very Fernandes made a dramatic appearance escorting Mulayam by the hand.  

The formation of the Janata Dal was a consequence of many manoeuvres, compromises and deals.But if all the different anti-Congress forces finally pooled their strength to unseat the Congress in 1989, it was due to one factor alone: the recognition that V.P. Singh had captured the public imagination and was the real challenger to Rajiv.

There are other instances, dating further back that demonstrate the inevitable triumph of either an idea or an individual whose time has come. The emergence of Mahatma Gandhi, as the unchallenged leader of both the Congress and the nationalist movement, had to encounter bitter opposition in 1920-21. Those challenging him were not political lightweights: they included the supporters of the redoubtable Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the erstwhile ‘extremists’ who rallied behind C.R. Das and the liberal constitutionalists that included stalwarts such as Mohammed Ali Jinnah. By contrast, Gandhi’s followers were relatively unknown people from small towns and from the provinces where the Congress had an ephemeral presence—places such as Gujarat, Bihar, Central Provinces and the United Provinces.

What contributed to Gandhi’s anointment as the Congress and, subsequently, India’s foremost icon was not his ability to manipulate the nationalist machine—that happened subsequently. He epitomised an idea that enabled Indian nationalism to get out of the rut into which it had fallen since the Swadeshi movement faltered. In a recent book, Ananya Vajpeyi has called it India’s “Galilean moment”, a description hard to better.

The reason for delving into the past should be obvious. Over the past three months, India’s principal opposition party has been in the throes of a great churning caused by the emergence of Narendra Modi. The inner-party turbulence is understandable. Despite being a creature of the BJP and its so-called mother organisation, Modi represents a break not merely on account of what he has achieved in Gujarat but in terms of how he is perceived by those who are exasperated with two decades of UPA misrule. Modi promises not merely a new start but a new type of politics.

It doesn’t surprise me remotely that the idea of Modi has encountered a roadblock in Nitish Kumar and his Janata Dal (U). The Bihar Chief Minister has made it clear that he doesn’t find Modi to be adequately ‘secular’. Such a man, he believes, won’t sell to Muslim voters who constitute anything between 16 and 18 per cent of Bihar’s population. Some of the Chief Minister’s supporters even believe that by breaking with the BJP on the issue of Modi’s leadership, Nitish will effect a en masses movement of Muslim votes to the JD(U). Coupled with his existing support among a section of backward castes and a slice of Dalits, this, it is said, will see Nitish prevail in a triangular contest.

The JD(U) strategists may have got their arithmetic right. But an election (particularly a Lok Sabha poll) is fought and won on a combination of both arithmetic and chemistry. If Modi is just a flash in the pan or merely a Gujarat leader with national pretensions, neither Nitish nor for that matter the UPA has anything to worry about. In that event the 2014 general election will be an aggregation of different state elections and result in a truly mish-mash government, with the new PM being chosen by lottery.

Alternatively, if Modi does represent an idea that appeals to voters at a time of national drift, Nitish needs to pause and re-think. He must consider the consequences of opposing a campaign based on fulfilling India’s potential through rapid development with a sectarian question mark. The 2014 election will not be about identity politics. Is Nitish determined to make it so?

Nor can he overplay the ‘backward card’: Modi is not merely OBC but from a Most Backward Caste. Denying someone from such humble origins a shy at the top job on the strength of a minority veto offends a simple sense of right and wrong.

As a seasoned politician, Nitish should be wary of being led by people who aren’t adept at deciphering the writing on the wall. 

Sunday Pioneer, April 14, 2013

TWO FACES OF CHANGE - The Congress’s decline means new positions on the other side

By Swapan Dasgupta

The paralysis of governance that began in August 2010 with the scandals associated with the organisation of the Commonwealth Games has lasted for over two years and is showing absolutely no sign of easing. On the contrary, with all the economic indices showing southward inclines, a crisis that was hitherto confined to the ruling United Progressive Alliance has spread to other sectors of national life resulting in national despondency and cynicism. The much-trumpeted ‘India story’ that aroused enormous expectations throughout the world appears to have run out of steam, if not derailed.

