He was nominated for Time magazine’s Person of the Year and topped its reader poll, while a Harvard study of 30 global leaders ranked him number one in terms of citizens’ approval of their leaders’ policies. He came in at a less impressive 15th in Forbes’ 2014 ranking of the world’s most powerful people, but was still ahead of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos (16th), Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg (22nd) and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg (23rd).
At home, however, Narendra Modi, India’s most controversial Prime Minister (PM) in recent history, has not had it quite that good, and the verdict on Modi-fied India is stridently mixed.
Today, India’s 66th Republic Day, will be eight months to the day — May 26, 2014 — that Narendra Damodardas Modi was sworn in as the country’s 15th PM, following a landslide victory for his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The occasion is a good time to look at how far he and his new government have come, and whether they are on track to fulfil their mandate.
Early signs of trouble
Modi has set a blistering pace for change and his government has notched up some successes (see It’s a hit). But these have been overshadowed by early disappointments (see Flops, Fiascos and Mixed Bags) and an alarming spike in communal violence — exactly what the naysayers had predicted. His diehard critics continue to carp (sometimes by Pavlovian reflex) but the danger doesn’t lie in what they say.
It is parked closer to home — his own election promises have raised impossibly high expectations. Added to these are the aggression of his ideological and political comrades in the Hindu right wing, who are tasting power after more than a decade, his own right-wing roots and leanings, and his ever-controversial role in the Gujarat riots in 2002 that occurred on his watch as chief minister of the state. Official figures put the death toll at 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus.
In this context, the frenzied stirring of communal passions is not only drowning out all the sane voices but also threatening to sideline Modi’s achievements. Many are bewildered by his studied silence on these controversies, which is in sharp contrast to his thundering pronouncements at election time.
Silence is also speaking
However, Sanjaya Baru, a onetime policy analyst and media advisor to former PM Manmohan Singh, and the author of the best-selling memoir, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh, argues: “The PM does not need to react on a daily basis. He has to intervene in a manner he thinks is appropriate and PMs sometimes do so in quiet ways.” Baru’s point is proved by reports that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP’s ideological fountainhead, has cracked down on troublesome elements and prescribed medical leave for Rajeshwar Singh, leader of the Dharm Jagran Manch, and the most aggressive driver of the right-wing ghar wapsi campaigns of reconversion. Presumably this was done on Modi’s orders.
Reconverting Hindus who switched religions is just one of the many worries the BJP regime has thrown up. The Centre recently declared that Christmas, which is a national holiday, would henceforth be celebrated as Governance Day. Right-wing Member of Parliament (MP) Sakshi Maharaj has asked Hindu couples to have four children to boost the number of Hindus. Singh declared outrageously that Islam and Christianity in India will be finished by 2021. Such pronouncements are deeply disturbing and unacceptable to Indians in general, including Hindus. While the BJP has issued a show cause notice to Sakshi Maharaj, Modi has remained silent.
Hindu nationalist
Dileep Padgaonkar, Consulting Editor for The Times of India newspaper, and a veteran political commentator, explains, “Why do people expect him to condemn such practices or statements? They forget he is a self-proclaimed Hindu nationalist.” He adds, though, “If Modi wishes to govern the country for ten to 15 years and mark his place in Indian history — which is what he wants to do — he should speak out forcefully against the words and actions of his extended ideological family.”
Bharat Kumar Raut, another senior journalist and former MP, who has interacted often with Modi, offers a more personal insight. “In his heart Modi is a pukka RSS man, but he has realised its philosophy cannot work across diverse cultural segments,” Raut says.
“He’s caught between Hindutva and being Bharatiya,” he adds. Hindutva is the right-wing ideology that sees Indian culture as essentially Hindu. Raut defines Bharatiya as being rooted in multicultural, multi-religious and multilingual Indian values. The word comes from the Sanskrit Bharata; Bharat is the official Hindi name for India.
“We have had too many leaders who think in English,” he says. “I don’t refer to just the language, but to a particular mindset. These are English-speaking, English-thinking people who are Indian but not Bharatiya, whereas Modi has Bharat in his blood. So finally we have a man who is conducting India’s affairs in its own language.” Modi is fluent in Hindi, but not English.
Raut’s analysis is borne out by a statement Modi made last year, which reflects his ideological dilemma: “I am known to be a Hindutva leader. My image does not permit to say so, but I dare to say [it]… Pehle shauchalaya, phir devalaya [toilets first, temples later].”
Doing it his way
The RSS, which has mentored Modi, also holds the key to what Raut sees as one of his main shortcomings. “He has failed to create a second-rung leadership,” he says. “Modi works by the RSS philosophy of ek chalak anuvartita [devotion to the one supreme leader].”
Indeed, a long-standing complaint against Modi is that his leadership style resembles that of an autocratic lone wolf. His election campaign was equated with> with the BJP’s, and he is his own man in the corridors of power. His global initiatives have been all about him, leaving, for instance, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj sulking in the shadows.
Rajdeep Sardesai, Consulting Editor at the India Today Group, has met Modi many times. “He has always been a solo, individualistic leader and remains so even after becoming PM,” he says.
Padgaonkar, who met Modi as part of a team looking into the rehabilitation of the Gujarat riot victims, says, “My [initial] impression of him was that of a completely intransigent, inflexible man. He listened to us but made no observations. But later, when I had a private meeting with him, he responded very differently and with far greater nuance.
“His communication strategy as PM has been unidimensional and unidirectional. He’s never interacted as such with the media and uses social and government media to put forward his views.”
Despite his overpowering presence — or perhaps because of it — few can claim to know the man or his mind. Those who do prefer to keep their thoughts private.
The honeymoon’s over
What is obvious is that Modi, he of the self-proclaimed 56” chest, is a man of outsize ambitions, and one in a hurry. Raut says, “He has set himself too big an agenda to be fulfilled in too little time. In his campaign he asked for just 60 months or five years versus the Congress’ 60 years but he’s operating like a man with only one year in hand.”
Padgaonkar says the launch of smart cities, bullet trains and manufacturing campaigns keep the public upbeat and the corporate world excited. “But the hard questions are: Where is the money going to come from — public or private sector? What are the time frames for these projects? Scores of projects have been cleared by the environment ministry, but what about the rehabilitation of the people affected? These are questions nobody is asking,” he says.
But he admits that Modi “remains the most influential and important public figure in India today”.
Sardesai insists credit be given where it is due. “He has galvanised politics in the country and restored a certain energy and primacy to the post of the PM that was missing under Manmohan Singh.”
Now that the honeymoon period is over, as Sardesai points out, Modi must move from slogans to substance. Will he deliver? Baru is pragmatic: “It’s too early in the day not to be optimistic. We have no other option.” And so Indian waits.
— The writer is a senior journalist based in Mumbai
