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Reading the tea leaves in
Gujarat
"This is the beginning
of our march towards victory which should be taken to
its logical conclusion next year when elections are due
in several states and in the Lok Sabha [lower house] in
2004."
- Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee
"The poison of communalism
has worked in this election, secularism has been
rejected. The sooner secular political parties
understand the dangers, the better it
is."
- Hindi-language Delhi daily Rashtriya
Sahara
NEW DELHI - Gujarat has often
been described as the Indian state that has served for
many years as the Hindu right's laboratory. If this is
the case, given the weekend's assembly elections
results, the experiment has proved highly successful.
But, as the quotations above starkly illustrate,
the sweeping victory of the ruling Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP), which campaigned on a platform of Hindu
revivalism after bloody Hindu-Muslim clashes in the
state earlier this year, is likely to further polarize
the political landscape in India, while emboldening the
hardline Hindu right wing.
The BJP defied most
projections by claiming a whopping 126 of the Gujarat
state assembly's 182 seats, soundly thrashing the main
opposition Congress party. Congress took 52 seats, four
seats were won by a small party and independents and
there was no election in one constituency after the
death of a candidate.
The controversial Narendra
Modi, the caretaker chief minister, is due to be sworn
in as chief minister on Wednesday at a ceremony at which
Prime Minster Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime
Minister L K Advani are likely to be present, along with
other central leaders.
The victory in one of the
BJP's traditional strongholds halts the flow of recent
state assembly electoral defeats, but with more state
elections due next year, the BJP will have some time to
test its hardline stance ahead of the general elections
scheduled for 2004.
Gujarat has always been a
strong support base for the BJP, and with Muslims making
up less than 10 percent of the state's population, the
party has worked hard to unite the Hindu vote in its
favor - and the communal carnage in February played
right into its hands.
Previously, Congress has
benefited by splitting the Hindu votes by appealing to
disadvantaged groups in the state as a bloc - Muslims,
lower caste Hindus and tribal communities. But in the
latest elections, the BJP and hardline Hindu groups
allied to it broke that trend.
Modi's
moment
The BJP victory will certainly strengthen
the position of Modi. He was picked to head the party in
Gujarat to arrest its political decline in the state
about a year ago and he has single-handedly led his
party's campaign, becoming the rallying point for pro
and anti-BJP supporters with his fiery rhetoric.
The speculation now is whether he will be
tempted, as a mass leader in his own right, to play a
larger role in national politics. However, critics argue
that the Gujarat model cannot easily be replicated
elsewhere as Muslims, as well as other disadvantaged
groups, are politically more influential in states such
as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, India's political heartland.
Perhaps more important for Vajpayee is whether
his standing in his own party will be damaged. He has
long been a moderating influence, while hawkish BJP
members have little truck with this soft touch.
Fifty-two-year-old Modi hails from the small
town of Vadnagar in Mehsana district of north Gujarat,
where he completed his initial school education. He then
studied at Gujarat University, where he obtained a MA in
political science.
He was actively involved with
student activities, and became a leader of the Akhil
Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP - All-India Students
Council), the powerful student body affiliated to the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) - the right-wing Hindu
organization - and later launched a ABVP chapter in
Mehsana.
In recognition of his leadership skills
and organizational abilities, he was deputed by the RSS
to the BJP as state general secretary, BJP Gujarat, in
which position he masterminded a number of BJP
victories. He also has had responsibility for the state
units of Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh
and Jammu & Kashmir.
Modi is a powerful
orator, and in 1993, the US government, under the Young
Political Exchange Program, invited him to Washington DC
to address the Global Vision 2000 conference, with
100,000 delegates from more than 60 countries.
India Today recently profiled Modi as one of "a
select group of politicians to be watched in the new
millennium". He was described as "a formidable
strategist with great organizational skills". Modi is
something of a poet and a writer, with a number of his
works published. He enjoys photography and trekking,
takes a keen interest in information technology, and he
is widely known for his love of expensive clothes and
designer accessories.
On the dark side, though,
his critics charge him with unabashed complicity in
Gujarat's recent religious clashes - some even accuse
the chief minister of indirectly urging on the Hindu
mobs that are believed to have led most of the attacks
in which scores of Muslims died.
In the face of
this criticism, Modi's position was never seriously in
doubt as he has support among senior leaders in the RSS.
According to some reports, former BJP president
Kushabhau Thakre, a senior RSS member, made it clear to
the prime minister that Modi would have to be defended,
even at the cost of the survival of the central
government. The RSS, founded in the 1920s with a clear
objective to make India a Hindu nation, functions as an
ideological fountainhead to a whole host of hardline
Hindu groups - including the BJP.
Modi got his
big break in the public arena last year when his
predecessor in the state, Keshubhai Patel, was forced to
step down over accusations that he had bungled relief
work after the massive earthquake that killed nearly
20,000 people in the state. Modi quickly brought to bear
his long years of training as a RSS pracharak or
propagandist.
Wither India?
Vajpayee
said on Sunday that the Gujarat victory is the beginning
of the BJP's march toward victory in the assembly
elections next year and the Lok Sabha (lower house)
polls in 2004. "We want to take inspiration from this
and prepare for upcoming elections in other states."
Addressing party workers at his New Delhi
residence, Vajpayee said party workers should begin
preparations in the states on the basis of the Gujarat
outcome. "This win has come along with victories for the
BJP in Rajasthan, where we have won all the three
assembly by-elections and in Godda [Jharkhand] where we
have retained the Lok Sabha seat," he said.
Vajpayee was quick to heap praise on Modi and
said that he believed the vote would be the beginning of
a resurgence for their BJP. Modi in turn struck a
conciliatory note, saying that he would work for all the
people of Gujarat, whether they had voted for him or
not. But he said that he had a clear mandate, "The
people of Gujarat have given a verdict in our favor - I
thank them for this."
The Hindu daily newspaper
called the victory a "harvest of hatred". The poll
verdict, based on politics that divided majority Hindus
from minority Muslims, was "not merely unfortunate but
extremely ominous for the country's future as a truly
secular and pluralist polity", The Hindu said.
But newspapers said that they doubted that the
BJP would be able to repeat the campaign tactics in
other regions where "Hindutva" - a term literally
meaning Hinduism, but now used for the Hindu
fundamentalism espoused by the Hindu right wing - is far
less entrenched and where regional parties with strong
caste or local clan loyalties tend to prevent voters
being divided down purely religious lines.
"In
the coming days, many in the BJP will ask whether Mr
Modi's strategy in Gujarat points the way forward for
the party. The answer, evidence would suggest is 'no.'
Gujarat has long been a niche market for the BJP," The
Times of India said.
And BJP president Venkaiah
Naidu commented, "We are not going to replicate Hindutva
in other states because the issues are different and the
leadership is different." Newspapers, however, expected
a battle within the BJP between the older generation,
represented by Vajpayee, and younger leaders impatient
with his compromising coalition politics.
"Over
the last few months it has become increasingly clear
that there is now a generational divide within the
party," the Hindustan Times said, adding that the Hindu
right wing may misread the victory in Gujarat. "It may
forget that the victory would not have happened without
the horror of the Godhra massacre," it said. "Without
the special circumstances that manifested themselves in
Gujarat, such a strategy will not provide any electoral
success."
(Asia Times Online)
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