Why Modi must go

As a person Modi seems hostile to the people, intolerant of dissent within his own kind, and ruthless to rivals. The way he treated Keshubhai Patel is abnormal because Keshubhai, whatever his faults, was a grounded partyman, a party leader who commanded and still commands great loyalty. Modi has created rudeness into a brand and his responses to Sonia dip below the level of courtesy that top politicians always maintain.

There is recognition among them that politics is conflict but it was democratic conflict that demanded respect and courtesy. L.K. Advani and Vajpayee and an array of Congress politicians always acknowledged this. Rahul Gandhi introducing himself to Advani at the VIP lounge of an airport is a continuation of that courtesy. Sitaram Yechury and Arun Jaitley also reflect that polish. But Modi8217;s rudeness, his contempt for people, reminds one of Richard Nixon. It borders on contempt for democracy.

A politician might be a leader of a party and loyal to his followers and its ideology. But, it has been said, a politician who becomes a chief minister must inspire a different kind of trust. Trust goes beyond differences. Trust stems from the acknowledgement that democracy also goes beyond party politics. A chief minister must inspire the trust of marginal and dissenting groups, be seen as a leader and not as a bully. Modi inspires no trust among other religious groups or among marginal people whether they are tribals or slum dwellers.

To inspire trust, a leader must be willing to listen, create spaces where people can articulate fears and anxieties. Not since Sanjay Gandhi has India produced such a monologic leader. The only difference was that Sanjay Gandhi was both monosyllabic and monologic, while Modi has honed his oratorical skills.

There is a third problem, which is one of representation. Gujarat is a society based on syncretism and diversity. It is not a homogenous place and neither politics nor development can reduce it to that. The culture is polysemic, that is, it speaks in many voices and many dialects. Unfortunately, its politics over the last three decades, whether Congress or BJP, has been showing a strain towards intolerance. This is evident in debates about the riots or the Narmada controversy. This is a tremendous loss, a defeat of the ideals of Patel and Gandhi. Modi has accelerated that intolerance into a brand name.

Gujarat is a society which is deeply wounded by the struggles endemic to it. It has suffered the decline of its great textile industry, both as a form of production and as an imagination. It is still recovering from the battles over a great river, where the controversy was not only about a dam but the way we fought each other. The scars are those of displacement and ostracism, of violence and the strange silences that go with it. The 2002 riots needs a new imagination to help the society heal. We need someone who is sensitive to memory and yet can follow new paths with confidence, a leader who realises stability is not peace, that growth does not guarantee quality of life to all. In Modi, we have a politician who reduces the complexity of citizenship to monoculture and one who sees the ghettoisation as inevitable.

Years ago when the German leader, Willy Brandt, was at a concentration camp, he fell on his knees in apology. That act added to Brandt8217;s stature. Modi is incapable of this but all a lesser democracy needs is compromise, tolerance, adjustment, conversation, four things Modi cannot promote but which our politics still can. We retain a civility of politics which is our common heritage and which each generation has to reinvent.

Gujarat is a theatre for urbanisation and industrial growth. It is also one of the most diversified societies. A chief minister as leader is a cybernetic mechanism that combines understanding of governance with the participation and inclusiveness that democracy demands. This Modi cannot provide. A man who threatens democracy has to go democratically. Earlier, no one thought Modi could be defeated but today a festival of dissent shows he can. Gujarat must reinvent its democracy.

The writer is a social scientist currently based in Ahmedabad