By Rajeev Khanna, IANS
Ahmedabad : He was once a tea vendor, and his is a rags-to-riches story. His fans call him a messiah. Others say he is a power hungry Machiavelli. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is perhaps a bit of all this.
In the decades he has spent in Indian politics, Modi has transformed himself from the quiet ‘pracharak’ (propagandist) of the Hindu right to perhaps the most talked about chief minister in the country.
Today, he is single-handedly spearheading the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) aggressive campaign to retain power in Gujarat after six tumultuous years in office during which the terrible anti-Muslim violence of 2002 left over a thousand people dead.
Since then Modi has become a hate figure for rights groups, secularists and large sections of the political establishment. The US has even denied him visa. But the 57-year-old politician has a huge following, in Gujarat and elsewhere.
If he does lead the BJP to victory in the assembly elections Dec 11 and 16 , he would emerge as the strongest leader in the country’s main opposition party – and the electoral win will cast a shadow on national politics.
And if he loses, he will have only himself to blame – and his seeming inability to carry his colleagues with him.
Social scientist Ghanshyam Shah told IANS: “This election is going to revolve around Modi. Gujarat has never seen a dominant personality like him in independent India.”
For this man from north Gujarat, life began from running a tea canteen at Ahmedabad’s teeming bus terminus.
Once he joined the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), Modi worked as a ‘pracharak’ in the Kangra region of Himachal Pradesh where people remember him as a docile and humble man, an image contrary to his present one.
During Modi’s tenure in New Delhi as the BJP’s national spokesman in the late 1990s, he went to the US for a three-month course on public relations and image management. This apparently now helps him to get the publicity he desires.
Even his opponents admit that he is a master of publicity and propaganda, one who can turn any situation to his advantage. He seems to prove it almost every day.
Said one from his media management circuit: “He knows what to say when. Even on most controversial issues, when facts are not in his favour, he turns the situation to his benefit. He also knows when to create controversies and how to draw maximum mileage out of them.”
His critics say he has proved to be a master of Machiavellian politics.
“He knows how to use the administrative machinery to settle scores with NGOs, lawyers contesting on behalf of minorities and adversaries from his own party,” said a social activist who did not want to be named.
He has used the state machinery to build an image of himself as a man committed to the development of the state.
Be it the issue of girl child education, end to female foeticide or use of modern techniques and equipment for agriculture, he has hogged the headlines and earned the sobriquet as Gujarat’s saviour.
On the flip side, several prominent women’s activists have launched a campaign to oust him saying the state is no more a safe place for women and children.
The upcoming election is the third poll being contested within six years by Modi who likes being referred to as CEO of Gujarat.
In the short span he has been in power, he has earned a reputation of extremes. People love him or detest him. His supporters say he has nurtured the phenomenon of Gujarati pride in the state. Hence they consider any attack on Modi as an attack on Gujarat.
Some feel Modi is a visionary who manages to bring in investments to Gujarat. Others contest this, saying Gujarat is what it is today because of the Gujarati enterprising spirit, not due to any politician.
His government claims to have set up the country’s best disaster management system. But it proved not to be of much use when vast tracts of Surat went under floodwater last year.
There is also anger among tribals and farmers about their economic condition, an issue the Congress is trying to exploit. Many in his own party do not like his style of functioning. They don’t like the fact that he goes ahead with what he believes is right.
And he is accused of dividing society on religious lines and merely showcasing a few big cities to project the image of Gujarat and himself. But his fans say these are allegations of “secular fundamentalists”.
(Rajeev Khanna can be contacted at [email protected])