Virendra
Parekh
Before, if ever, Narendra Modi becomes India Delhi Gujarat long ago. He
emerged as a national leader on the back of resolute leadership, efficient
administration and a clean image. He enjoys a good deal of support from the
RSS, which in BJP is a trump card.
With ears close to the ground, easy
accessibility and a sound track record of delivering on promises, Modi has
acquired a measure of credibility and charisma which none of the BJP’s central
leaders possess. Shivraj Singh Chauhan of Madhya Pradesh and Raman Singh of
Chhattisgarh have also earned popularity on similar strengths, but neither
appears to be keen, as of now, to play a leading role at the Centre. Modi is a
different case. BJP bigwigs cannot ignore him or his ambitions.
However, if Modi is selected to command
BJP forces in the forthcoming Lok Sabha election, many BJP leaders will have to
forget their ambitions and rein in their lust for power. The pull of such lust
should not be underestimated.
These leaders want Modi to campaign for
the party, not only in Gujarat, but also in other states where his presence can
make a difference, while expecting him to confine his own ambitions to Gujarat . Modi is unwilling to oblige them, unless he
could augment his own political capital by campaigning outside Gujarat . He wants to be the commander, not a foot
soldier. This subtle tug of war is slowly becoming visible and will emerge out
in the open by the time of the Lok Sabha election.
It is equally certain that if BJP selects
Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate, it will have to forget not
only about the few (if any) Muslim votes it gets, but also about allies who are
mortally scared of annoying Muslim votebanks. Therein lies the rub. Barring the
Akali Dal and the Shiv Sena, all other parties in the NDA are enamoured of the
‘secular’ label. The hypocrisy of leaders like Nitish Kumar is infuriating. By
insisting that the NDA candidate for prime minister must have a ‘secular’ image,
he is playing to the green gallery while trying to keep a powerful rival off
the field. The ploy is too transparent to be missed, but, unfortunately, it
threatens to work.
Muslims are naturally amused to watch the
game. In their view, their security (actually, political clout) lies in keeping
out of power any party or leader who enjoys any credibility - real or fake -
among the Hindus. And if Hindu leaders can articulate that position for them in
as many words, so much the better.
This is a decisive moment, not just for
the BJP or NDA, but for Hindu society. The modern Hindu intelligentsia has
failed to grasp a basic fact: clout, influence, power or authority is central
to human relations. Power that is not exercised eventually wears off and vanishes.
Hindu intellectuals rarely examine any issue, development or trend in terms of
Hindu influence or power. For most of them, such an exercise is weird and
anti-secular if not anti-national. They think it is beneath them to indulge in
it. Hindu society has paid, and continues to pay, a heavy price for this
failure of its intelligentsia.
In the post-independence period, Hindus
have never asserted primacy of their civilisational identity at the political
level. They have never claimed to be the essential national society, the
fulcrum of the polity around which every institution and organization must
arrange itself. In contrast, Muslims realize the centrality of power in
relations with non-Muslims. They can and do use their votes as an effective
political weapon. I do not criticize Muslims for doing so, just as I do not
applaud Hindus for neglecting power equations in post-independence India
Hence it is that Hindus have become
political orphans in the only country they can call their own. Hence it is they
are still maligned for Gujarat riots ten years
after the event, while the original provocation (burning alive of 59 Hindus by
a Muslim mob without
any provocation) is all
but forgotten. Hence it is that heartrending tales of Kashmiri pundits, who
have suffered far greater atrocities for much longer, hardly ever evokes any
sympathy at all from any political party - not even the BJP. Hence it is that
Hindus can speak as Dalits, Adivasis, Jats, Yadavs, Kurmis, Lingayats, Reddys,
Vanniars and Nairs, but not as Hindus. Hence it is that 12 per cent Muslims,
without uttering a word, can frighten mighty Hindu politicians into rejecting
anyone with Hindu credentials...
In the pre-independence period, a con game
was played in the name of nationalism. Only that party, that leader was
national (and could speak for the whole country) which was not opposed by the
Muslim League. In this reckoning, the Congress was an organization of Hindu
banias, but the Communist Party of India was a national organization. After
independence, the same game is played in the name of secularism. Only that
party, that leader, that programme or proposal is secular which is not opposed
by Muslims. The name has changed, participants have changed, but the game
remains unchanged. And so does its objective: to keep the Hindus on the
defensive.
How history repeats itself! Congress is
now saying about BJP whatever Jinnah used to say about Congress in 1940s: that
it is a party of Hindu banias, that Muslims can never expect justice from it,
that if it ever came to power then Muslims will have to fear for their lives
and so on. Again the object is the same: to use Muslims as political pawns to
delegitimize and checkmate nationalist sentiments.
Narendra Modi has the power to break this
game. Without a single Muslim vote, without making any special or specific
gesture to Muslims, he has swept assembly elections, not once, but twice, in Gujarat . He has demonstrated that if Hindus stand solidly
behind any leader, he does not have to flatter Muslims. This is why he is
regarded as a mortal enemy by most Muslims, all brokers of Muslim votes, and
all parties hankering after the Muslim votebank.
If Modi can replicate at the national
level what he has done in Gujarat , it will
decisively break the stranglehold of Muslim votebanks on Indian politics,
breathe a new self-confidence in Hindu society and force a rethink among Hindu
politicians in non-BJP parties. Muslims will become just one of the many groups
in Indian politics and thus join the national mainstream.
Whether Modi is interested in attempting
this feat, whether BJP will give him an opportunity to make such an attempt is,
of course, another matter. His sadbhavna
yatras have aroused speculation that he, too, may be craving
acceptability among circles that want BJP to shed every trace of Hinduness. As
to BJP, it does not deserve a single Hindu vote as of now as a party of Hindu
nationalism. But that does not affect the position outlined in the earlier
passages.
If the BJP really regards itself as a party
of Indian nationalism, it should distance itself from those hankering after the
12 per cent votebank and announce Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial
candidate for 2014 Lok Sabha election.
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