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Journalism of Courage
Gujarat goes to polls yet again with divisions, but of different kinds. In the 2002 assembly polls, the division was simpler. It was merely Hindus vs Muslims translated as BJP vs Congress. In 2007 polls, the nature of divisiveness has become complex. Now with the communal divide pushed into the subaltern from the overt, it is self-devouring division at play. In 2007, it is party workers and parivar against Modi, the sadhu brigade against Modi and even the disenchanted riot accused against Modi. But, there is still a but. In spite of creating these new divisions, Modi and his supporters stand smug. Because bets are not yet forthcoming on whether the Gujarati voter (read: the Hindu voter) is divided yet.
In the interim period between two assembly polls, after the communal divide, a divide of a different kind was ushered in, somewhat organically but nonetheless unanticipated. The BJP, backed by veteran Keshubhai Patel in Saurashtra, is anti-Modi. Splintering from the parent BJP party, a group of rebels under the label of Sardar Patel Utkarsh Samiti are teaming up with the Congress to fight Modi rather than BJP in Saurashtra and south Gujarat. To be fair, it is just not enough to blame and judge Modi alone for the 2002 riots, and the justice that has eluded the victims, for he has since thrived on the assumed support of the Gujarat electorate and complicit administration and state systems, rather than the BJP cadre. Funnily, this unshared credit and these spoils of victory triggered the first split.
The very brigade of saints who canvassed openly for the BJP in 2002 have a faction campaigning predominantly in central Gujarat headed by Avichaldas Maharaj with a simple slogan: it is time for parivartan, change. The split is embodied in Shanta Parmar, whose husband and son have been awarded life sentences in the Eral rape and murder case during the 2002 riots, standing from Kalol constituency. And each has a different reason to be anti-Modi, even at the risk of being anti-BJP. In 2007, there are press advertisements by VHP chief Ashok Singhal to clarify that they stand united in the Hindu cause, while a section of the sadhu brigade canvasses with the Congress.
The 2007 polls are just not a referendum on Narendra Modi’s rule and his brand of politics, but also on the predominant urban middle class which aspires to acceptability for its development claims, but Hindutva style. Yet something seems to have changed.
Regional parochialism, be it of the Bal Thackeray or Karunanidhi brand, began to take on a different hue as Modi heaved Gujarat above the rest of the country. In the process, the chief minister, his electorate and even his party started believing that they needed no one else in Gujarat and also in some measure that Gujarat could do without the rest of India.
Modi in 2007 might have moved away from the ‘Mian Musharaf’ and ‘Hum Paanch, Humare Pachees’ rhetoric of 2002. But then his constant focus is Sonia Gandhi — if in 2002 she was ‘Italy ki beti’, in 2007 she becomes Soniaben, but one who is a liar, whose government at the Centre is colluding. And when the going began to get tough, he enmeshed his efforts of being Gujarat’s development messiah, taking credit for the killing of Sohrabuddin in the controversial encounter case as well as the Ram Setu controversy. But the national BJP leaders are not found defending Modi-speak this time with the Election Commission having issued a notice — instead they are resorting to development claims, sometimes seeking a vote for the BJP, sometimes for Modi.
Ironically, as much as Modi tries to don the development mantle, his final resort remains Brand Hindutva only. It has only led to Modi working too hard, trying to be every where all the time — but alone in 2007, for more than the BJP and the Congress, it is he who cannot afford to lose. He draws strength from the voters who congregate and applaud more on his talk of the Sohrabuddin encounter than on the development he claims to have ushered in during the five years of his rule, which he says 13 chief ministers could not do in 45 years.
Gujarat might not command numerical leverage in national politics as its more populous northern cousins. It does much more, gripping the national psyche as it sets the agenda for the burgeoning urban middle class comfortable with its strident political posturing. And therein lies its importance. The Gujarat 2007 polls stand now not just as a referendum on Narendra Modi and his brand of politics that is a shade of saffron different from even the BJP’s. They are also a referendum on a divided Gujarat, which aspires to respectability for the fissures, which is made confident by its pride in the material prosperity it believes can pale social injustice.
ayesha.khanexpressindia.com