In parliamentary democracies, the time-tested method of breaking a big political deadlock is through a fresh election. Ironically, returning to the people in the next months for a fresh mandate does not appear to be on the agenda of either the Government or the Opposition. With successive opinion polls suggesting that a snap election will produce a horribly fractured Lok Sabha, the consensus in the Indian Establishment is that it is preferable to persist with a Prime Minister who appears to have de-facto abdicated until May 2014. The intervening 16 months, it is being hoped, will result in greater clarity over the shape of the alternative.

Of course, these calculations are premised on the fragile belief that the brinkmanship that is certain to be a recurring feature of day-to-day politics does not lead to unintended consequences. The Government, it is understood, is on shaky ground and could find itself deprived of its majority abruptly.

In times like this when an incumbent regime is waiting passively for the guillotine to fall, the temptation among stake-holders is to put their weight behind an alternative. After the election of 2009 it was widely believed that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s second term would be followed by a smooth transition of power to Rahul Gandhi. Indeed, the efforts of the Congress in the period immediately following the 2009 general election was to regain its hold in the Hindi heartland and reduce the party’s future dependence on coalition partners. However, this attempt to restore Congress dominance at an all-India level has faltered horribly and Rahul has compounded the problem by being perceived to be lacking in application and seriousness.

A similar situation had confronted India in 1996. At that time, Atal Behari Vajpayee was the beneficiary of a quiet process of realignment during the two choppy years of the United Front Government led by H.D. Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral. A BJP which was regarded as a pariah in 1992 at the time of the Ayodhya demolition, and failed to secure any worthwhile support in 1996 (during Vajpayee’s 13-day Government), was suddenly blessed with a multitude of regional party support in 1998.

There is a feeling in some circles that the coming months could witness a growing momentum in favour of Narendra Modi. Since 2009, Modi has emerged as the favourite son of BJP-inclined voters. In terms of popularity, he has eclipsed all other BJP notables. Opinion polls suggest that the Gujarat Chief Minister has broadened his appeal considerably to embrace a vast section of urban India, the middle classes and the youth. Today, Modi’s appeal is far wider than the support for the BJP, a development that both excites the rank and file of his party and leaves a section of its leadership deeply worried.

Whether or not Modi becomes the face of the anti-Congress mobilisation for the next general election will, of course, depend substantially on how he performs in the Gujarat Assembly polls scheduled for later this year. If he wins conclusively, it is going to be virtually impossible for Modi-sceptics in the BJP to resist the groundswell from below.

It is interesting to note that those outside the BJP who are inimical to Modi being projected as a prime ministerial candidate believe that his rise is unstoppable. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has issued enough public warnings to the effect that he will not remain in the National Democratic Alliance in the event of the BJP endorsing Modi. At the same time, Nitish seems to simultaneously believe that the BJP leadership will not be able to stop Modi’s rise to the top. As such, he has already begun preparations for life outside the NDA.

The simplistic view is that Nitish is too committed to ‘secular’ politics to even contemplate cohabitation with a Modi-led BJP. No doubt, Nitish has compulsions similar to Mamata Banerjee. In both West Bengal and Bihar, Muslims account for more than a quarter of the electorate, and there is a political price to be paid by parties who are seen to be supportive of Modi.

For Nitish, however, there is an added dimension to his anti-Modi politics. The Janata Dal (United) in Bihar appears to have concluded that a go-it-alone strategy in today’s environment would witness interesting shifts. It is likely that the BJP will wean away the bulk of the upper castes and a smattering of backward castes from the main regional party. However, this would be more than compensated by a general collapse of the votes which earlier went to Lalu Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress. Nitish, in short, expects to recreate the social alliance that kept Lalu in power for 15 years.

An interesting facet of the calculations that are driving Nitish Kumar is the belief that by the time of the next general election, the Congress will be too discredited and demoralised to put up a worthwhile fight anywhere in India. The Bihar Chief Minister believes that the real challenger will be a Modi-led BJP. There is enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that Modi’s presence will galvanise the BJP throughout the Hindi heartland, not least in Uttar Pradesh.

