Indian Aspirations and the modi maestro

[GreenFoe]

SHAHJAHANPUR, India — The distance from New Delhi to Shahjahanpur, a town in northern Uttar Pradesh, is slightly less than 200 miles; a four-lane highway runs most of the way. Yet I can tell you from painful experience that the trip takes six or seven hours. Because India's highways, with a very few exceptions, also serve as local roads, the taxi I took earlier this week had to jostle for space with three-wheelers, horse- and bullock-carts, bicycles and motorcycles, and groaning trucks listing way over to one side with mighty loads. For tourists, this is the cacophonous, all-at-onceness that is India's magic. For Indians, the choked highways constitute a colossal loss of productivity and a humiliating failure of infrastructure investment.

I was heading to Shahjahanpur to hear Narendra Modi speak. Modi is the charismatic prime ministerial candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which seems likely to win a plurality of votes in elections now being held, and thus to replace the Congress party in Delhi. Modi is many things, but the thing that may well make him India's next prime minister is that he is credited with stoking economic growth in Gujarat, the Western state of which he is chief minister. If anyone can get the bullock carts out of the way of the taxis, and release exasperated citizens from the tangle of bureaucracy and corruption, it is him.

Fortunately for me, Modi runs as late as most Indian politicians. I arrived in Shahjahanpur more than two hours after the rally was set to begin, and Modi had only just begun speaking. A vast crowd, which a party official later pegged for me at 150,000-200,000 (it seemed smaller), had gathered in a dusty plaza. It was blazingly hot. The candidate was all but invisible on a distant stage framed in saffron, with saffron-colored flags whipping in the hot breeze. Modi's voice -- hectoring, mocking, sly -- boomed from a great row of loudspeakers.

Shahjahanpur is a "reserved constituency" -- set aside, under India's elaborate affirmative action laws, for Dalits, the caste bottom-dwellers once known as "untouchables." Modi himself comes from a "backward" caste, several rungs above the Dalits but many more below the Brahmins who have long ruled India, including the Nehru-Gandhi family which has dominated the Congress party for generations. Modi used to sell tea at a railway station, and he never stops needling the Gandhis about their lofty status. The day of the rally happened to be the birthday of B.R. Ambedkar, a great Dalit leader of India's founding generation, and Modi informed the crowd, somewhat illogically, that it was only owing to Ambedkar that "a kid who used to sell tea is standing in front of you." And yet Jawaharlal Nehru, he claimed (also on dubious evidence) "never liked Ambedkar."



Modi is a maestro of class resentment.

Modi is a maestro of class resentment. Congress bigwigs, he insists, feel "ashamed" of having to compete against a mere "worker." With a gift for homespun political rhetoric one can only admire, he has described Rahul Gandhi, the somewhat reluctant family scion and his challenger, as "a fish in the aquarium," while he, Modi, is "a fish in the sea." Modi is an adroit fisherman in the sea of caste and community. The BJP has traditionally drawn both leaders and voters from the upper castes; Modi is making a strong pitch for Dalits and other backward castes.
That is traditional Indian politics. But Modi is also doing something quite unusual. He has sought to turn the parliamentary contest into an individual race between himself and Rahul Gandhi, even though -- or perhaps because -- the latter has refused to promise that he would serve as prime minister if Congress formed the government. Modi is running, in effect, a one-sided presidential contest. He is running on his "story," as an American presidential candidate would do. "Friends," he said in one speech, "I am not pessimistic and the reason is that I have seen my mother doing the domestic cleaning, dish washing in the neighborhood households; she brought up and cultured her kids without losing hope."

Modi appeals to India's new class of strivers, its "aspirational" youth who do not accept that their destiny must be confined by the accident of birth. His deepest narrative is the narrative of "development" -- the story of a poor nation joining the world of the rich. If the chief subject of his speech in Shahjahanpur was the indignities visited upon Ambedkar by the Nehru-Gandhi clan, the secondary subject was potatoes. In Uttar Pradesh, he said, "farmers are afraid of cultivating potatoes" because the price has dropped so low. In Gujarat (his home state), "farmers used to face the same problems you are facing." But after the Modi government instituted "scientific methods of farming" there, he told the crowd, agriculturists soon found they received high prices for their potatoes. One Guajarati farmer, claimed Modi, set a world record for potato productivity. And yet the UP chief minister, Akhilesh Singh Yadav, "says that he won't let Uttar Pradesh become like Gujarat!" he said as the crowd roared and hissed.

