The Hindu : Making sense of the Modi phenomenon

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 16, 2002

National

National

Making sense of the Modi phenomenon

By Harish Khare

NEW DELHI DEC. 15. It was exactly a week ago. Last Sunday. The BJP had organised an election meeting in the Dariyapur-Kazipur Assembly constituency in Ahmedabad. The venue chosen was bordering the Muslim-dominated locality. A gathering of about 4,000, quite a sprinkling of them Muslims, had gathered. It had essentially come to listen to Narendra Modi.

It was way past the announced time. The sitting MLA, Bharat Barot, was holding forth. Taxing the audience's patience. Just then the piercing roar of a siren was heard and half the audience rose in anticipation of the arrival of their hero. Disappointment. It was just another VVIP, shuffling from one election meeting to another.

The venue, of course, was ringed by a heavy police presence. Near the dais could be spotted some plainclothesmen. Sturdy and menacingly armed with lathis. Some had hockey sticks. The macho ambience was part of the "atmosphere".

Came Mr. Modi. And L.K. Advani. The crowd politely heard out Mr. Advani as he reiterated, for the umpteenth time, his resolve to stamp out terrorism. Gentle applause.

It was Mr. Modi's turn now at the pulpit. From the very start, the caretaker Chief Minister — the "Hindu hridaya samarat'' — had connected with the audience. It was entertainment, laced with loaded grammar of hate and exclusion. Mr. Advani's presence did not deter him. Neither did it slow him down. He poured venom against "Mian Musharraf" and more or less told his mesmerised listeners that almost all Muslims were in "Mian" Musharraf's corner.

The energy of venom and retribution that Mr. Modi generated was impressive. And chilling. His message was loud and clear: "Godhra" would be avenged only in one way: vote him and his party back to power. It was a consummate performance. The actor was dishing it out to packed audiences in town after town. The exaggerated focus, much of it deliberately invited, diluted and eventually distracted from the anti-incumbency anger.

A day later at the Kankaria Football Ground, Mr. Modi found himself sufficiently subdued by the presence of the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee. He refrained from mentioning Godhra, Musharraf, Sonia Gandhi. But he did something else. Very clever and astute. He did not mention about the other "fatwa"; instead, he talked about the highest "fatwa", the Constitution. Repeatedly, he exhorted his audience to follow the highest ''fatwa'' and to go for "100 per cent" voting. The hidden communal appeal was so obvious and, yet, so "correct''. Even the Prime Minister cannot protest the invocation of the Constitution.

But Mr. Modi was not yet finished. When Mr. Vajpayee began his speech, a sizable chunk of the "Modi-fied" audience started leaving. This was perhaps the first experience for Mr. Vajpayee to have the crowds walk out on him in a BJP rally.

The point was made. Mr. Modi's open but subtle challenge to Mr. Vajpayee only added to the Modi aura. At least in Gujarat, he has become larger than the BJP. And the likes of Mr. Advani are reduced to rationalising this profile.

The BJP will have to find a way of tackling the Modi phenomenon, just as the rest of the polity would have to find a way of answering the Modi appeal.

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