Confronting Modi on the issue of ‘secularism’ alliance is not something that appeals to his political opponents. This is because the Gujarat leader is certain to make ‘development’ his one and only plank and allow identity politics to play a subliminal role. Instead, what could happen is a Nitish-led initiative to forge an alliance of ‘backward’ states, particularly in eastern India. Together, such a bloc has the ability to win nearly 75 seats in the next election.

In the next few months, Nitish is planning a series of programmes centred on the demand for greater accommodation by the Centre to backward states. Whereas, Modi has been proclaiming the virtues of the ‘Gujarat model’ based on creating an environment for entrepreneurship to flower, Nitish will be highlighting the need for regional equity complemented by good governance.

At one level, these competing visions may suggest an India-Bharat tussle involving the role of the state in the development process. One will highlight the state as a supporting plank for a rule-based, transparent market economy. The other will revive the call for a redistributive Centre to facilitate lowering of regional disparities.

However, there is a point at which both the Gujarat and Bihar experiences converge: the question of federalism. From different positions, both Modi and Nitish are asking for a fundamental review of Centre-state relations and the role of the Planning Commission in the country’s economic life. Whereas Modi would want the statutory, non-discretionary transfers to the states by the Finance Commission to become larger, Nitish would insist on a larger equalisation principle to confront backwardness. And both would be united on two points. First, that the planning process devolve to the states; and, second, that the size and scope of the Central Government be reduced.

As the Congress decline gets more pronounced, there are positioning games on the other side that warrant greater attention.

The Telegraph, September 14, 2012 

An inexplicable act of Nitish

By Swapan Dasgupta

The past week has witnessed unconcealed jubilation in the ranks of the Congress over the apparent disarray in the NDA over the presidential election, so much so that there is talk of an UPA-3 in the air.

Some of the celebration is warranted. What once appeared to be a nail-biting contest between Pranab Mukherjee and APJ Abdul Kalam has turned out to be an entirely one-sided encounter after the former President announced that he was not in the race. The rebellion of Mamata Banerjee has been more than compensated by the support for Pranab from the Samajwadi Party, Shiv Sena, Telugu Desam Party, CPI(M), and, above all, the Janata Dal (United).

To what extent the incremental support owes to the candidate or the UPA Government is a matter of conjecture. However, what is certain is that the Congress’ political managers are drooling at the prospect of a full-scale civil war between the JD(U) and BJP over Narendra Modi, and the likelihood of Nitish Kumar opting out of the NDA altogether. The speculation has intensified following a curious defence of the UPA’s handling of the economy by the JD(U) spokesman Shivanand Tiwari. This has prompted speculation that Nitish’s attack on Modi is merely a cloak for the Bihar Chief Minister either emulating the SP and putting himself at the disposal of the highest bidder or, alternatively, emulating Naveen Patnaik and positioning himself as an independent regional force with no attachments to the national alliances.

The uncertainty is unhealthy. In earlier months, Nitish had made it quite clear to the BJP leadership that he would not hesitate to walk out of the NDA in the event the BJP chose the Gujarat Chief Minister as its face for the 2014 general election. He chose to reinforce the point after the BJP National Executive in Mumbai last month by making a big deal out of complete non-issues — Modi’s lament over caste politics in Bihar (which was actually an attack on Lalu Prasad Yadav) and the appearance of an anti-Nitish article in a magazine in which the Gujarat Government had advertised. In short, Nitish made a pre-emptive attack on the BJP.

However, it is one thing for Nitish to make clear his displeasure of the Modi project. But it does not follow that this should have prompted him to break with the NDA on the presidential election. After all, Purno Sangma wasn’t a candidate chosen unilaterally by the BJP: he was the preferred choice of the leaders of the AIADMK and Biju Janata Dal. Indeed, Naveen Patnaik spoke to Nitish last week canvassing support for Sangma. According to one source, Nitish did not offer very convincing reasons for turning down Patnaik. It is also understood that even Sharad Yadav wasn’t entirely persuaded by Nitish’s insistence on supporting the Congress nominee.

