Modi must respond to VP Ansari’s concerns

He said it was imperative that all corrective strategies available under the Constitution, with “category-differentiation” admissible in India and “hitherto denied to Muslims (scheduled caste status) or inadequately admitted (segments of OBC status) must be put to use. Ansari did not stop at that: he asked Muslims to candidly introspect why ‘modernity’ was given a bad name and how it was bad that the “instrumentality’’ of adaptation to change – Ijtihad – is “frowned upon or glossed over.”

In prose and in verse, the vice president made an eloquent case hard to argue with, where social and economic backwardness were discussed in one breath. He called for a nuanced but less emotional response to dealing with both issues and addressed the lack of representation and economic backwardness at the same time.

The government despite getting a pat on its back for articulating `Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas’ is still to come up with a cogent response or a reaction of any sort.

Earlier in August, there was a very different kind of articulation but one challenging the Centre and state government when the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) under the stewardship of 22-year old Hardik Patel spoke of how conditions in Gujarat for even those considered socially, politically and economically the most powerful, were perceived as deserving of ‘quotas’.

Propaganda of the ‘Gujarat model’ served as a big prop in the BJP’s campaign to power in 2014, and it was not contested effectively enough with no one was able to explain or even express ideas about its shortcomings.

In October 2012, economists like Prof Atul Sood conducted a study for the Institute of Development and Communication of Gujarat between 2005-10. He concluded that “employment is the biggest casualty” of the manufacturing growth in the state and that growing investment and profitability in capital intensive sectors of the economy came with worsening conditions for workers. However, such analyses did not get much attention then.

The Centre has reacted to economic discontent like the one expressed in the Patel agitation by speaking of it as a ‘law and order’ problem.

The Patidars and the Vice President have raised concerns – although very different in nature – that clearly demand redressal but before that, an acknowledgement. The BJP finds dealing with the ‘Muslim’ issue difficult and questions over the Gujarat model are perhaps equally thorny for the PM who held his 14 years record there as his passport to Delhi.

The trouble is, he must respond. So far he has displayed a ‘style’ that pooh-poohed the previous regime’s “communication style” and has been loud and constant in communicating, often over-communicating. Now it will be difficult and perhaps politically counter-productive to switch off the megaphone.