Why He Won?

When it comes to India, everything seems like a fantasy sequence of magical realism. The magical realism begins from its mythological Gods with multiple heads and continues to capture the domains of history, culture and politics. This is the country where one small prince (Buddha) got enlightened in Gaya and changed the course on History in entire Asia. This is the country where one lean and lanky mahatma of about five feet uprooted the might of invincible British colonial empire. This is the place which witnessed the unification of unimaginably diverse 547 princely states and, when everyone doubted its survival as a democratic nation, then it showed to the whole world that a country of seven different religions, 540 tribes, 3000 castes and about 1635 languages can survive as a democratic nation with strong economic growth. Today, one another surprising and almost a revolutionary phenomenon has occurred and i.e. the election of a man who was almost ostracized by the national media, political brass and intelligentsia for about 10 years, as the Prime Minister of the world largest democracy.

Mr. Modi comes to enjoy a cult figure like status now. In one of my previous article for PTH (Pak Tea House) I compared his fan following to that of Swami Vivekanand and there were several objections to that. But the way he single-handedly lifted the BJP from the abyss of despair and gloom, and steered its course to corridors of power, with a thumping majority proves beyond doubt that a country of 1.2 billion people is a ‘Modi’-fied India now.

In intellectual circles, this victory is being seen as the victory of communal and fascist Hindutva forces. Yesterday, I saw several facebook posts from my fellow Stephanians (an intellectual ivory tower of India with pro-left leanings) which said, “RIP Secular India, 16^th May 2014). The debate in the intellectual circles has gone back to the year of 1947 and has raised a question mark on the idea of India i.e. Is it the same India whose constitution declares it to be officially a secular country, and guarantees religious and cultural freedom to all its citizens, on account of its glorious history of peaceful co-existence of diverse religious and cultural groups?

I, personally feel that this is not the right way to look at this phenomenal victory. I strongly believe that the intellectual elites must come out of their cocoon of intellectual arrogance and not denigrate the democratic mandate of 1.2 billion people as a ‘making of the communal India’. In fact, closer analysis of the Indian political landscape over the last 10 years makes it amply clear that it is neither a miracle nor a rise of Hindutva. It turns out that this resounding victory is a logical culmination of the political vacuum that arose as a result of the timely amalgamation of several factors.

The question which I want to address here is that why an educated, liberal and irreligious man like me or many of my friends voted for Mr. Modi.

First and foremost, I would like to state upfront that the main plank of Mr. Modi’s election campaign was his Gujarat model of development. This is a new and very radical experiment in Indian democracy. The society where still caste, religion and feudal ethos dominate the mindset of an average Indian, no political party could dare to ride the horse of development, where populist politics and mincing of words had no role to play and, which demanded a no-nonsense leader who worked hard and showed the results which could be quantified. BJP experimented with this agenda in 2004 but failed miserably, because Indian mindset was still trying to come to terms with the phenomena of free market and globalized world. The BJP’s defeat of 2004 led all the regional parties like SP, BSP and Congress to plunge India back into 1980s when the politics was driven by the concerns of caste and religion, and incompetency was shielded by minority appeasement and great socialist ideas. However, this time the India was facing the electorate which has witnessed the financial crises of 2008 and realized the importance of economic growth. This time India was facing a voter which has witnessed the brutal terror attacks of Mumbai and several such blasts, and had realized the importance of national security. This time India faced a voter who was mesmerized with the power of social media and digital government and, would brook no tolerance to corruption and inefficiency.

Mr. Narendra Modi could capture these new expectations of the Indian masses. His manifesto, his style of governance, campaign and persona, in every way aligned with the new voter of India. Never before, there was such massive use of technology, social media and holograms in campaigning. The most startling fact is that Rahul and his team of Harvard and Wharton Graduates; extremely qualified ministers like Mr. Tharoor, Jairam Ramesh etc. could not see the change in the mindset of Indian voter. Their isolation from common masses and the arrogance of power made them think of the Indian voter as someone who is still rooted in caste and religion.

Whenever Mr. Modi talked of national security, economic growth and the incompetency of the government, the INC replied with Sachchar committee, politicization of Batla house encounter, Kargil war and the populist measures like food security act. Lately, their replies reflected extremes of insensitivity to people’s expectations. What was the Congress brass doing when leaders like Mulayam Singh, Digvijay Singh were shamelessly identifying the rights of minority communities with, the sacrifice of national security? When we look back, it astonishes beyond imagination that how could party with 128 years of glorious history could allow its leaders to address Osama Bin laden as Respected Osama Bin Laden Ji’? It is beyond explanation that how could an old and mature party resort to the tactics of misusing CBI to fabricate fictitious notions of ‘saffron terror’  and make a public appeal to the Imam of jama masjid  to urge all Muslims to vote for congress if they wanted to be safe.

It was a sheer misperception on the part of ruling establishment. On top of it, the number of financial scams like telecom, commonwealth continued unabated and a helpless prime minister could not do anything about except keeping a miscalculated political silence. I would consider it worth mentioning that the we must give our sincere thanks to Baba Ramdev, Mr. Kejriwal and Anna Hazare for launching mass movements exposing the moral bankruptcy of the government and, for empowering the Indian democracy and the Indian voter. If it were not for them, the political vacuum created by policy paralysis would never have come to the forefront, and Mr. Modi would never have got this opportunity to fill this vacuum.

Mr. Modi has always been projected as a very polarizing leader by domestic as well as foreign media. The ruling establishment and a bunch of archaic regional parties like SP and BSP played upon this image of Mr. Modi and used it in a very malicious and inefficient way to shield their incompetency, to which Mr. Modi always replied with the rhetoric of development. Hence, in effect this election became a truly polarized election. Mr. Modi ‘polarized’ it between economic growth, strong foreign policy, good governance, and a weak, corrupt ,arrogant and inefficient  governance of Congress whereas the INC ‘polarised’ it between protection of minorities and Hindu communalism of BJP.  Fortunately, Mr. Modi’s polarization worked whereas INC’s polarization backfired.

Therefore, I will conclude that it is a victory of hope, economic growth based on free-market, and the Modi phenomenon also marks the end of feudal India, dynastic politics, populist politics and caste based politics. I hope Mr. Modi delivers on his promises and keeps the hardliner Hindutva elements in control

Finally, before I end, I must say that the idea of India still remains the same i.e. peaceful co-existence. However, it now wants 10% growth rate and better quality of life.