The speculation that the Bihar Chief Minister had secured firm assurances from the Centre on his long-term demand for a special Bihar package does not stand up to scrutiny. Regardless of the merits of Bihar’s claim, the UPA doesn’t have the necessary elbow room, either politically or financially, to accommodate Bihar without making a similar gesture towards West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Kerala. Manmohan Singh’s comments at the G-20 summit make it quite clear that cuts in Government spending to control a rising fiscal deficit are on the anvil. If Nitish has indeed been given commitments of special consideration by the Centre, these are valueless — and the Bihar Chief Minister knows it too.

Commitments from the Congress at this juncture are akin to receiving post-dated cheques on a tottering bank. No right thinking person would ever agree to such a scheme. And, unlike some leaders of the YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh, SP and BSP, the Centre cannot use the CBI as a pressure point against Nitish.

Under the circumstances, Nitish’s insistence on supporting Pranab Mukherjee (who, in case, was in no danger of losing) and breaking ranks with the anti-Congress bloc makes absolutely no political sense. In warning against making Modi the PM candidate, Nitish was appealing to other leaders in the BJP with whom he enjoys a good and convivial relationship. But their inclination to listen to him has been seriously undermined by his support to the Congress for the presidential election. Not only has he blemished his otherwise impeccable anti-Congress record, he has undermined the trust he enjoyed with other regional players such as Jayalalithaa, Naveen Patnaik, Mamata and Prakash Singh Badal.

There was a time when Nitish was seriously being viewed by both a section of the BJP and other regional parties as a possible candidate for Prime Minister in a post-2014 fractured Parliament. More than anything else, this owed to his position as a principled, reliable and clean politician. With this one inexplicable act, he has put himself on par with Mulayam Singh Yadav, the perennial Artful Dodger.

Of course, there may well be unintended consequences of Nitish’s decision to break ranks with the rest of the NDA on the presidential election. Read with Mulayam’s U-turn after a mysterious nocturnal meeting, Nitish’s action may have dented the idea of a Federal Front calling the shots after the 2014 poll. The regional players still remain relevant, but the prospects of a direct confrontation between the UPA and the NDA have increased. For an India looking for clarity, this may not be such a bad thing after all.

Sunday Pioneer, June 24, 2012

OF PRIME IMPORT - The Bihar chief minister may have caused a salutary churning

By Swapan Dasgupta

There is something reassuring about the controversy centred on Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s views on the qualifications necessary for an ideal Prime Minister of India. Although his interview to a financial daily has set the cat among the pigeons, its impact may prove to be salutary.

Instead of fudging the choices likely to be offered to the electorate in 2014 (or, perhaps, earlier), the main opposition party and the National Democratic Alliance are being encouraged to announce their preferred choice well in advance. Since India doesn’t have a system of primaries, the political churning likely to result from Nitish’s sharp intervention may well prove the most democratic way of parties and alliances arriving at an informed choice well before an election.

In the event of an outright NDA victory in the general election, the country may at least be blessed with a Prime Minister who, apart from enjoying a majority in the Lok Sabha, had also sought and secured the endorsement of the people. If nothing, the pre-election churning may well prevent a repetition of the Janata Party experiment between 1977 and 1979 when complications arose from a failure to blend a resounding mandate with a clear choice of leader.

Of course, it is unlikely that the enrichment of the democratic process was foremost in the mind of the Bihar Chief Minister when he gave his diplomatically-worded but yet very candid interview earlier this week. Nitish has never concealed his wariness of the man who, for all practical purposes, is now regarded by the Bharatiya Janata Party as first among equals: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. By suggesting that any future Prime Minister must have impeccable secular credentials and feel for the poorer states of India, as opposed to developing the already developed regions, Nitish was questioning the wisdom of upgrading Modi from a powerful regional leader to the highest rung of national politics. He also made it apparent that would have nothing to do with any formation that went to the polls with Modi at the helm. In effect, he issued an ultimatum to the BJP to either keep Modi confined to Gujarat or face the consequences.

