WHEN MODI NEARLY QUIT AS CM
Trapped in the chief minister’s office by a party that refused to let him step down after the February 2002 riots, Narendra Modi opted for fresh polls. Gujarat kept its faith in him.
In April 2002 Narendra Modi stood to address his BJP colleagues at the convocation of its National Executive in Panaji, Goa, two months after the riots in which over 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, had been killed. None of his colleagues had any idea that he was about to offer his resignation as chief minister of Gujarat, where he had been in post for just six months. Plenty of them wanted Modi gone, seeing him as a catastrophe for the party, but the knowledge that new elections would be required, and that the BJP would be a national laughing stock, gave them pause.
Modi’s resignation, against all apparent odds, was refused and he remained in office to win three successive victories in Gujarat and eventually in 2014 to challenge for the prime ministership itself. Modi’s career is surely one of the most extraordinary, roller-coaster rides in Indian politics. Last summer I spent many hours interviewing Modi, not knowing where to begin, what to expect and fearing his reputation as being unfriendly to journalists and biographers. What happened was that the interviews turned into lengthy and extended conversations in which, to my surprise, almost no subject was off the agenda. Modi was pleased to talk—he seemed really to want to open up after he realised that my intent was not a hostile one but rather the genuine interest of a foreign observer interested in India. In fact, Modi was great company and our sessions went on long after I offered to stop for the day. “If you enjoy doing what you do, then your work gives you more energy,” he told me. We all feel like that occasionally, but Modi seems to feel like that all the time.
In October 2001, nursing no political ambitions at all, Modi had been working as BJP national general secretary (organisation) across Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir. The BJP’s fortunes in the states under Modi’s care had begun to improve dramatically. Back in Gujarat, Keshubhai Patel’s BJP administration was falling to pieces. During one of Modi’s brief visits to Delhi A.B. Vajpayee had called and said he wanted him back in Gujarat, from where he had been exiled since falling out with Patel a few years earlier. Believing the Prime Minister meant party work, Modi replied that he could manage to devote a few days a month to the task. But that was not what Vajpayee had in mind: Modi was to replace Patel as chief minister. Modi declined despite Vajpayee’s repeated pleas, but later that night a phone call from Advani made it clear this was an offer he could not refuse: “Look, everybody has decided about you!”
So it was that Modi, an expert administrator and organiser but without any experience of command, was parachuted into Gandhinagar to steer the ship of a state still reeling from the Kutch earthquake, and to rally the BJP troops after municipal elections in which they had experienced a near wipe-out. Four months later, Gujarat was in flames and dead bodies littered the streets of Ahmedabad. In the media Modi was being denounced as the Hindu Hitler for instigating a bloody pogrom against Muslims—a charge he has been living with for over a decade now.
After the Goa convocation, Modi was still shocked and shaken by his experience of the riots. Now he was trapped in the CM’s office by a party that refused to let him step down. He began to consider his options. Modi was being cast as a villain despite being sabotaged and betrayed in his efforts to end the riots—on the one hand by the virulently communal structure he had inherited, itself the result of decades of violence and prejudice in Gujarat; and on the other by circumstances. The troops he had begged for were tied up in a border confrontation with Pakistan, and the help he had requested from neigh-
bouring Congress-ruled states had been refused to him.
Even so, Modi had organised the forces of law and order in record time and the state was already nearly back to normal, though one would never guess it from media reports. Modi’s new security adviser, the legendary KPS Gill, saw immediately the handiwork of Pakistani intelligence behind the instigating act of terror at Godhra. But all this didn’t matter. The question was what should he do now.
Modi was certain he had done everything he could to safeguard life and property and that his efforts would stand comparison with any Indian leader who had been in a similar position. Professionally, the fact remained that he had been in charge and he was responsible, even if he had barely got his feet under the CM’s desk at the time. When Modi said “I feel sad about what happened but no guilt. And no court has come even close to establishing it,” this is what he meant: That he had done his utmost to halt the riots and return Gujarat to normality, but that he felt awful about what had happened on his watch. Modi decided he would dissolve the Assembly and call fresh elections.
That Gujarat elected Modi as its leader in December 2002 and ever since has been proven a wise choice. He
MODI WAS CERTAIN HE HAD DONE EVERYTHING TO SAFEGUARD LIFE AND PROPERTY EVEN IF HE HAD BARELY GOT HIS FEET UNDER THE CM’S DESK AT THE TIME.
dedicated himself to the development of the state, believing that the solution to the carnage he had witnessed was not what Advani memorably called the “pseudo-secularism” of the Left but rather the radical idea of treating all Indians the same regardless of their background.
As a result of Modi’s policies, and according to official Indian government statistics, Gujarat has been transformed—first of all by the withdrawal of free agricultural electricity in the cause of lighting up every single village in Gujarat; then the development of a wide manufacturing base and the attraction of investment; then a revolution of man-management in administration; then the relentless building of infrastructure to give all citizens a chance in life; and finally freeing people from the stranglehold of government to pursue their own ambitions.
Modi is usually represented as a strong man but the remarkable fact is that his entire programme has been based on utilising the untapped resources of what he calls the neglected 50 per cent of India’s population—its women. His focus has been on hygiene, health, the education of girls and the emancipation of women in business life.
Is he trying to make amends for the riots? Partly, because he remains haunted by the memory of the terrible suffering, and in a sense will always be on a penitential journey to make sure nothing like it ever happens again if he can help it: Gujarat has now had 12 curfew-and-riot-free years. In fact Muslims in Gujarat now have the lowest rate of poverty in India, and supply 50 per cent of the zakat nationally to their less fortunate brethren elsewhere.
Will Modi be able to effect across India what he has achieved in Gujarat? No problem, he says: India is vast and varied and you must remember to adjust policies to local conditions and free people to make their own decisions— get government off their back. Then the enormous potential latent in the country will be released and India will become what it should be—a world-beater.
There is an anecdote about a journalist confronting Modi and asking him what he had done for Muslims: “Nothing,” Modi answered. The journalist was scandalised: “So you admit it?” Modi said, “Ask me what I have done for Hindus.” “What have you done for Hindus?” “Nothing. Everything I’ve done has been for Gujaratis.” The forthcoming election will see the rest of India decide whether they want what the Gujaratis already have.