The rise of so called Hindu Nationalist leader and India's principal opposition party BJP's PM in waiting Narendra Modi is unique in several ways. He is being loved and hated by people like no other leader in Indian Political History has been. Here is an attempt to understand some aspects of the phenomenal rise of his influence over the Indian people and society.
His Supporters:
- Die hard supporters: His supporters have some kind of blind faith in him and consider him as some kind of incarnation from heavens for resolving all the problems being faced by this country today. There is nothing wrong with his die-hard supporters; they think they are serving their mother nation by serving him. Patriotism factor has been effectively capitalized by Modi Machinery to create such an enormous supporter base which is even ready to kill or get killed for him.
- Normal supporters: Frustrated with the incumbent govt. there are plenty of people who are ready to support him as an alternative to the existing. They have or don’t have any good idea about his role in 2002 incident but are of forgiving class having faith in change of hearts and souls.
- Strong opponents: His past record of handling of Gujarat Carnage and the subsequent developments under his reign in Gujarat has created an equally fierce force against him which is even ready to go thermo-nuclear any day, to prevent him from acquiring the national stage.
- Normal opponents: These are people having their normal choices and don’t think that Narendra Modi would offer anything different and due to normal, political or ideological preferences are opposed to him.
There is also an undecided class which can not be classified in any of the above categories, that is his supporters or opponents. This class has further divisions:
Category-1
- A- These are people who have clear idea about his wrong and right deeds and having an overall negative outlook but yet confused and undermined.
- B- These are people who have clear idea about his wrong and right deeds and having an overall positive outlook but yet confused and undetermined.
- C- These are people who have clear idea about his wrong and right deeds and having no overall outlook yet
- D- These people have no idea about his wrong and right deeds and having an overall negative outlook but yet confused and undermined.
- E- These people have no idea about his wrong and right deeds and having a positive outlook but yet confused and undetermined.
- F- These are people who have no idea about his wrong and right deeds and having no overall outlook, confused and undetermined.
Now let’s move to strategy room of Modi and company and look how they are dealing with these separate classes of people and adopting different methodologies to convert them in their favor.
Generally a multi polar/colored identity system is working in India to deal with such classification and diversification of people for example:
A Sonia Gandhi to lure Gandhi-Nehru supporter base, a Manmohan singh for clean image and representative of intellectual community, a Shinde as a representative of Dalits, a Antony to represent minority (Christian) interests, a Rahul Gandhi to represent the youth power, Salman Khursheed for Muslim representation etc. Each one among the above faces in top Congress leadership or the govt. serves different unique purposes and has created a multi colored and diverse power block.
Similar diversification is also found in regional parties (but a miniature version) like Azam Khan, Mulayam and Akhilesh combination representing Muslim, Yadav and Youth aspirations.
BJP doesn’t has that luxury and that much diversified spectrum of leadership capable to represent the interest of each and every corner of the nation from Kashmir to Kaniyakumari and from Christians to Hindus, from Schedule tribe to Forward Brahmins and from a rural farmer to a world re-known economist.
So! What alternative lies with the BJP?
The answer lies in personality politics. Creation of a larger than life multi colored personality capable enough to represent each and every section of the society. The result is obvious the anointment of Narendra Modi as the face of the party. His multi colored personality and ability to strike chords with everyone else is doing miracles these days.
His Personality
His personality has evolved over time; one time considered an intolerant Hindu Fanatic and dogmatic persona, ready to eliminate a whole religious civilization any day soon, is today known for his works for uplifting the Gujarat from an economic, social and political turmoil to a fast developing, industrialized and rapidly urbanizing state. His performance of governance and administration got recognition world over, corruption free, business friendly and growth oriented polity has won him universal applauds.
For each section he has a different face, for Business community he is a modest reformer, enthusiast statesman and no nonsense politician capable enough to correct India’s credit rating and future outlook just from his little advances in opinion polls. For Middle class he is a dream merchant selling dreams of World class cities like GIFT, Wide roads, infrastructure and entertainment hubs, jobs, financial security etc. For Poor he is a poor Chiawalah turned Chief Minister having a firsthand experience of kind of life in slums and poverty. To some sections he is a backward caste leader who would make India’s first backward PM and end the dominance of Forward Caste at top. For youth he is the one, who would bring unprecedented economic growth and generate employment opportunities, a technology friendly leader who would turn the present lackluster administrative machinery into an effective one. He would make India corruption free and make us the superpower. He would attack Pakistan and end terrorism in the country. Different people have different definition of him, and different reasons to support him.
