Good days
"India has won, good days are about to come"
The above text was the message that Modi tweeted in 2014 as it became clear that the BJP was likely to win. His tweet became the most re-tweeted in India's history.
The headlines in Times read "India places it's faith in Moditva: Chaiwala will be the first PM to be Born After Independence."xFor a snapshot of front page of various newspapers, see https://www.oneindia.com/india/lok-sabha-election-results-2014-how-indian-media-reacts-to-narendra-modi-s-victory/articlecontent-pf10758-1449520.html The headline sums up just about everything, especially the shock to the elite.
The year 2014 saw ascendence of a leader in India namely Narendra Modi, a bachelorxiSome dispute the status of Narendra Modi as bachelor as his 'wife' is still there but that is legally incorrect. Under Hindu Law as it then existed a child marriage was valid but only subject to repudiation of the marriage on attaining the age of discretion i.e. 18 years. Therefore for all practical purposes, Narendra Modi repudiated his marriage. The fact that the wife did not re-marry is of no consequence in law. who had once left the society to become a hermit. Modi a lifetime volunteer of RSS, a NGO, became Prime Minister of India in 2014.
A total of 551 million (55.1 Cr) votes were cast, with a record 67% turnout out of which 38% were in favour of Modi and his allies, to make him the winner.
Journey of Modi
The life journey of Modi, from the assisting his father to hawk tea at a small train halt of Vadnagar in Gujarat in childhood to the highest office of the country at the age of 64 is interesting. Modi joined RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevek Sangh) in 1971 and remained a Pracharak of RSS till 1985 when he was taken by BJP and appointed it's General Secretary. Pracharak is word without counterpart in English. Prachar means publicity and one doing it is Pracharak.
As mentioned before that in 1984, BJP's tally was reduced to 2 seats in Parliament with a vote share 7.74%. Obviously its popular base had shrunk. It was a born again party as it had merged with Janata Party in 1977 in its previous incarnation of Jan Sangh and was reconstituted as Bhartiya Janata Party or BJP on 6 April 1980.
Therefore Modi and other General Secretaries were borrowed from a disciplined organisation of RSS to spread the base of BJP. Modi as an organiser of the party adopted innovative ideas to organise the party workers. He started with Ahmadabad Municipal elections where he assigned each worker with a goal and made an emotive appeal that it was their city to take care of.xiihttps://www.narendramodi.in/innovative-field-organizer-an-example-from-1980s-gujarat-522799
This blending of a structured process of volunteer training, volunteer mobilisation with an emotional local connect created the ground conditions for the BJP victory in the Ahmedabad Municipal Election to provide Narendra Modi with a template for statewide organisation of the Party with a micro-focus at the Local Level. Such precision was repeated election after election, be it in Gujarat, Lok Sabha Elections as a General Secretary and when Shri Modi finally joined electoral politics in 2001.xiiiIbid. Even today, in a run up to election of 2019, Modi and BJP Party President Amit Shah, are addressing booth workers from one state after another, arguing them to ensure "Mera Booth Sabse Majboot" (My booth will be strongest) in next elections.
Chief Minister
Modi remained away from electoral politics till 2001, when all of a sudden he was called upon to become Chief Minister of Gujarat. The then Chief Minister of Gujarat Keshu Bhai Patel was facing discontentment and ambivalent health and the party (BJP) decided to replace him with Modi. Gujarat had faced a severe earthquake and reconstruction work was not progressing at optimal speed.
Appointment of Modi was a Deja Vu moment from Hindi movie called "Aaj Ka MLA, Ram Avtar" in which a person loyal to two warring factions of the leaders, their personal barber is appointed as Chief Minister. But he later turns the table on them.
When Modi became 14th Chief Minister of Gujarat, the question on everybody's mind was "Will he be able to deliver?" Modi had no administrative experience. He was never been a Municipal Councillor, much less a MLA. How will he deal with bureaucracy? Decades later, the questions being raised about Modi have changed.