What makes Modi so powerful a candidate is this convergence between personal narrative and policy achievement. He has raised himself; he has raised Gujarat. His critics claim that his record as chief minister over the last dozen years is largely an illusion, that Gujarat has catered to corporate interests while doing little for the poor. Yet the state is widely considered one of India's best-governed, and is among a group which has separated itself from the sorry state of much of the country, including Uttar Pradesh. In any case, voters believe it. The knot of men who gathered around me after the speech were convinced that Modi would raise the price of farm products while lowering inflation -- admittedly a tough combination to pull off.

Modi presents himself as the incarnation of ordinary Indians' ambitions and frustrations. But what about their anger? Modi was, of course, the chief minister when Gujarat experienced Hindu-Muslim riots that left at least 1,200 dead in 2002, and he is widely blamed for failing to intercede. He was raised in the Hindu-nationalist and paramilitary culture of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, and is regarded with profound loathing both by India's secular elite and by Muslims who fear he views them as second-class citizens. In the hustings, Modi himself makes only the most subtle gestures toward what is known as Hindutva, a sort of Hindu nationalism, complaining of rampant "cow slaughter" or adverting to dark Pakistani forces. But the BJP's manifesto calls for the building of a Hindu temple on a site where 20 years ago RSS cadres tore down a mosque brick by brick, sparking sectarian violence. Modi appears to be taking the high road while leaving the low one to lesser figures.

After the speech ended, and Modi lifted off in his helicopter, I forded the vast stream of humanity, snaked through the insane traffic bucking and honking outside the maidan, and drove to the local BJP headquarters in the dusty warren of downtown Shahjahanpur. There, I talked with a group of local officials and party volunteers. Ashis Singh, who was working for Krishna Raj, the local candidate for parliament, said that Modi's message had been "development." Hindutva, he said, was not part of the campaign. When I asked about notoriously inflammatory comments which had gotten the party's campaign chief in Uttar Pradesh banned from the state, Singh said he had been too busy working for Raj to pay attention to such things.

Then Yashpal Singh, a schoolteacher and local volunteer, pushed forward and said, "The problem with the Congress is corruption and fake secularism." Congress leaders, he said, were catering to the Muslim vote in the name of warding off BJP communalism. When I asked what he meant by that, Ashis Singh interceded: "He means that Congress is exploiting Muslims as a vote bank."

Actually, that wasn't quite what Yashpal Singh meant. "How many Muslims fled from Gujarat after 2002?" he asked. The answer was none. "And yet more than five lakh -- 500,000 -- Hindus fled from Kashmir because of mistreatment by Muslims." All the terrorist incidents in the country had been caused by Muslims, he told me. And yet India was 85 percent Hindu. The schoolteacher was just getting warmed up when some of the other men pulled him back in his chair.

It is the view of many Indians -- and the oft-repeated theme of Congress speeches and ads -- that Narendra Modi is playing the role of BJP superego while the party's RSS id boils away underneath, peeking through only at inopportune moments. If Modi becomes prime minister, they say, the mask will fall away, revealing the autocratic Hindu nationalist beneath. Maybe that's hyperbolic, but it's hardly absurd. In any case, Modi has played his role so deftly that India, and the world, are probably going to have a chance to find out the truth before long.

DIPTENDU DUTTA/AFP/Getty Images

Watching Modi, the Maestro, at Work

 

[nangyale]

Indian elections: patriotic, devout and angry … the hardliners backing Modi
With the controversial Hindu nationalist set for victory in India's elections next month, supporters and critics say India is at a turning point. Jason Burke reports from the small temple town of Vrindavan on the activists helping Modi win
Jason Burke, The Observer,

Indian Muslims shower flower petals on volunteers of Hindu nationalist RSS in a gesture of communal harmony. Photograph: Deepak Sharma/AP

From a distance, the scene is as colourful as any in India. Men dressed as Hindu deities, with tinsel crowns and tridents, wait for their turn on the stage. Teenagers saunter by trucks carrying effigies of mythological heroes and listen to speeches.

Yet a closer look reveals elements that are less picturesque. The speakers are repeating well-worn slogans common among hardline elements of India's religious right. The young men are armed, some with ceremonial swords of little use, but others with combat knives and heavy-bladed hatchets. "This is our tradition," one says. "We are showing that we, too, are strong."

The young men are from the Bajrang Dal, a youth organisation dedicated to advancing a rigorous and revivalist version of Hinduism. The meeting last week in Delhi, the capital, was organised to celebrate the birthday of Hanuman, the monkey god.

"The others are always showing their strength. Now it's our turn," said Nala Kumar Thakur, an 18-year-old student from south Delhi, demonstrating slashing strokes with his sabre. "All Hindus should know that their culture is under threat."

The teenagers of Bajrang Dal believe they may soon have something else to celebrate. With the Indian election moving into its final weeks – the process of balloting 815 million eligible voters takes nearly two months – their favoured candidate appears set to take power in this troubled emerging economic power of 1.2 billion people.