Why he is so effective?
The answer once again lies in psychology. He is a mass manipulator of a very unique breed. He understands where to hit hard and at what point of time. How to connect with locals anywhere in the country. He has very high diversity in terms of experience and is effectively using his huge experience base in dealing and converting people.
Modi is not a new phenomenon in Indian Politics; he has been a nightmare for the congress party for at least last 15 years. Congress kept on ignoring him considering his regional limitations but he kept on evolving and evolving over time and acquired the present giant mass and size. There is no reason but the less than effective Gujarat Congress and ignorant central leadership of congress responsible for his present rise.
Best Defence is offence !
This is the strategy presently being followed by Narendra Modi.
He has pin pointed all the loop holes in ‘Congress Super Structure’ over the time and has ready to fire missiles in very high alert mode. I still wonder why Political Pundits never consider the timing of rise of NAMO. His timing of rise is spectacular especially with the sense that now congress is standing at one of the weakest point of its history of 125 years or so. His offensive campaigns, attacks on topics like Foreign policy, Defense preparedness, dealing with terrorism, economic policy, social cohesion, administrative efficiency, corruption, governance, leadership or anything else would seem more than justified to any rational being both in the theoretical and practical sense.
Now consider his hyped, flawed statistics of Gujarat Development or his poor knowledge and understanding of History, Economics and International relation. This weakness can be easily felt if one pays attention to his rather frequent speeches at public rallies. The congress and other Modi baiters work 24x7 to pinch holes in his speeches and data he presents but at the end of the day there is hardly any impact over him or his audience.
The impact assessment tells us a different story. His impact is far greater and intense than the parties and people opposed to him. What he actually does is to put a number of blames and accusations against his rivals. Though all his accusations are not always true to core or wells researched but are always in line with the public perception and general belief patterns. Right or wrong is not a question for him but the acceptability of his assertions, things are right as long as they appear true and acceptable.
He is conducting rallies after rallies in a very quick succession, everyday he has new set of facts, data, substance, claims, accusations and blames which keep busy the congress core team in research and data mining. By the time Congress comes with errors, omissions and factually correct answers, he has already made new statements in a new rally somewhere else and the discussion topic has shifted to the new controversy he just created and virtually there is no one available to buy congress research works of previous episodes. Even that research is made a subject of debate and discussion by the second and third line leadership of BJP causing frustration, helplessness and anger among Congress cadres and they end up abusing and baiting Modi in undemocratic fashion.
Though he may not be considered a class of a person, doing high quality politics but what surely he has mastered in is quantitative politics. Do what appeals to masses rather than having an appeal for limited no. of classes, it is also a time tested formula in Indian Polity Lalu Prashad did it in Bihar and Mamata didi did it in Bengal. A factually incorrect statement which appeals masses is preferable to a factually correct one but having limited audience. His speeches have humor, satires, mimicking, comments, jabs, fun, energy, enthusiasm, aggression or anything else needed for a perfect show. He has done to political speeches and rallies, what a 20-20 version of cricket has done to the one day and test cricket.
We are living in a country where political parties have to convey to the rural and uneducated masses, every election, that Congress means Nehru and Gandhi and has a symbol of ‘hand’ and BJP means Atal and Advani and has a symbol of lotus. Recently a rural women, when asked, whom she is going to vote for, replied MODI and when asked what symbol she would press to vote him, she was clueless!! This might not be case for every Indian but the things worse if not worst.
Go to sub-urban/rural India, and ask people who are Manish Tiwari, Shashi Tharoor, Digvijay Singh, Rashid Alvi and Ajay Maken, or the Prakash Javedkar, Minakshi Leki, RaviShankar Prashad or the Nirmala Sita Ram and see what answer you get. These people only know or have good idea about top leadership like Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Shinde, Chidambaram etc. or Advani, Modi, Sushma Swaraj, Jaitley etc.
While the attack from BJP side is being led by top leadership like Rajnath Singh, Advani, Modi, Swaraj etc. the Congress is being defended by 2nd and 3rd level of leadership who are not even widely known faces. For some unknown reason the top leadership of congress is way too shy to face public which is doing more harm to Congress than any good.
