He is not a newsmaker. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi is high voltage news himself. When the 62-year-old, third-time Chief Minister of prosperous Gujarat opens his mouth he delivers breaking news to TRP-hungry television channels. When he raises his finger, the temperature of his secular adversaries soars. When Modi begins talking, his friends and foes stop walking lest they miss out on any chance to either admire him or open fire at him. Modi is not a man with a mantra or model. He is a man with a singular mission. During all of 2012, he is the only leader who grabbed prime-time space and media headlines for over 200 days for one reason or the other. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Modi was the topic of discussion. In corporate boardrooms from New Delhi to New York, the group-think was only on the impact of Modi-ism on Indian politics and economics. Modi may be banned from visiting a few Western nations, but he was the most popular item on sale for a large number of equity research organisations, multinational giants and pressure groups. Since he wasn’t accessible, most of the international think tanks hired self-proclaimed Modi experts to gather information on his politics, life and attitudes. In 2002, Modi was seen as a monster. In 2012, he is perceived as the ultimate mantra for performance and prosperity.
Last week, he became the first BJP chief minister to win an election for the third consecutive term. Though it was the saffron party’s fifth victory in a row in Gujarat, it was Moditva and not Hindutva that was the subject of fierce debate from Gandhinagar to Washington. Modi has undoubtedly become an institution. The BJP, his political mother, has been reduced to being a mere nurse. Modi’s political travelogue began during his formative years, when the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh injected a powerful dose of right wing nationalism that was to define his dogma decades later. Modi, a postgraduate in political science, went on to become the new Sun Tzu of the Indian political battlefield. His slogan during the 2012 Assembly elections defines the ideology and ingenuity of his narrative—Gujarat Shining is essentially Modi Shining. On his behalf, the BJP defined Modi as the “only leader with a clear economic vision that glorifies prosperity and not poverty”. In other words, it was his powerful backhand against the Congress’s inclusive agenda of reforms for the rich and cash-transfer to the poor and the underprivileged. Modi has now established himself as the only successful right wing nationalist leader in the country. While his party has been ambivalent in its economic philosophy, Modi has been conspicuously assertive. He told a foreign economic newspaper recently, “ The government has no business to be in business.”
A former ABVP activist and a full-time RSS worker, Modi joined the Bharatiya Janata Party only in 1987. A year later, he was made the general secretary of the Gujarat BJP. Modi was one of the key functionaries behind the success of L K Advani’s first Rath Yatra from Somnath Temple to Ayodhya in September 1990. After building up the party organisation in the state brick by ideological brick, which eventually led to the installation of Gujarat’s first saffron government in 1995 led by Keshubhai Patel, Modi came to be known as the BJP’s genuine and only master strategist. If Patel was the face of the party, Modi considered himself the architect of the victory. What followed was the political chronology of a fledgling saffron satrap creating a national myth on his own. Perhaps, learning from Intel founder Andrew Grove’s bestseller Only The Paranoid Survive, Modi doesn’t trust even his own shadow. But he always had complete confidence in his own wisdom and words. As Keshubhai settled down in office, Modi decided to move out of Gujarat to carve out a bigger role for himself in the national landscape. Hardly did anyone anticipate or even dream that within six years, Modi would replace Keshubhai, and would go on to not only change the character of Gujarat’s Sangh Parivar but also influence the contours of national discourse.
Modi acquired his manipulative skills during his six-year stint in Delhi as one of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s national secretaries. He was given charge of the crucial states of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and the North-east. It was thanks to his strategy that the BJP could form a coalition government in Haryana in 1998. He became the darling of both Atal Behari Vajpayee and Advani. He was the most trusted Swayamsewak of the RSS. When the BJP decided to project young leaders as its chief ministers in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, Modi was the only surprise choice along with the other two—Vasundhara Raje and Uma Bharati. But Modi faced unexpected opposition from the state unit. When Madan Lal Khurana, former chief minister of Delhi, was sent as observer for the election of Keshubhai’s replacement, he found Modi the least acceptable candidate, not having ever contested an election in the state. It took the combined persuasive, dominating powers of Vajpayee, Advani and the RSS to get Modi elected as the leader of the BJP legislature party. Once he became chief minister, his eyes were set on the mission of becoming the party’s most powerful and credible leader, not only in the state but also at the Centre. However, his mission suffered a setback post the Godhra riots, which not only shamed India, but also dented Modi’s image.