It is almost certain that Nitish timed his intervention to take advantage of the churning within the BJP. Since the defeat of 2009, the BJP has been struggling to maintain a semblance of coherence which has led to its failure to take full advantage of the UPA’s wayward record of governance. What is referred to in shorthand as the BJP’s unending crisis was occasioned by its inability to throw up a leader capable of stepping into the shoes of the Atal Behari Vajpayee-L.K. Advani duo. Within the community of saffron activists, Modi was unquestionably the person with the greatest personal popularity. However, his awkward relationship with the RSS prevented the party from translating his appeal into responsibility. Following prolonged back-channel negotiations, that issue was finally resolved at the Mumbai National Executive in May when Modi was, for all practical purposes, anointed as the successor to Advani. The formal coronation, however, was left pending till the outcome of the Assembly election in Gujarat. If Modi repeats his earlier victories, he will be thrust into the national stage, well in time for the 2012 election.

Yet, despite his cult following among activists, question marks over Modi’s ability to steer the BJP into power at the Centre persist. The sceptics can be divided into three broad categories. First, there is a group of RSS full-timers who are repelled by Modi’s fierce individualism and his disregard for a collegiate style of functioning. They are furious with Modi for totally bypassing the RSS in the conduct of governance. Secondly, there are some veteran leaders and their protégés who are mindful that Modi’s rise will involve their own eclipse. Finally, there are the pragmatists who are doubtful of Modi’s ability to build an effective coalition. Their concerns centre on the recognition that the BJP’s reach is limited by geography and that there has been no worthwhile expansion of the party (except in Karnataka) since 2004. Will a Modi-led BJP, they ask, be left friendless in 2014, just as Vajpayee was in 1996?

Nitish’s threat to walk out of the NDA in the event of Modi being named the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate was primarily aimed at the pragmatists in the BJP. With the party out of the reckoning in large tracts of the country, the possible loss of a valued ally in Bihar would further undermine its chances to be at the undisputed helm of a non-Congress government in 2014. In effect, Nitish has posed an uncomfortable question to the BJP: do you want to be in power or merely fly the flag?

This is a question that BJP pragmatists, including many who have no real objections to Modi as long as he can steer the party to a tally of 180 seats, cannot afford to ignore. The fact that RSS chief Mohan Rao Bhagwat has come out in favour of the BJP’s right to choose its own prime ministerial candidate is likely to ensure that discordant voices in the BJP remain silent for the moment. Although Modi is no longer linked with political Hindutva, the RSS chief has let it be known that the Gujarat Chief Minister is back in favour with Nagpur. This implies that Modi has prevailed in the inner-party battle to secure for himself a pre-eminent national role.

This is not to suggest that Nitish’s intervention will fall completely on deaf ears and that there will be no option left for the Janata Dal (United) but to walk out of the NDA in the coming year. On the contrary, it is more than likely that the coming months will witness a serious attempt by the BJP to address some of the key concerns raised by Nitish.

On the issue of secularism, there are already indications that sadbhavna, particularly the need to rise above sectarian differences in a common quest for development, will be an important plank in Modi’s re-election bid in Gujarat. To what extent this approach pacifies his detractors is unknown. What is however clear is that the BJP does not propose to go into battle in 2014 flying the banner of assertive majoritarianism.

Likewise, the Gujarat polls may see Modi fine-tune his message of aggressive development to accommodate the concerns of those unable to cope with the vagaries of the market economy. Modi is unlikely to ever compromise on the efficiency quotient of government, but he will walk the extra mile to commit himself to a compassionate administration that actually delivers. Modi has consciously detached himself from the poverty glorification rhetoric of the socialists and this has prompted his detractors to see him as an Indian version of an American Tea Party activist. The Gujarat election may see him tweaking this message. He may well be inclined to link poverty alleviation with transparency and efficiency in government. Modi is one of the most effective political communicators after Vajpayee. The imagery he is likely to use in Gujarat will almost certainly also be aimed at a wider, pan-Indian audience.

At the end of the day, successful leadership depends on popular perceptions. Modi’s strength is charisma based on purposeful, no-nonsense leadership. Today, this style appeals to the middle classes exasperated by the government’s economic ineptitude. Repackaged with a dose of personal integrity, it has the potential of capturing the attention of a larger constituency.

Nitish knows that. This is why he has sought to knock Modi out of the race before the bandwagon starts rolling.


The Telegraph, June 22, 2012