A Modified Victory

In Gujarat’s political theatre of the absurd, Narendra Modi multiplied andproliferated: as he stood on stage whipping up Gujarati pride, a sea of Modischeered him on; as his rath took to the streets on the campaign trail, aseemingly endless line of Modis ran along. Barring the brief fortnight-longcampaign period, when Congress president Sonia Gandhi grabbed a few headlines ofher own, calling Modi and his men "maut ke saudagar" -- in her veryown  tribute to Bollywood -- it was  Modi and his clones who occupiedmindspace in Gujarat.   

Now, as he prepares to be sworn in on December 27 as chief minister for arecord third time -- just three short of a two thirds majority, and just 10seats less than he won in 2002 -- it’s time to answer the question: How didModi obliterate the horrifying images of the state-sponsored anti-minorityviolence, project himself by turn as Vikas Purush and Mard Manas, take ownershipof the good governance plank while never, for a moment, abandoning the BJP’score Hindutva agenda?  

When I traveled in the last week of November through dissident-wrackedSaurashtra, riot-torn central Gujarat, the tribal districts of the east and downto the south to the diamond city of Surat -- on the eve of the high-voltage warof words that erupted as Modi and Sonia Gandhi addressed, apparently, equallyresponsive gatherings -- Modi, clearly, had an edge (how much of an edge was atthat stage difficult to gauge).  

Curiously, this pro-Modi mood was at odds with the objective situation thatspelt advantage Congress. After all, it couldn’t get better for the party --in the Lok Sabha elections of 2004, less than two years after its disastrousshowing in the assembly elections of 2002, the party had won 90 assemblysegments out of a possible 182. In the three years since, Modi had to deal witha revolt in his ranks led by the redoubtable Keshubhai Patel and the politicallyand economically powerful Patel or Patidar community; he had angered all the RSSoutfits -- including the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh --that traditionally worked seamlessly with the BJP at election time; he hadreduced his ministers to ciphers and worked entirely through the bureaucracy;and there was deep resentment among the tribals who felt that he had put them onthe frontline against the Muslims in the violence of  2002, and thendeserted them when many of them were arrested. And to top it all, the Congresshad worked systematically to a plan.   

But look at the results, regionwise: in the 58 seats of Saurashtra (and Kutch),where the Congress was relying on BJP rebels, active particularly in Bhavnagar,Amereli and Rajkot, to help it add about 20 to its 2002 tally of 18, it actuallyended up losing three seats. The BJP, on its part, climbed from 39 to 43. Whathappened there?  

In the week I had traveled in that region, the first thing that becameapparent was that the BJP leaders who had raised the banner of revolt againstModi,  organising well-attended rallies across the state, and climaxingwith a massive show of strength in Rajkot in September, were already losingsteam.  The reasons were three fold: the dissidents had failed to maintainthe tempo; only 10 MLAs had left the BJP, of whom seven were contesting; and,significantly, the most influential Patel leader, Keshubhai Patel had not leftthe BJP. The powerful Patels, particularly the Leuvas, the community to whichmost of the dissidents belong, and which were expected to tilt the balance foror against Modi were confused. In Ramgadalur village (in the Shihore assemblysegment), situated between Bhavnagar and Amreli, Shambhbhai, a Leuva, told me,"The fight is between Modi and Keshubhai -- we have nothing to do withit." He paused and added, tellingly, "Keshubhai hasn’t left the BJP."Subsequently, of course, the rebels inserted large ads in the newspapers, withKeshubhai frontally attacking Modi, but by then it was too late: the Patels wereclearly not convinced that throwing their lot with a man, widely seen as a spentforce, would do them any good. This was especially so since the economicpolicies followed by Modi had benefited the well-to-do Leuva Patel community.    

In Amreli, the epicentre of the dissidence, as it is home not just to anti-ModiVHP leader Pravin Togadia (another Leuva Patel whose brother joined theCongress), but also to four dissident MLAs, who contested on Congress tickets,the picture appeared no longer as rosy for the rebels. Thakarsibhai Maithila,district Congress president, told me candidly, "Till the rally in Rajkot,the tempo was high -- the dissidents thought they would be able to topple Modiand wanted Congress support to do so. But when they failed, they lost face withthe people." He himself was unhappy that he had not got a party ticket as adissident had to be accommodated.   

Simultaneously, former BJP MP from Amreli, close Modi associate and districtcooperative bank chairman Dilip Sanghani, and a Leuva to boot, described to methe damage control mission mounted in the district. In the months leading uptothe polls, he said, 900-odd meetings were held exclusively among Leuvaopinion-makers. They were given details of the large political representationgiven to Leuvas by the BJP not just in the district but across Gujarat, as wellas the range of welfare activities for the community. The BJP also mounted acampaign against diamond merchant and chief financier of the dissidents and theSardar Patel Utkarsh Samiti Vasant Gajera and his brother Dhiru Gajera (bothoriginally from Amreli). Dhiru Gajera, in fact, who was another BJP rebel,contested from Surat north on a Congress ticket. (A majority of the diamondmerchants and cutters in this city are from Saurashtra, particularly fromBhavnagar and Amreli, and the politics of their hometowns spilled in to Surat.)  

