Dubai: He is seen as a voice of sanity in the frenzied melee that is the Indian electronic news media. Rajdeep Sardesai, editor-in-chief of the IBN18 Network, which includes CNN-IBN, is one of the country’s most respected and recognised news anchors. In an in-depth interview with Gulf News, Sardesai shares his views on the hottest topic at the moment in India — the upcoming general elections. Excerpts:
In a recent blog post, you said that Narendra Modi’s real role model in the 2014 election is Indira Gandhi. Both the Congress and the BJP, for different reasons, may find that offensive.
Narendra Modi is running a presidential-style campaign, wherein the campaign is about Modi’s personality. It is not about any specific issue. It is largely about Modi claiming that he has the answers to all the crises and problems facing the country. In my view, the last time an individual positioned himself/herself in this manner in an election campaign was Indira Gandhi in 1971. In that sense, I see a similarity. I also see a similarity in force of personality — Mrs Gandhi was also in many ways seen as an authoritarian, very much as someone around whom power was concentrated. She was seen as building a personality cult. I see the same thing happening with Modi.
There are positives to that and negatives as well. On the positive side, it means that the voter has someone clear and identifiable; someone who can provide him leadership. Modi is making the 2014 election about ‘who do you think is best placed to lead India’. Which individual, not which party. Mrs Gandhi did the same in 1971. As a result, Modi has been successful in changing the terms of the election debate. So that is the strength.
The weakness obviously is that it means a number of people in the party itself feel a little miffed. There is also a risk factor. It means that you are putting all your eggs in the basket of this one individual. An entire generation, as a result, feels left out. We are already seeing signs of that in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). There are questions being raised about whether all decisions will be taken by one individual.
And also, there is excessive focus on Modi.
Yes; I don’t think in the BJP, even during the time of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was there such focus on one individual. It’s a conscious strategy. And I can see the merits in this strategy. The BJP is saying: “We have got Modi, who do you have?” The Congress has not announced a prime ministerial candidate. The ‘Third Front’ has no clear prime ministerial candidate. I think there are signs it [the strategy] is clearly working, to an extent. When we ask the question who do you want to lead India, Modi is ahead of the others 2:1. More importantly, the strategy is pulling the BJP up, particularly in North India, where there is a sense, even more than in South India, that the chief ministers have failed and the central government has failed. I think Modi’s focus on the leadership issue is certainly giving him an advantage. You have to look at it in that context. In my view, in the last five years, there has been a sense that the leadership has been weak, that [Prime Minister] Manmohan Singh has been a weak and indecisive leader. Modi is contrasting himself with a Manmohan Singh. Modi is contrasting himself with a Rahul Gandhi, who is unwilling to take up responsibility. So Rahul is positioned as dynast, a shehzada [prince], who has been made the head of his party not on merit, but because he is the son of Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi. Modi is contrasting himself with these people. And he is also contrasting himself with the ‘Third Front’, saying: These people cannot even decide who their prime ministerial candidate will be while my party has made me the prime ministerial candidate. So, to some extent, he has been successful in changing the terms of the debate in this election.
In the course of this campaign, he has kept the Mandir-Masjid (temple-mosque) issue on the backburner. But is this stance likely to change if and when he becomes Prime Minister? After all, he is seen as an ideologue.
My sense is that Modi is a very clever man. In 2002, after the riots, he raised the issue of “Gujarat Gaurav” [Gujarati pride]. Of how Gujarati pride had been hurt by the attacks on his handling of the riots. The entire discourse in 2002 was very different. It was about riots, it was about how he, in a sense, stood for the people of Gujarat who had been insulted by the rest of the country by charges of communalism. In 2014, he never really mentions the communal riots. Now he talks about governance. Then [in 2002] he spoke about “Gujarat First”. Now he talks about “India First”. He has transformed himself deliberately because he realises that he needs to change himself if he is to win India. He cannot win India by raising the issues of Mandir-Masjid. He cannot win India by raising the old issues of 2002 riots. He is clever enough to realise that he cannot win elections by playing old-style politics.
So I don’t think he will change [this stance] if and when he becomes prime minister, it will be in a coalition government. Therefore, he will have to work in a very different way than how he works in Gandhinagar [the capital of Gujarat]. In Gandhinagar, he runs a single-party government. In Delhi, he will have to run a coalition government, taking other parties along with him. So it will not be easy for him to have a Hindutva ideology and he knows that. He also knows that the reason why he is getting support today is not due to Hindutva politics, but because of a leadership and governance deficit in India. And he needs to overcome this deficit. His attraction today no longer lies in him being a Hindutva hardliner. That was his attraction in 2002. Today it is different. And he is conscious of that. I don’t think a Modi prime ministership will revive the issues of 2002.
