- AN EXTRACT FROM AN ARTICLE I ENDORSE
Independent India, it says, will be a "Socialist, Secular, Democratic Republic". Well, the man they call NaMo is no socialist: the "development model" he coined while running Gujarat was based on handing cut-price land and soft loans to big business, who in turn flew him around on private jets. This brought cash into the state, but very little of it has been shared out beyond big cities such as Ahmedabad. Modi's Gujarat lagged behind the other big states in India in tackling infant mortality, poverty and illiteracy.
Secular? Modi was interviewed by one of the country's leading intellectuals, Ashis Nandy, in the 1990s, when he was almost unknown. Nandy later wrote: "I still remember the cool, measured tone in which he elaborated a theory of cosmic conspiracy against India that painted every Muslim as a suspected traitor and a potential terrorist. I came out of the interview shaken and told [his companion] Yagnik that, for the first time, I had met a textbook case of a fascist and a prospective killer, perhaps even a future mass murderer." In 2002, Modi presided when a pogrom killed 1,000-2,000 Muslims. As for "democratic", Modi ran his home state like an autocrat, giving thuggish lieutenant Amit Shah no fewer than 10 portfolios.
A man who opposes all the foundational ideals of the Indian state now has an absolute majority to demolish. Why? First, those pluralist principles were seriously eroded by those in Congress who mouthed them. Indira Gandhi suspended basic rights during the "emergency" of 1975; her son, Rajiv, played with the iconography of Hindutva. More recently, Congress had settled into a warm bath of corruption. And finally, this year's election was notable for its parade of unpalatable characters.
As a joke doing the rounds in Delhi put it, the three national-party candidates were a Duffer, a Bluffer and a Muffler. The duffer was Rahul Gandhi; the muffler referred to third-party leader Arvind Kejriwal's habit of wrapping himself in a scarf. As for Modi the bluffer, his party has won a simple majority on only 31% share of the vote (by way of an indicator, David Cameron was forced into coalition with 36%).
For over a decade, Modi has not lacked for comparators. He's been likened to Nero, Hitler, Putin. To me, he has all the makings of a Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: a hi-tech populist holding together a fragile coalition of big business, impatient urban youth and religious fundamentalists. Those disparate groups can be kept together as long as growth comes. But if it doesn't, Modi and his generals will go hunting for an enemy: Pakistan, India's own minorities, and the pseudo-seculars.
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