But the Modi Media Machine never stopped working. He chose every move in such a way that it became big news. Whether it be a fluent social media presence, launching blistering attacks on rivals, organising yatra, wooing corporate leaders and anointing Bollywood royalty Amitabh Bachchan as Gujarat’s brand ambassador, Modi’s objective has always been to grab the headlines in order to burnish his image. For example, during his fourth swearing-in ceremony in Ahmedabad last Wednesday, he ensured that TV channels debated the rainbow presence of various political leaders, rather than focusing on the new and old faces in his government. He ensured that leaders from all shades of politics were invited and seated in the first row. He is a better choreographer of events than the tinsel town Khans and a better scriptwriter than even Javed Akhtar. From 2002 to 2012, the metamorphous journey of the General of Gujarat has been powerfully innovative and effective. Modi’s magical achievement has been becoming a messiah of development from being the demon of the 2002 riots. Every Modi statement and each event invariably makes it to the front pages of newspapers and the top of all news rundowns.
It has been precisely because of his style of governance and politics that Modi brooks no dissidence, allows no debate, discourages sycophancy, and believes in only one centre of power—himself. He has made sure that all those who could challenge his authority in the government or the organisation were either marginalised or exiled from the state. He has chosen faceless civil servants who were given the mandate to deliver and refrain from any discussion. In Gujarat, Modi is all rolled into one—he is both Numero Uno and Number 182. There is nothing or no one in between. Gujarat’s saffron commander derives his arrogance from his clean image and zero tolerance for political patronage. Gujarat is perhaps the only state in which MLAs are denied chairmanships of state public sector undertakings. Only state ministers are allowed to have cars with flags and red beacon lights.
Modi’s success lies in successfully exploiting new avenues of communication with the rising middle class and youth, which no other politician in the country has been able to do effectively so far. Google hosts over three crore Modi-related pages. When blogging became the most effective and glamorous means of communication, Modi started his own blog. Over 1.2 million people like his Facebook page and he has over a million followers on Twitter. He became the first Asian politician to interact on Google+ hangout which became a rage on the Internet. Despite powerful opposition from prosperous and well-connected NGOs and social activists in various parts of the country, Modi could create news which kept the lights shining on him. He could always turn the tables on his critics, projecting himself as a victim of calumny aimed at maiming him as a powerful administrator. By the end of 2012, the number of influential corporate honchos, filmstars and chatterati class eating out of his hands multiplied exponentially. Gujarat is the new destination for a new middle class and young entrepreneurs. Even foreign diplomats who had written off the Gujarat chief minister are now making regular pilgrimages to the political and economic shrine presided over by its only deity Narendrabhai Damodardas Modi.
However, the jury is still out on his future. It is Modi and not Rahul Gandhi who continues to occupy the mind space of middle India. However, Gujarat’s saffron czar is both his own liability and an asset. While his invincibility in the state has been established beyond doubt, his ability to wrest Parliament in favour of his own party is yet to be established. The BJP under his leadership is yet to break its own record of winning the maximum number of Lok Sabha seats from Gujarat. The party won 20 out of 26 seats in 1999. Modi delivered 14 seats in 2004 and 15 in 2009. In addition to proving his acumen in the 2014 general elections as a vote-spinner, he has to neutralise opponents within his own party. Barring Arun Jaitley who got his Rajya Sabha nomination twice under Modi’s patronage, no other central leader has been in touch with him on a regular basis. Modi only has either enemies or admirers. Even his own party leaders like Sushil Kumar Modi, Bihar’s deputy Chief Minister, prefer to project Nitish Kumar and not Narendra Modi as India’s future leader. Undoubtedly, a large number of middle and lower level cadres consider Modi as an idea whose time has come. Modi can succeed in 2014 only if he is able to shed his image of a banyan tree under which nothing else grows. He can and will remain in the news because of his brilliant mind and deft moves. He has won many a battle but winning a war is different. A general needs dedicated commanders and footsoldiers alike. Modi is yet to acquire any.