So you don’t think minorities and secular Hindus have anything to worry about?
I think he will be put to the test; he will have to try and restore faith and credibility among minorities. I think he will have to go out of his way to ensure that the minorities feel secure. Only then can his premiership in a coalition government be really enduring. The likes of Mamata, Mayawati and Jayalalithaa will not support his premiership if he resorts to hardline Hindutva politics.
But his actions seem to suggest otherwise. He dons the headgear of every state he campaigns in, but when an imam who supports him, presented him with a skullcap at a rally, he pointedly refused to wear it.
Yes. He wants to redefine what he believes is secularism. He wants to say secularism is equality for all, not appeasement. I do not think he believes in symbolic gestures of secularism, like hosting an iftar or wearing a skullcap. His reach-out to Muslims will be: I will guarantee you security, I will give you high economic growth. If you expect Modi to go beyond that, and actually make a conscious effort to work towards minority rights and show a sense of empathy towards Muslims, I don’t think he will do that. In all these years in Gujarat, he hasn’t really made a conscious effort to reach out to the victims of the riots.
But, at the moment, Indian Muslims remain suspicious of Modi. If he becomes prime minister and is able to ensure that there is absolutely no violence against any community — and to be fair to him, in Gujarat, he has completely sidelined the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)— Indian Muslims may reduce their hostility towards him. Removing this will not happen overnight. But in a Modi premiership, if Muslims feel that they are not at least being actively discriminated against, the hostility may reduce.
Will the Congress be ruing the fact that Rahul Gandhi did not take up a ministerial post either in United Progressive Alliance (UPA) I or UPA II, especially considering that he would most likely be their future PM hopeful?
They should have made him the prime minister or a major minister more than two years ago. Then he could have had something to claim in terms of administrative experience. That was a big mistake. I think Manmohan Singh should have quit as PM sometime in 2011 or 2012. That could have given two years either to Rahul as PM or to someone else, with Rahul as a minister. By not taking up responsibility, Rahul made a big mistake. Congress is paying a big price for this. For the last two years, Singh has been a completely lame duck prime minister. It has been a government in ICU for two years, which is too wrong. Many of the decisions that the government has taken in the past three months could have been taken two years ago. P. Chidambaram as finance minister in the past six months has done what his predecessors failed to do in the past two years. Even on the anti-corruption legislation, the Congress has done much more in the past three months than in the past three years. I think 2011 and 2012, in particular, were wasted years for the Congress. They were burdened by all these scams and the Anna Hazare agitation. If Rahul had taken a leadership role during those two years, India would have been in a better position to judge him as prime minister. Today, we don’t know what Rahul stands for. In contrast to a Modi who has governed Gujarat for 12 years, Rahul seems like someone who has shirked responsibility.
So you rule out a Rahul Gandhi prime ministership?
In India, you never know what tomorrow will bring. I will not rule out anything. However, it is extremely difficult to envisage a UPA III government led by Rahul or any Congress leader.
Which brings us to the ‘Third Front’. Is there a serious possibility of a ‘Third Front’ government?
I don’t think so. The ‘Third Front’ is an idea whose time has come and gone. It was relevant in the years when there was some clear ideological opposition to the BJP. In the 1990s, the ‘Third Front’ came together largely either on an anti-Congress agenda or on an anti-BJP agenda. Today, the ‘Third Front’ is split on that issue. Their parties today are either sleeping with the BJP or with the Congress. The ‘Third Front’ can only work if both BJP and Congress are reduced to less than 150 seats. This time, the BJP will likely cross 200.
Arvind Kejriwal has claimed his Aam Aadmi Party will win 100 seats. Even if it manages 40, what impact will it have?
I think if he even gets more than 20 seats, it will have a huge impact. After BJP and Congress, Mamata and Jaya are likely to be next with about 30 seats each. So if Kejriwal can bag 20-30 seats, it will be a huge achievement for a first-time party. It will immediately make it difficult for the BJP to cross 200 and the Congress may go below 80. But can he do that? There is a huge question mark. For that, he needs stronger candidates than what he has at the moment. He is hoping that his performance in the Delhi polls will have some sort of a multiplier effect in the rest of India. That won’t be easy. In Delhi, he had built an organisation. In Delhi he had strong candidates.
A Lok Sabha [parliamentary] election is much more difficult than a Vidhan Sabha [state assembly] election. He has captured one issue — anti-corruption. He has captured the imagination of those who are sick and tired of Congress and BJP. The Arvind Kejriwal vote is the NOTA vote — None Of The Above. Those who would have pressed the NOTA button may vote for Kejriwal. But is that number large enough for him to win seats? I have my doubts.
Rajdeep Sardesai is an Indian journalist and news presenter. Sardesai is the editor-in-chief of IBN18 Network, which includes CNN-IBN.
