A grotesque mask has replaced the genteel mukhauta that K. N. Govindacharya once lampooned ever so casually.
In his third consecutive electoral victory, the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has emerged as an unstoppable force on the national political theatre. His frenzied followers forecast the demagogue’s thinly concealed ambitions in the cries of ‘March to Delhi’ and ‘NM as PM’ in the victory rally hours, after he had once again mauled the predictably defeatist Congress at the hustings. In their rush to display their offerings to the Hindu Hriday Samrat— which unfortunately, lacks even the aesthetic quotient of the Triumph of the Will— what his fawning supporters have overlooked is the dismay this development evokes in the national BJP and its mother outfit, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
“This sinister tendency has not escaped anyone’s attention, either in the BJP or the RSS. The latter has institutionalised supremacy of the organisation and places its collective ideal – the establishment of Hindu Rashtra – way above individual ambition.”
It is not just a fear of being sidestepped that the BJP’s “Rajya Sabha brigade” in Delhi might have; although that is genuine enough. Modi’s autocratic ways leave no scope for internal democracy and the space some of the lighter-weight leaders could occupy on the political landscape. The eventual political decimation of scores of leaders in Gujarat – Keshubhai Patel, the late Kashiram Rana, Gordhan Zadaphia, Pravin Togadia, Sanjay Joshi – is testimony to the fact that Modi prefers a lonely perch at the top.
The Mask subsumes all other identities to showcase just one personality. Anyone who challenges this unspoken edict is either disgraced a la Sanjay Joshi (the powerful RSS organisation secretary who once presided over L. K. Advani’s ouster from the BJP president’s office in the wake of his homilies to Mohammed Ali Jinnah) or simply thrown out. The family of the slain Hiren Pandya, another stalwart from the state, still accuses the Gujarat CM of complicity in his murder.
This sinister tendency has not escaped anyone’s attention, either in the BJP or the RSS. The latter has institutionalised supremacy of the organisation and places its collective ideal – the establishment of Hindu Rashtra – way above individual ambition. But even in its rigid structure, the RSS has shown traces of extreme pragmatism and political opportunism when it suited them.
Indeed, the Sangh accepted the candidature of Atal Behari Vajpayee over their chosen charioteer L. K. Advani, when it became clear in the mid-90s that BJP could not shake off its political untouchability post-Babri demolition, without Vajpayee’s ostensibly moderate leadership. To forge coalitions and woo difficult allies, the Sangh gave its nod to the ideologically dubious but politically palatable Vajpayee. The charming Vajpayee and his middle-of-the-road posturing became the perfect foil for the Hindutva forces to arrive centrestage after decades of populating the fringes of India’s politics.
That is the legacy that the BJP carries on to date, with even Advani trying to shed his Hindutva baggage by according ‘secular’ status to Mohammed Ali Jinnah, in a comical attempt to win over the Indian Muslims. The rest, be it Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari et al practise pragmatic politics, although, Swaraj has a peculiar tendency to burst into hysterics at the most unforeseen moments.
Swaraj’s little performance at Rajghat, the last resting place of Mahatma Gandhi, to protest against police lathicharge at Baba Ramdev on June 6, 2011 is matched in absurdity only by her declaration that she will “shave my head, eat only chana, sleep on the floor” if Sonia Gandhi were to become Prime Minister. A handful of provincial satraps like Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh and former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, who unsuccessfully compete with Modi for the national spot, have similarly tailored their public persona in the Vajpayee mould.
Modi, therefore, remains the only mass leader in the BJP who has a distinct public image that is in total contrast to what Vajpayee sought to project. He is known for his undisguised malevolence towards Muslims, reflected once again in not fielding a single Muslim candidate in the Gujarat elections, as well as being the biggest ambassador for Brand Gujarat. He combines a larger-than-life persona that contains traces of hardcore Hindutva, extreme parochialism, besides the fact that he is the closest ally big business has ever secured in political India. He is presenting an alternative Brand Equity for the BJP after the passing on of the Vajpayee era. In that sense, Modi is the only one among the second generation BJP leaders who has carved a niche for himself on the national scene. Indeed, after Vajpayee, Modi is most sought after leader in the BJP’s core constituency.
But while Sangh accepted Vajpayee’s supremacy in the BJP despite their discomfort with his ‘moderate’ politics, the former Prime Minister has always been a genuine democrat. He allowed talent to flourish around him, accepted Advani’s repeated trespasses into his territory and let the RSS have their say when he could. In Modi, the RSS has found an ideological icon after their own heart. But unlike Vajpayee, the Sangh cannot be certain of its own influence over the BJP if they let Modi assume a more significant role in the central BJP, or project him as the party’s prime ministerial candidate in the 2014 general elections as Vajpayee once was.
Besides these logistical and organisational issues that may erupt with Modi’s national projection, the biggest hurdle in his climb to the top is that Modi is a polarising factor. The only two ways in which he can be brought centrestage before the general elections in 2014 is either by anointing him BJP president or announcing his candidature as the PM aspirant from the BJP. Either way, the BJP does not stand to gain any political allies. In fact, a formal announcement of Modi as PM candidate is almost certainly going to result in the party losing one of its oldest and crucial allies, the Janata Dal (United).
It is a dream scenario for a rapidly decompensating Congress as it will lead to polarisation in the Hindi heartland and political marginalisation of the BJP of the kind it witnessed in the aftermath of the Babri mosque demolition.
But while it runs the risk of becoming a political untouchable all over again, the realisation that Modi is the only mass leader with the ability to command troops, is being felt in the BJP/RSS circles. Although it is early days yet, discussions about whether to bite the bullet with Modi are bound start in the Sangh’s upper echelons. Do they let him continue in Gujarat and be the chief campaigner for the BJP or start afresh? Is the ‘hope’ factor around Modi, and more importantly, the absence of it around all other leaders, sufficient to throw in the hat?
The election results in Gujarat and the winning CM’s unmasked ambitions have thrown these questions at the RSS. For the present, it seems as if the Sangh is letting Nitin Gadkari continue as BJP president despite the consistent campaign to publicise his less-than-honourable business dealings, and the status quo prevails. But the question has been asked rather publicly by Modi. And the RSS will respond. An answer in the affirmative will decide how deep into the abyss Indian politics will plunge. A back-to-basics strategy in the BJP with hard Hindutva and its most eloquent symbol at the helm may have catastrophic consequences. A sense of foreboding has already settled on the political landscape.
