Analysis: Gujarat polls throw light on 'secular' credentials

It has been pitched as the mother of all election battles: an election which will redefine Indian politics and society.

Gujarat, we are constantly reminded, is an election like no other in recent times. It's a battle for the secular soul of India, an ideological war between the practitioners of hate politics and those who would like to see a plural, socially diverse country. Simple enough? Well, not quite. The "secular" intelligentsia can see Gujarat in black and white terms, the truth is sometimes far more grey.

Let us take a battle within a battle that has been hyped up within the media. Narendra Modi versus his predecessor as Gujarat chief minister, Keshubhai Patel. The constant refrain within the media is that Patel will prove the Achilles heel, that he will be the leader who will save Gujarat from Modi Raj.

What we forget is that it is the failures of the Patel government on several fronts that actually catapulted Modi into power in the first place. Till a year ago, Patel was a 76-year-old tired leader who could barely walk or talk. Now, by virtue of the fact that he is leading the dissidence against Modi, he is being projected as a charismatic politician.

Is Patel, the secular ideal that Gujarat is so desperately seeking? Don't forget that it was under Patel's chief ministership that churches in Gujarat's Dangs district were burnt down, that history text books were revised and a circular was introduced which allowed government employees to join the RSS.

Move on now to another battle in Gujarat: Narendra Modi versus Haren Pandya. In the last few months, the moustachioed Pandya has found space on every television channel and newspaper front pages. From being just another BJP MLA in Gujarat, he is now being projected as a BJP politician with a conscience, someone who is battling Modi's brand of politics from within.

Lost in the process is the fact that it is Pandya who is widely believed to have been among those who was leading the post-Godhra mobs on Ahmedabad's streets. Or the fact that when he was home minister, there were persistent reports of minorities being attacked in different parts of the state.

If Pandya is today questioning Modi's leadership, it is not because he has discovered the evils of communal politics, but simply because the Gujarat chief minister marginalised him within the government. This is vendetta politics, not an ideological battle.

Take now the ultimate Mahabharat in Gujarat: the "personality clash" between Narendra Modi and Congress party president Shankarsinh Vaghela. In the propaganda war, Modi has been projected as the Hindutva hero, Vaghela the secular icon. In the process, the hard realities are being missed out.

The fact is that Vaghela was till just a few years ago at the helm of the saffron army in Gujarat. When Advani's rathyatra criss-crossed the state 12 years ago, it was Vaghela, as a hardcore RSS man, who was one of the main organisers of the political roadshow.

Even further back in time, during the 1969 and 1985 riots in Ahmedabad, Vaghela was among those who was allegedly involved in the rioting. Now, by virtue of the fact that he has switched over to the Congress, Vaghela's past is being erased and he is suddenly a symbol of secularism.

Nor was Vaghela's defection from the BJP based on an ideological shift. The man left the BJP because he lost out in an internal power struggle. To therefore suggest, as has been the case so far, that a victory for Vaghela over Modi would be a triumph of secularism is to miss the wood for the trees.

What it would be - if it happened - is simply a case of one RSS-trained political manager proving more astute than his contemporary. Nor is Vaghela the only Congressman with a tinge of saffron. There are a number of Congressmen who have been given tickets who at some stage or the other in their political career had flirted with the BJP.

To that extent, this election is not some clear-cut battle between secular and communal forces as one would like to believe. Instead, both the parties are competing for the same Hindu constituency in Gujarat, each leader seeking to be crowned the 'Hindu Hriday Samrat' (king of the Hindu hearts).

Both parties are convinced that post-Godhra and Akshardham, Gujarat is too deeply polarised to allow for a middle path in which political appeals to notions of sarva dharma samabhava can actually translate into votes.

Muslims are barely 10 per cent of Gujarat's population and much too scattered to make a difference. So, the focus is almost entirely on how to secure the Hindu vote, the difference lying primarily in the approaches towards the common goal.

If Vaghela has any limitations, they are driven by the fact that he is, after all, the leader of the Congress party today, a party which largely because of its historical legacy still pays lip-service to the concept of a pluralistic Indian society.

But such has been the "Gujarat effect" on Congress politics that this year the party has even abandoned its traditional ritual of Iftar parties during Ramadan for fear that this will be seen in Gujarat as yet another example of "minority appeasement".

There is a more unfortunate dimension to the kind of competitive Hindu politics that is now being played out.

Quite simply, it is the abandonment of the real grievances of the minorities: poor education, job discrimination and social alienation. It is a process that may eventually lead to the complete ghettoisation of the Indian Muslim, with disastrous consequences for Gujarat and the rest of the country.

The writer is Political Editor, New Delhi Television.