© APBJP supporters wear Narendra Modi masks at an election rally in Ahmedabad, India
To admirers he is a Thatcherite reformer set to jolt India from the economic doldrums, while his opponents liken him to Putin or even Hitler. Indian election frontrunner Narendra Modi divides opinion like few other politicians.Leave it to the Wall Street Journal to come up with a grossly over-simplified and skewed news-bite.
For starters, the conventional portrayal of Thatcher is as 'the Iron Lady who reformed the UK with an iron fist' - a mask for the fact that she was a brutal and callous psychopath that eviscerated the social welfare state and trade unions in the UK to facilitate the corporate takeover of British society.
Nevertheless, the 'Hitler' comparison suggests that alarm bells are ringing in Washington and Brussels over fears that Modi will deepen India's commitments to establishing that 'multipolar world' conceived by the Russians. Sites like Eurasia Review and others are producing interesting analysis of the potential tectonic shifts in geopolitics that Modi's landslide election victory portends, but what I want to do here is introduce a Western audience to some general facts about Indian national politics and Modi's rise to power.
- India is a diverse nation with as many as 18 official languages. It's divided into 28 states, each with its own culture and numerous castes with their own traditions and sensitivities. Local issues form a prominent part of everyday life, as does local politics. Because of this there are many "identity-based" regional parties holding a lot of control, making political terrain difficult to navigate. This is one of the reasons why India had only one national party (Congress Party) with national mass appeal, until now. Congress Party (once called 'Indian National Congress') spearheaded the country's independence movement. Since 1947, there were 16 years of "catch-all" party politics under the first prime minister, Jahawarlal Nehru, followed by another 16 years of authoritative politics led by his daughter, Indira Gandhi. This left India with no viable opposition with national mass appeal. Unstable coalition parties based on the "least unacceptable candidates" emerged in the 1990s, followed by stable coalition governments under the alternating stewardship of BJP and Congress during the 2000s. The recent landslide victory of BJP is therefore a milestone in Indian history.
- Narendra Modi was the long-time chief minister of the western state of Gujarat. He doesn't have experience in central government matters, but he clearly has a popular mandate. He hasn't mentioned how he is going to control corruption at the national level. He claims to have understood people's aspirations skilfully utilized them during the election campaign while the dominant Nehru-Gandhi clan heir, Rahul Gandhi, didn't have any answer to India's problems other than to point out the legacy of his father Rajiv Gandhi and grandmother Indira Gandhi. (These Ghandis, by the way, are not related to that Ghandi.) Some people attribute Narendra Modi's success to hype.
Those who forget and those who can't
For Mr. Modi, history started only in 2002, after the Gujarat riots had ended. His entire campaign was about his achievements since then. He constantly reminded people of his achievements, questionable though they may be, and of the Congress' follies. He collapsed the history of Gujarat and appropriated its glory. He disconnected Gujarat from its history of mercantilism, its geography of being at the centre of global trade routes and cultural cross-currents through effective propaganda, and managed to place himself at the centre of the State's material progress. He promised to replicate that progress nationally, and people believed in that campaign. - On the subject of religious minorities, Modi makes no bones about being a Hindu, says he respects other religions, but will only go so far in catering to them.
This increasing marginalisation of the Muslims from India's public spaces cannot be swept under the carpet by a slogan that Mr. Modi considers all Indians equal, because equating the unequals can be severely discriminatory. If they are pushed away from democratic structures, it can have dangerous implications for India. The same holds true for sexual minorities and other marginalised sections.
Mr. Modi is acutely aware of this limitation, and his Sadbhavna campaign in Gujarat in 2011 was an attempt to reach out to Muslims. In the Assembly election campaign of November 2013, his spin masters focussed on the Muslim presence in his rallies. But going by his public pronouncements during the Lok Sabha campaign, Mr. Modi appears to have backtracked on this move. Answering the question why he did not wear a Muslim skullcap, he said: "I respect all customs, but practise only mine."
- Crime and corruption is woven into every fiber of Indian politics. To get an idea, one need only look at the composition of the outgoing parliament:
MPs with pending criminal charges
The 15th Lok Sabha [parliament] saw many MPs with pending criminal charges. At least 150 MPs (out of 545) have criminal cases against them, with 73 serious cases ranging from rape to murder. While BJP has 42 MPs with criminal charges, Congress has 41. [...] The previous Lok Sabha had 128 MPs with criminal cases. - India is a nation of 1.2 billion people. According to author and activist Arundhati Roy, the country's 100 richest people own assets equivalent to one-quarter of India's gross domestic product, and two-thirds of the population (0.8 billion) live on wages of 20 rupees per day (about 30 U.S. cents a day). In her book, Capitalim: A Ghost Story, she wrote:
In India the 300 million of us who belong to the new, post - International Monetary Fund (IMF) "reforms" middle class - the market - live side by side with spirits of the netherworld, the poltergeists of dead rivers, dry wells, bald mountains, and denuded forests; the ghosts of 250,000 debt-ridden farmers who have killed themselves, and of the 800 million who have been impoverished and dispossessed to make way for us.
- Mr. Modi's achievements will depend on whom he decides to entrust the shared responsibility of governing. The main contender for the finance ministerial post is Arun Jaitley. He is a seasoned politician and lawyer who represented Multinational companies like Pepsi and Coco Cola and Indian business tycoons like the Birla clan. Some are excited about the addition of technocrats and intellects like Arun Shourie.
© fakingnews.comIsn't it a bit early to be giving him super-hero status? Oh well, I suppose people have always wanted heroes... - The toughest challenge for this BJP government will be handling the Ayodhya dispute, with respect to which it hopes to maintain the status quo via progressive policies. They will seek to calm down those Hindu fundamentalist elements that are eagerly waiting (since two decades now) the construction of Ram's temple in place of the demolished Babri Masjid. This issue - of BJP's own making - propelled them to their recent electoral triumph. Even the moderate BJP prime minister A.B. Vajpayee narrowly escaped crisis in 2001 on this issue.
- In 1977, people overwhelmingly voted for marginal opposition parties in response to then prime minister Indira Gandhi's declaration of a brutal state of emergency. But the government didn't last 3 years, after which Indira's Congress returned to power. Despite outward unity, BJP in its current form contains factions based on fundamentalist ideology, secular moderates, and unhappy patriarchs like LK Advani.
- The U.S. government banned Mr. Modi from visiting the U.S. due to his alleged involvement in 2002 Gujarat riots. The bitterness engendered by that horrific outbreak of religiously motivated violence compounded and continued long-term animosity towards Pakistan regarding the disputed Kashmir territory in the north of the country.
- Ideologically, the BJP's nationalist view of self-reliance may see India lean more towards its traditional ally, Russia, than the U.S. However, BJP involvement in national government to date has seen it 'tow the party line' in positioning India as 'a trusted Western ally'.
Comment: Insightful Interview.