That candidate is Narendra Modi, the 63-year-old who leads the opposition Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). The Bajrang Dal is among the most militant of the many nationalist and religious organisations active in India that come under the umbrella of the Sangh Parivar (family of associations), which has been linked to a variety of violent acts over the decades. The BJP is perhaps the most moderate. Positioned somewhere between the two is the vast Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS – National Volunteer Association), which Modi joined around the age of 10.

Many in India, and some observers overseas, are concerned by the possibility that an RSS veteran might soon run the country. Critics say Modi stood by when 1,000 people, mainly Muslims, died in sectarian violence in the western state of Gujarat in 2002, shortly after he became chief minister there, and claim fears for communal harmony are thus well founded.

Last week 60 Bollywood personalities called on their countrymen to vote for the incumbent Congress party, despite its reputation for corruption and economic mismanagement after 10 years in power, " to protect our country's secular foundation". In a letter to the Guardian others, including Indian-born artist Anish Kapoor and author Salman Rushdie, argued that a Modi win would threaten the pluralism enshrined in the Indian constitution.

But a supreme court investigation did not find sufficient evidence to substantiate the charges against Modi relating to the 2002 riots, which he denies, and other film world figures have backed him as a "visionary leader". Some dismiss Kapoor and Rushdie as out of touch. Modi's supporters also stress that Gujarat has been peaceful since 2002, unlike parts of India run by other parties, and claim that Modi's pro-business policies have led to growth which has benefited all local groups.

Underlining the ideological roots of the BJP in the powerful, if low-profile, religious and nationalist rightwing movement is the unprecedented operation launched by groups from the Sangh Parivar to maximise Modi's chances of victory. In Indian elections the first-past-the-post system combines with longstanding traditions of voting in blocs for community interests to give a small number of swing voters a massive impact. This means the work of the giant but highly disciplined RSS, as well as smaller fringe groups such as the Bajrang Dal, can be critical. "Their significance varies from place to place but … they can have a very high impact," said Varghese K George, political editor of the Hindu newspaper.

Quite how much the RSS, which was formed in 1925 to encourage a resurgence of Hindu culture in the face of British colonial rule, is helping Modi's campaign is hard to detect in crowded major cities such as Delhi. But in places like the small temple town of Vrindavan, a scruffy collection of shrines, ashrams, potholed streets and tenements 120 miles east of the capital, the depth of the collaboration is clear. This region, on the margin of the vast northern state of Uttar Pradesh, is the Hindi heartland. Political strategists know the road to power in Delhi lies through the rough, poor state's cities, towns and multitude of villages. It is here that the BJP has made its biggest effort, with the RSS in the vanguard.

Every morning a score of local men gather at 6am for the drill session that is the principal ritual of the RSS. They meet yards from the temple complex in Vrindavan built where Krishna, one of the most popular gods in the Hindu pantheon, supposedly spent his childhood. As monkeys play in the trees and rickshaw drivers sip tea at stands nearby, they sing, pray to "Mother India", drill and do exercises. Simultaneously, across the entire country, another 40,000 such meetings are taking place.

"This is a daily routine for tens of millions of people across India. The RSS is the most strong and most popular volunteer organisation in the world. Our goal is to spread the love of the motherland among all society," said Dr Krishna Kumar Kanodia, a maths professor, as men behind him marched in lines and went through yoga routines. Kanodia, who joined the RSS 30 years ago, said that India was at a turning point. "There is a new age dawning," the 52-year-old said. "It was prophesied 178 years ago. The future of India will shine. The US is just an economic and military superpower. We will be greater than that, because we will be a cultural superpower too. People must vote for the best leader for national power."

After the drill session, the men spread out through Vrindavan, which goes to the polls this week. The RSS leadership, having controversially decided to mobilise its cadres for the election, has said it will not endorse any single candidate, even a man like Modi who has sprung from its own ranks, but will only call on voters to cast their ballots in the national interest. "The tradition in the RSS ... was that the organisation prevailed over the man, and leaders had a collective decision-making process and never projected a single individual," said Professor Christophe Jaffrelot, a specialist in south Asian extremist organisations at King's College London.

But as the activists move through the streets of Vrindavan, handing out BJP leaflets featuring Modi's portrait, there was no such reticence. "We tell people to vote for Modi," said Harish Bhartia, a 47-year-old small businessman. "He is the strongest person of India. He can tackle our problems." Phone numbers are recorded so each RSS activist can make hundreds of calls on polling day to make sure supporters have voted.

"RSS leaders may be worried at making their organisation dependent on one man [but] Modi has galvanised the urban middle class and the … activists. The RSS need Modi more than he needs them," said Jaffrelot.