How did Modi come to grips with the administration of a state? How did he manage the after-effects of a devastating earthquake even as he took charge of the administration? How does he manage to provide 24x7 electricity to all of Gujarat? How did he accomplish the participation of the people in many of his schemes? How did he improve the agricultural produce of state several times over? How did his administration come to be known as one that puts technology to effective use? How is it that while he is painted communal by the media and some political parties, the Muslims of Gujarat look to him as a friend and a deliverer!xivArticulated by Cho S. Ramaswamy in his Foreword to the book titled " Modi, Muslims and Media" by Madhu Purnima Kishwar (2014) ISBN: 978-81-929352-0-1.
Media and Modi
Modi's accomplishments in Gujarat, though never made headlines in newspaper but the news of progress and development travelled to whole of India, fast or may be slow but it did travel by mouth to ear.
To name a few, Gujarat was first State in India to have 24x7 electricity. It had the faster economic growth then the rest of country. It's problems of water shortage and irrigation were taken care of. But it had other problems too. In 2002 a riot broke out after a violent crowd set a train compartment on fire. The Hindu pilgrims from Ayudhya were travelling in that compartment. This event triggered off riots (called Godhra riots) in which over a thousand lives were lost. Most criminals were later nabbed, tried and convicted. It was however alleged in media that Modi had a role in flaring up these riots. The matter went upto Supreme Court which constituted a SIT (Special Investigation Team). Modi himself was grilled by SIT for hours. However no proof of his complicity in riots was found.
Judicial exoneration of Modi did not result in media exoneration. His media trial continued almost forever. In 2001 the Minister for Home and Security, in the Modi Government was Gordhan Zadafia and was a known associate of fire brand VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) leader Praveen Togadia. The role of Zadafia, during the riots was found questionable but he did not have to face media trial the way Modi did.
Riots
Riots in India, contrary to popular perception, are planned. These are pre-planned by criminal elements but they do not decide the date as the exact time to trigger riot is decided in spur of a moment. Old business scores are settled during riots and unknown mob is blamed for crimes. It is not that old neighbours come out of their houses and start killing each other. It is never so. However it is convenient to call organised violence as riot to cover up the failure of governance.
Riots are a reflection of unprofessional police and patronage of criminal elements by Police and politicians. Wherever the police is left to do it's job professionally, riots disappear. After 2002 no riots have taken place in Gujarat. That too when it was almost a biennial feature in the some sectors of it's capital Ahmedabad, when in 1969 over 5000 people lost lives. Zafar Sareshwala, a Muslim Gujarati businessman explains the criminal politician nexus as it existed in 2002:
"….We saw his (Modi's) point because in contrast to the 2002 riots, which lasted just three days, the riots during Congress regimes used to go on for months on end. Many of these earlier riots had resulted in a far higher death toll than that of 2002. The police as well as the administration in Gujarat were thoroughly communalised. It was widely known that the BJP, VHP, Bajrang Dal etc. patronised Hindu dons while the Congress Party patronised Muslim mafias. These organised criminal syndicates functioned with impunity due to political patronage. The coastal belt of Gujarat, in particular, was dominated by mafias which were involved in smuggling gold and other contraband from Dubai…...This was the Gujarat inherited by Modi, a virtual outsider to governance, in October 2001. He was right in saying that by February, he had not acquired real control over the administration. He was saddled with the baggage of previous regimes…."xvISBN: 978-81-929352-0-1; Modi, Muslims and Media by Madhu Purnima Kishwar (2014) at page 31.
Please do think about it. If riots are not preplanned how rioters find the lock cutters to break open closed properties and petrol/gasoline etc. to burn down houses? How the goods looted, disappear without trace? Especially when there is general strike and all establishments are closed as it was in 2002. Somebody store these rioting equipments for the purpose of riot.
Reel life is often inspired by real life. There are many movies made every year on the theme of criminal-politician-land grabber nexus. A recent blockbuster of superstar Rajnikant, named "Kaala" (or Black) graphically show how riots are created to settle scores and how police nexus orchestrate it.