Indeed in Surat, I had the opportunity of catching up up with Dhiru Gajerataking a walkabout through the narrow streets of the inner city area of Haripura,with a motley group of party workers. The response to " Vote for Panjo"(Vote for the Hand) was desultory and when the group broke for lunch, theworkers promptly took off their Congress scarves and stuffed them into theirpockets, almost as though they were hired for the occasion. That was not apropitious sign, clearly. In the end, Dhiru Gajera, lost his election.  

Of the other three regions, the BJP made marginal gains in both north andsouth Gujarat this time -- it was only in central Gujarat, the scene of theriots in 2002, that Modi lost ground. From the 42 seats he won in 2002, hedipped to 18 and the Congress climbed from 7 to 24.  Here, the Congress hadtwo advantages: one, three of its top leaders are MPs from this region -- uniontextile minister Shankarsinh Vaghela, union minister of state Dinsha Patel (who,of course, was pitted against Modi in Maninagar and lost) and state Congresschief Bharatsinh Solanki. Two, the tribals and Muslims in this belt probablyalso turned out in large numbers against the BJP.  

What was apparent also during my travels was that almost no one was willingto bet on Modi being ousted from power, not even those who hated him. Tribalactivists campaigning against him in Panchmahal district told me ruefully:" Pata nahin, usme koi jaadu hain. When he speaks, even if he is tellinglies, he mesmerises people, especially the youth."  A Muslim grocer inNadiad whose shop narrowly escaped the carnage of 2002, said grudgingly,"People say he has done a lot for vikas.."   

Was that fear? Or a realization that whatever their own views on Modi, theyhad figured out that Modi understood Gujarat perfectly? For Modi, whilemarginalising the Muslims, tribals and dalits, who are largely anti-Modi and whose leaders are to be found  among the proliferating NGOs rather thanin the opposition Congress,  almost exclusively addressed himself to theaspirations of the majority Hindu population, most of whom are unmoved by thestate-sponsored atrocities of 2002.    

Modi also succeeded in bypassing the traditional structures and making directcontact with different interest groups -- the mercantile classes through thechambers of commerce; the women through his Matrishakti programmes and self-helpgroups and so on. He even had what is described derisively by his critics as the"garba lobby" -- during the garba season, the government funded vastgarba functions, adding to Modi’s appeal -- adding the fun quotient to hismacho persona, the "mard mukya mantri" as star struck women workersdescribed him.  

Of course, Modi was aware that star appeal without a well-oiled organisation-- which he did not have this time -- would not suffice, and that the message ofdevelopment by itself would not be enough to bring the votes rolling in. He wasalso aware that the campaign against him  -- that he was the chief ministerof five crorepatis, rather than of five crore Gujaratis could strike a chordamongst the poor, those whose villages are not still lit up by the much toutedJyotigram scheme, or connected by motorable roads. So all his pre-electioninterviews focused on programmes for the marginalised and deprived, such as theRs 15,000 crore package for the Vanbandhu Yojana. (A local official explainedthat all that Modi had done was to merge all existing schemes for tribals andclub already allocated funds for them -- a sleight of hand, as it were!)  

He also left no stone unturned, as his campaign line revealed. The newspaperadvertisements did not just focus on development  -- there were ads thatsubliminally brought back the fear of the Other, the Muslims, by talking ofterrorism and Godhra (and this was before the “merchants of death”controversy). A senior RSS leader in Surat, Thakore Krishna Shah, who clearlydisliked Modi, told me, " Hindutva is more important than Modi -- and topreserve that, the BJP needs to stay in power, especially in Gujarat which isthe most perfect state for Hindutva." He also said that the airing of theTehelka tapes, by reviving memories of the 2002 anti-Muslim massacres, would"help" Modi.   

Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley explained the strategy: "We want to setthe agenda, and get the Congress to respond, not the other way around."Clearly, that succeeded. The party’s media managers, headed by Jaitley, wereextremely pleased that the terrorism ads provoked Bharatsinh Solanki into sayingthat his party had a "different definition of Hindutva" from that ofthe BJP. "By engaging with us on our turf," Jaitley said, "he isalready conceding ground. Hindutva’s proponents agree with our definition --the Congress should be playing the secular card, but they are scared to do so --so they will end up losing both."  

Indeed, the Congress, till the end, remained confused about its identity --it can scarcely compete with the BJP on the Hindutva issue. Tying up with thelikes of Gordhan Zarafia, who was union home minister during the 2002 riots (andwho was one of the chief BJP dissidents), did nothing for the Congress’ssecular image. To add to its woes, the party had virtually no authentic Gujaratiface to lead its campaign, and its ambiguity about its choice of a chiefminister spelt instability and factionalism to the voters. It failed to destroythe Modi mystique, and so it ended up as a victory for Vibrant Gujarat.