Inside the Mind of Modi
INDIA TODAY Senior Editor Uday Mahurkar has been following BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s career since 1986. In a new book, he chronicles his distinct administrative style and his unique governance model.
MODI SET A GREAT EXAMPLE OF RECOVERING LOST PRIDE WHEN HE BROUGHT BACK ASHES OF SHYAMJI KRISHNA VARMA IN 2003. VARMA’S MEMORIAL IS NOW A TOURIST ATTRACTION.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s strongest facet as a ruler which plays a key role in his success is his ability to generate pride among the people on the basis of past achievements of the society and of the great men of the region. He then links this to a sense of national pride. He is able to achieve this through various ways like speeches and well-organised exhibitions backed by documentaries on occasions like Republic Day and Independence Day. Exhibitions and short films narrating the history of a particular region is a common thread in Modi’s programmes. For instance, during his district level Sadbhavna mission in 2011, which he undertook to spread his message of communal harmony, each of his visits was marked by an exhibition demonstrating the geographical strengths and history of that district. The district exhibitions focused on its achievers, natural resources, and struggle against the British rule, saints and other important figures. For example one of the focuses in the Junagadh exhibition was on Apa Giga, the Saint Christopher of Junagadh district whose spirituality and social service to the poor had cast a spell over the locals 200 years ago and in whose ashram a free langar is being run even today. In Anand, the focus was on Tribhuvandas Patel, a cooperative leader who identified Verghese Kurien, thus making way for India’s milk revolution. At a function of the Parsi community two years ago in Navsari, he called upon the Parsis to investigate, document, and produce a drama on what transpired between Swami Vivekananda and Jamshedji Tata when the two met in the 1890s.
The most significant innovation however from Modi when it comes to generating pride is his historic and unprecedented decision to celebrate Independence and Republic Days not in the State capital, Gandhinagar, but in a new district every year. He took this decision as soon as he took over in 2001 and by now he has covered almost all the 26 districts. In 2003, Modi set another great example of recovering lost pride when he brought back the ashes of the great revolutionary, freedom fighter, and social reformer Pandit Shyamji Krishna Varma in response to Varma’s will which he left in Geneva when he died in 1930. It said that the urn containing his ashes should be kept in Switzerland and sent to India only when India attained independence from British rule. Modi not only brought back his ashes but built a beautiful monument in Varma’s memory at his birth place in Mandvi in Kutch. Varma had waged a relentless struggle for India’s freedom in England and Europe from 1900 to 1930. The galaxy of leaders and freedom fighters who stayed at his India House building in London included Mahatma Gandhi, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Veer Savarkar, Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, Lala Hardayal, as well as Vladimir Lenin. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru visited Varma when he was ailing in Geneva in the late 1920s. When Varma died in Geneva in 1930, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru (who were undergoing trial in the Assembly Bomb Case at the time) paid tributes to him in the Lahore jail. In 2003 when the ashes were brought back, India had been independent for 55 years but no government during these five decades showed the sensitivity to honour the last wishes of the great revolutionary. The splendid memorial that Modi has built to this son of India who could never set foot on the soil of Independent India despite making a great contribution to the Indian freedom struggle is today a tourist attraction.
Modi has undertaken a unique project to generate pride based on spiritual foundation. He is making a Sant Nagari (City of Saints) on a 1,000 acre plot in north Gujarat on the suggestion of Bhaiyyu Maharaj, an Indore-based spiritual figure who believes in spirituality with meaningful social service. The land will be divided into as many parts as the
number of Indian states and in each portion replica hermitages of the major saints of that particular state will be created and their story told. The saints will include Sufis.
***** Modi isn’t without his share of complexities. For example, his intransigence, which is often seen as arrogance by many, has at times raised doubts about his attitude. In 2008 when a BJP MLA, Dr Kanu Kalsaria, undoubtedly the most dedicated legislator in the Gujarat State Assembly with a proven record of public service, questioned his Government’s decision to allow a cement plant in the coastal area of Mahuva near Bhavnagar on environment and economic grounds, Modi refused to have a dialogue with him and went ahead with the environmentally questionable project. In the end, Modi lost both Kalsaria and the plant. Kalsaria left the BJP in a huff and the plant was shelved because of a Supreme Court ruling which upheld Kalsarias's plea. In 2014, Kalsaria joined the Aam Aadmi Party.
A charge that Modi has often faced is that he is publicity crazy and tries to derive mileage out of the smallest of things. Big and small hoardings spread across Gujarat with Modi’s photo popping out of them as part of one Government scheme or the other are cited as evidence of his hunger for publicity. But Modi is unapologetic about it. Once when I confronted him with this question in 2007, he hit back and quite convincingly: ‘Why should I not if I am doing good work? It is my right. Not many put in the kind of long and hard hours I do. Plus, as people love and listen to me, it is also part of my strategy to popularise my schemes using my name as a brand.’ Facts support his contention to a large extent. Not many chief ministers across India are known to put in the kind of hard work that Modi does as he goes into the smallest details of governance.