Lawyers are well connected people. They meet all kinds of colleagues and all kinds of people in society. If lawyers know in advance that something is about to happen, why police intelligence should miss it. Here my reference is not about 2002 riot but many others in different cities when people happen to know in advance that situation is tense. That is sheer unprofessionalism of police whose duty is to enforce the rule of law. But remember India is a federation in which "law and order" is in the control of respective State Governments to the exclusion of Central Government at New Delhi. This has proved to be serious flaw in working of the Constitution of India.
Media Trial
Coming back to 2002 riots, the media continued it's trial of Modi long after his exoneration. What they forgot is that there is no such thing as good publicity or bad publicity. Modi was a popular news. People would search internet or ask people from Gujarat about Modi. Congress party chose to call Modi names. Bad mouthing Modi, made him immensely popular. Once is an accident, twice is coincidence only a third time it is believed to be a conspiracy, established from the pattern of behavior. In case of Modi, no riot was repeated after 2002. Gujarat progressed and no Muslim suffered. No journalist or Muslim from Gujarat came forward to express any problem or discrimination by administration in Gujarat.
As a result a public perception was created that the Modi was the poor David who was victimised by Goliath of Congress and it's sponsored media, for how can a person who is successfully turning a poor state around, can be a bigot? The moderate Modi, however became hero of extreme right conservative Hindu voters too. And then in 2014 elections, he was chosen as Prime Ministerial candidate of BJP. The reason given by the Party for his selection was his able leadership and administration.
Governance
Modi's first rule of administration was transparency, which according to himself is root cause of 1/3rd of the problems. In his own words:
"…..When I became CM, I felt that one of the basic problems with the government is the habit of compartmental thinking and absence of coordination. Convergence is the need of the hour. I believe that 30 per cent of our country's problems can be solved by simply bringing about convergence. Making officers of different departments sit and participate in planning processes together, also combats the culture of secrecy which is deeply entrenched in governments. When I first joined the government, officials were so secretive that they would not share with anyone the policy-making files on the assumption that they were meant to guard them from getting "leaked". I asked them to explain why should policy-making not become public knowledge? I put an end to the culture of secrecy by insisting that each policy draft be put online to make it available in the public domainxviSee ISBN: 978-81-929352-0-1; Modi, Muslims and Media by Madhu Purnima Kishwar (2014) at page 71-72.…."
As regards timely implementation of the plans, this was the method:
"…..Even while Modi did hands-on monitoring of each department, at the same time he gave long rope to each department head to take full responsibility and cut out bureaucratic red tape. After a certain road map was agreed upon and the goal set in the presence of all, the chief minister would leave the officer-in-charge free to implement it in his own way. However, just a couple of days before the agreed upon deadline, be it 6 or 8 months, CM would send a message reminding the officer that he had to come and make a presentation. So there was no question of forgetting or letting matters drag. If during the course of implementation, an officer brought to the CM's notice any difficulties or extraneous pressures he was facing, CM would back him fully and help him find solutionsxviiModi, Muslims and Media, ibid at page 73.…."
All in all, even though Modi did not start with any dramatic changes and reshuffles in the composition of his cabinet or his bureaucratic team, his work style and his determination to make government an energetic instrument for economic development and social transformation, did come to ruffle many feathers both within BJP as well as in the Congress Party.xviiiIbid at page 74.
Thus Modi established a work culture with responsibility to deliver results at timely intervals not by carrot and stick policy but by leading from the front and setting an example himself that we are in the Government for only one purpose that is to deliver results. Relationships and alliances which stand in the delivery of results are inconsequential.
After 2014, upon being elected as Prime Minister, this was the same method which he implemented in the office of Prime Minister. Much of his criticism was as to why he did not transfer any of the officers appointed or posted by his predecessors. The criticism attained a higher decibel when secret report of CBI was found in the bed room of an ex minister under investigation for corruption. There were allegations that the officers in Ministry of finance were indirectly helping the ex ministers and obstructing their prosecution. Modi however did not budge. Though he did take action against CBI director accused of many misconducts but much of the damage was done by then.
Running a Government in Gujarat was a challenge but running Government of India is toughest job in the World. Why toughest? Because of the magnitude, amplitude and diversity of India. Let's know about India in next Chapter.
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