The Mahabharata Comes To Delhi

On July 11,oven fresh from his anointment as chairman of the BJP's national campaign committee for the 2014 general elections, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi addressed a high profile All India Conference on livestock and dairy development at Gandhinagar. Here he announced a statue of unity, twice the size of the American statue of liberty. This world’s tallest statue of Sardar Patel to come up in Gujarat would be forged out of iron collected from every village in the country. Lost in the glitter and glamour of the event publicized with page-fulls of paid advertisements was the fact that Modi’s behind- the- scene manoeuvres were responsible for the unceremonious ouster of India’s fabled milkman, Dr V. Kurien, the father of the milk revolution in India. The man who made India, the highest milk producer in the world was conspiratorially ousted from each of the institutions that he created .And all this for the sin of crossing Modi’s path. He nursed the grudge even in death and though in close proximity of the town at a function, he did not deign to mark attendance, even when reminded that one of India’s tallest figures who had made Gujarat his home had passed away the same day.

So come October, this Sardar Jayanti, and the BJP campaign chief will embark on a nationwide yatra to collect pieces of iron for a monument to united India. On September 8, 2002 in the aftermath of the Godhra train carnage and the state-wide communal riots that fragmented it, Modi had taken out a Gujarat Gaurav yatra that led to complete polarization of the state’s social fabric but paid handsome electoral dividends as the BJP romped home with a steamroller majority and has continued to do so in election after election. Twice drubbed in their attempts for power in Delhi, the thwarted stalwarts of the BJP are now pinning their hopes on Modi to replicate the ‘Gujarat model’ and make them third time lucky.

The old order giveth place to the new and such is the pull of power that the worthies in India’s leading national opposition have had no compunction in binning patriarch L.K.Advani to bet big on Modi. Though the veteran represented Gandhinagar in the Lok Sabha for long, there were no takers for him in Gujarat when push came to shove. For one, Modi acolytes would not like to incur the wrath of their boss and his critics hate the father figure more than the protégé. As you sow so shall you reap, is all that they say.

Indeed, Modi’s monumental rise in the BJP stands anchored in a graveyard littered with innumerable political carcasses, the bulk of them their own. The list of names begins with the late Nathalal Jhagda whom he replaced as secretary (organization) when he was a mere pracharak to veteran Keshubhai Patel, one of the founders of the Jan Sangh in Gujarat who was the last to be forced out before the 2012 Vidhan Sabha elections after half a century of service to the party. The intermediate period is peppered with names like former union ministers Kashiram Rana and Vallabh Kathiria, former chief minister Suresh Mehta, former minister Haren Pandya who paid with his life, Gordhan Jhadapia former MPs AK Patel, KD Jeswani, and Nalin Bhatt and, of course, Sanjay Joshi. Some have limped back to the BJP incapacitated beyond repair.

Most of these stalwarts are unsparing in their criticism of Advani. In the words of Shankersinh Vaghela who rebelled and brought down the first BJP government in Gujarat headed by Keshubhai Patel: "For more than a quarter century Modi used Advani to destroy the entire top leadership of the BJP in Gujarat and now when nemesis has caught up with the patriarch—"Dhriatrashtra" cannot feign to act "Bhishma”".

A highly ambitious person with a knack for planning and a no-holds barred approach to politics, Modi has risen to the top through astute practice of the maxim ’rise to conquer, stoop to prevail’. Time was when Keshubhai Patel, Shankersinh Vaghela and Narendra Modi—strictly in that order—represented the up and coming leadership of the party in Gujarat. One time close confidante Gordhan Jhadapia of VHP stock had an insightful incident to narrate. In the early nineties Modi was replaced with Suresh Mehta as secretary by newly appointed state unit chief Kashiram Rana. Days later Advani attended a function in Ahmedabad and was faced with a blackflag demonstration demanding the rehabilitation of Modi. "I was the one who carried it out at the behest of you know who,"  Jhadapia confessed years later. See the similarity in the demonstrations outside Advani’s residence, he adds. Similarly after the rebellion by Vaghela in 1995,Vajpayee had brokered peace. ”Late that night there were demonstrations outside the state guesthouse in Gandhinagar where Vajpayee was put up. The chant ”Vajpayee ki dhoti bik gaya do crore mein” was led by a prominent lady legislator. Days later some of those legislators including veteran Atmaram Patel who had rebelled along with Vaghela were stripped and chased down the road after they were emerging from Vajpayee’s public meeting in Ahmedabad. The fragile peace soon fragmented and the BJP lost some of their major stalwarts leaving a vacuum of sorts.

It is not a mere coincidence that Modi’s rise to untrammelled power has been through turmoil and turbulence. The sequence of events in Gujarat over the last quarter century testifies to it. Now the same upheaval is being witnessed as he makes a bid for Delhi. Every Sangh Parivar set up in Gujarat has been divided down the middle to make it ineffective and ensure the dominance of Modi. The BJP has long ceased to exist. Modi is the government, Modi is the party. It is brand Modi. And if you are against it, you are against Gujarat. There are more than shades of " Indira is India" in this for if you are not for Modi than you are deemed to be against him.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. Modi’s promotion of sorts to frontline status in the national BJP has already created a situation where the national party now stands divided. Mark my word, Advani’s decision to withdraw his resignation will ensure a Keshubhai Patel- like state for him. Modi will ensure that. The next one year will see many party big-wigs in Delhi decimated and those who survive but are marked out, a year after the elections. This is irrespective of the fact whether Modi becomes the next Prime Minister or not. The Gujarat Model (Call it Brand Modi after all Gujarat is synonymous with Modi) is all set to overwhelm the BJP in India. With all its pitfalls and prizes.