For the BJP, this is a huge boost, giving it the organisational firepower to take on the local networks of the Congress party, in power for all but 13 years since India gained its independence in 1947. Heema Malini, a former film star and BJP candidate for the Mathura constituency which includes Vrindavan, said the RSS had helped her campaign "very well" as she addressed a meeting of activists from the organisation and from the more militant Vishva Hindu Parishad on Friday. Despite little talent for public speaking or enthusiasm for meeting voters, Malini is expected to win easily.

RSS activists and officials say they do not discriminate on the basis of religion. Several pointed out there were senior Muslim officials in the BJP. But dozens of conversations reveal a deeply sectarian world view. Few endorse the sentiment of the Bajrang Dal official in Delhi who told the Observer that India's 150 million Muslims were not "really Indian" because they prayed facing Mecca, but many claim Indian Muslims are loyal to Pakistan rather than India, are attempting to win a "demographic war", and support terrorism. Both the Muslim Mughal dynasty, which ruled much of south Asia from the 16th to the 19th centuries, and British imperialists are seen as foreign invaders who between them destroyed a perfect Hindu rural society. All accuse successive Indian governments of "appeasement" and favouritism towards religious minorities.

"This current government is working for the Muslims and only for the Muslims," said Padma Nabh Goswami, a full-time RSS activist in Vrindavan. The RSS worldview is also deeply conservative – and expansionist. Many RSS activists blamed a recent surge in sexual violence in India on the influence of "western ideas". For Padam Singh, the head of the RSS in Vrindavan, today's India is a stunted colonial creation and a mere shadow of "Greater Bharat", a civilisation-based state stretching from Afghanistan to Indonesia. "This election is about change. And that means bringing Mr Modi to power," Singh said.

The predicted victory of Modi thus poses many questions. How far does the former senior RSS organiser still share the ideology of the organisation? How much influence will the many other senior RSS functionaries currently in top posts in the BJP have if the party takes power? How will fringe groups like the Bajrang Dal react to victory?

Could, or would, Modi restrain them if they launch new campaigns? And how far could Modi actually implement any radical agenda, given the complexity of India's political system and the necessity of coalitions and consensus building?

For the moment, there are no answers. Modi has already shown he is prepared to reject key parts of the RSS agenda, such as a commitment to economic self-sufficiency, and downplay others, even a demand to build a Hindu temple at the contested site in Ayodhya. He has also distanced himself from militant groups like the Bajrang Dal. Most voters appear to have decided that Modi can bring jobs, end graft, reinvigorate economic growth and restore battered national pride. Other concerns appear secondary.

Every evening, outside the Vrindavan headquarters of the RSS, around 30 boys sing, pray and drill in front of a saffron flag. They are between eight and 13-years-old, around the age of Modi when he first joined the organisation. At the end of an hour, their right arms crossed over their chests in the organisation's salute, they chant a hymn to Mother India, the beloved Himalayas, the Ganges river. They swear lifelong devotion to "this blessed place" where they were born.

KEY DATES FOR POLITICAL HINDUISM
Late 19th century Ideological leaders such as Swami Vivekenanda give momentum to Hindu revivalist movements, fusing nationalist claims for greater rights under British rule and independence.

1925 Inspired in part by European political movements, Indian activists found the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which grows to be a potent Hindu nationalist organisation.

1947 Up to a million die in massive sectarian violence as Pakistan and India come into existence.

1948 Seven months after India achieves its independence, Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated by a former RSS activist. The organisation is temporarily banned.

1975 The RSS is banned again for opposing suspension of democracy by Congress prime minister Indira Gandhi.

1980s The emergence of the Bharatiya Janata party.

1992 A mosque in Ayodhya, a northern shrine city, is demolished by activists from Hindu nationalist organisations, prompting bans and sectarian clashes.

1996 BJP become the largest party in parliament after elections but cannot form a stable government.

1998 BJP wins elections and, after increasing gains at a second poll, goes on to govern for six years. The party conducts nuclear tests, introduces economic reforms and launches a peace initiative with Pakistan.

2002 Around 1,000, mainly Muslims, die in violence in Gujarat after 59 Hindu pilgrims die in a fire on a train blamed on Muslims.

2004 BJP loses power to Congress.

 

[AugenBlick]

Things are already so bad, unless we politicize hinduism, I see more of our rights washed away in the name of "skularizm"

 

[Prometheus]

Indian aspiration..........from Punjabi point of view................scrap alliance with Akalis.............put all leaders dealing in drugs in jail.....

 

[Koovie]

India needs to enshrine Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism into its politics.

Yeah and make everything more useless, backward and retarded than it already is...