On the personal front too, Modi faces an old allegation that he has long denied in personal conversations, which is that he has a very cold use-and-throw attitude towards his colleagues in politics, a reason he has few permanent friends. When confronted with this charge, Modi denies it giving umpteenth examples of his magnanimity towards colleagues. There is an interesting episode involving Modi on this. The other day when Modi didn’t go to see an ailing old colleague, the latter called him and complained. Modi’s response to him on phone was typical: ‘My composition has a manufacturing defect. Even when I feel for someone, I am unable to express it in an appropriate manner. You are free to bring to my notice such minuses whenever you find them in me. If convinced, I shall correct myself.’ Next day Modi went to the colleague’s house to look him up.
That reaction of Modi shows rare candour and willingness to accept faults and learn. Even I had the same experience with Modi when in 2006 he called me one day and said: ‘There are differences now between me and a section of the Sangh Parivar. Some who are opposed to me might spread negative stories about me. You know both of us well and are free to draw your own conclusions as a journalist. But please check with me before jumping to any negative conclusion based on their feedback.’
His tall claims too have hit him and his image hard at times. In 2007, he claimed the state government subsidiary Gujarat State Petroleum Company had found 20 TCF of gas in its Krishna-Godavari basin block. The directorate of hydrocarbons on scrutiny certified it to be 2 TCF. But the Modi Government has its side of the story. His officials claim that only 17 of the 500 square km of the area under GSPC in the KG basin has been explored so far. So there is hope of finding more gas in the future.
Along with the power of detached observation, Modi also possesses another trait equally necessary for a good ruler— the power of instilling fear mixed with awe in the minds of his followers as well as his rivals by his actions and behaviour. In the case of his followers, it elicits their unwavering adherence to his policies and decisions while with his rivals it often unnerves them with the prospect of how to take on an unpredictable enemy. He has been able to create this mix of fear and awe by not allowing anyone, even the closest of his aides, to read till the last moment as to what decision he is going to take in all important matters. This element of surprise that he holds out has also played a big role in his administrative and political success as the awe it inspires among the people makes them adhere to his decisions. For example, after the 2007 State Assembly Polls when every-
MODI HAS CREATED A MIX OF FEAR AND AWE BY NOT ALLOWING EVEN THE CLOSEST OF AIDES TO PREDICT HIS DECISIONS, ESPECIALLY ON IMPORTANT MATTERS.
one was expecting an elderly person to be made the Speaker of the House, Modi selected 42-year-old tribal MLA, Ganpat Vasava. Vasava was the youngest Speaker ever in Gujarat’s legislative history and also the first ever tribal.
In discussions with his juniors he is measured, not allowing them to read his mind when he has the slightest doubt and expressing his full and wholehearted support when he is convinced of a decision or a policy. Perhaps he follows Chanakya to the core who in his Arthashastra said, ‘Even the King’s family shouldn’t know what decision he is going to take tomorrow.’
Modi’s ingenuity when it comes to management skills has been respected for long even by his RSS mentors. One example is worth mentioning. In 1969 when Modi was managing an RSS training camp in Sidhpur in north Gujarat, Modi’s mentor in RSS, late Laxmanrao Inamdar, gave him a bag containing Rs 50,000 to keep and told him to give it back on the last and final day. When asked how he would preserve it Modi said, ‘Leave it to me. It will be secure with me.’ Late in the night Modi dug a pit under a tree near the tented camp and dropped the bag into it before filling it up with earth. For the next two days Modi and
A MUSLIM MAN CAME WITH HIS WIFE AND DAUGHTERS AND INTRODUCED HIMSELF AS A LOCAL BJP WORKER. MODI SAID, ‘DO
SEND THEM TO SCHOOL AT ANY COST.’
others sat on that spot discussing training strategies every morning and evening. On the last day when Modi took Inamdar to the spot and dug out the bag, the latter was dumbstruck by his ingenuity. Says Parendu Bhagat aka Kakuji, a BJP leader and son of an eminent RSS leader who knows Modi’s inner core: ‘His innovative ideas and way of functioning have touched one and all from day one.’
Last, there is one episode about Modi that is embedded in my mind. In October 2002 when Modi embarked on the Gujarat Gaurav Yatra in a rath at the height of what was seen as an unprecedented Hindutva wave, I had the occasion to accompany him on one of his trips that covered the central Gujarat tribal belt. As we were passing by Chhota Udepur town, Modi asked the driver to stop in response to a Muslim couple waving to him, the man having a BJP scarf wrapped around his neck. The couple had two small daughters with them, both less than seven.
As we stopped, the man came to Modi with his family and introduced himself as a local BJP worker. Modi put his fingers on the cheek of one of the daughters and said, ‘Do send them to school at any cost. I want at least one of them to be a doctor or an engineer. Come to me if you need help.’ As the rath marched further, an emotional Modi said with a flick of his hand: ‘The love I am getting from the people of the state has overwhelmed me. Today I have made a resolve. I will never let the people of Gujarat down for the faith they have reposed in me.’ If you look at his chief ministerial journey marked by both controversy as well as achievements, Modi seems to have lived up to his promise, perhaps more than he thought.