Gujarat: Spirit of the times

Balbir K Punj

Could it be a coincidence that Mr Narendra Modi, hailed as 'Chote Sardar' by his admirers, led BJP's return to power in Gujarat with thumping majority on December 15? The day was 52nd death anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the man who united over 500 princely states of India, liberated Hyderabad, sought to proactively protect the Hindus of East Pakistan, but equally resisted the demand for India becoming a 'Hindu State'. Mr Modi, who succeeded against all media-demonisation for 10 months, has succinctly pronounced: "Justice for all, appeasement to none."

The outcome of the Gujarat elections exceeded the projections of every opinion and exit poll. More than that, it has successfully called the bluff off the divisive secularist agenda as epitomised by the KHAM (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim) theory of the Congress. Even though Modi-mesmerism now seems to have cast a spell on some die-hard Hindu-baiters, a few 'secularists' are finding it hard to reconcile themselves to this reality. It's a pity that those who refused to see what was palpable at an arms' length, are now deconstructing the Congress defeat in retrospection.

Mr Modi was right when he said on election day that the BJP was fighting the Congress only in the media, there was absolutely no challenge from the latter on ground level. And the party has set all speculations to rest by making a clean-sweep of 126 out of 181 seats that were contested in the polls. Even though redundant under the Westminster system of democracy that we follow, it is significant to note that the BJP has secured over 51 per cent of the votes.

Success has many fathers, and failure is born an orphan. Stunned by the impact of the BJP's victory, poll pundits are now ascribing the Congress's discomfiture to its unoriginality of approach. The elections were a watershed event in the politics of Independent India, when the Congress had to renounce its Nehruvian face and endorse Sardar Patel's. The party now realises by hindsight that it owes it defeat to being out of touch with the ground (and changing ground realities). With her overconfidence bordering on arrogance, Ms Sonia Gandhi had thought winning elections was as easy as waving to the public and pronouncing the names of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.

The Congress was completely out of touch with the ground (or rather groundswell)-and resorted to all the gimmicks in its repertoire in the election campaign. It made 'development' the primary plank in Gujarat while, paradoxically, Congress-ruled neighbouring States like Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are reeling under severe power shortage and starvation deaths due to their faulty distribution system in this era of plenty.

The Congress chose former Chief Minister of Gujarat, Mr Shankersinh Vaghela, an RSS and a BJP dropout as its face in Gujarat. Ironically, it had withdrawn support from a Government headed by the same Mr Vaghela in October 1997. Its letter to the then Governor of Gujarat read: "The State Government has neither provided clean and efficient administration nor has it provided democratic secular government in the State. Unfortunately the present Government has acquired notorious reputation as corrupt, inefficient, weak, autocratic and whimsical government". How come the sinner of 1997 became the poster-boy of the Congress in 2002?

This time Mr Vaghela went to the US on a fund mobilisation drive, and indulged in such secular gimmickry as saying, "Don't call me Shankersinh Vaghela, you can call me Sankarullah Khan." As if the joke were not complete, the Congress hired Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav to campaign for it. It was ironic for a party that claimed to make 'development' as its main poll plank to parade Mr Laloo Yadav under whose proxy-regime Bihar has remained a developmental black-spot. Of course, the State is also the worst specimen of the collapse of civil society where the state has truly 'withered away'-a Marxist dream, which is still, to be realised elsewhere in the world.

Mr Vaghela went on television to say that the Congress lost because of "Hindutva, Hindutva, Hindutva". But why then did the Congress adopt 'soft Hindutva' in Gujarat? Was it trying to run with the hare and hunt with the hound? The Left Front could not stand independent of the Congress (and supported it) in the State since 'bourgeoisie' is not a dirty word in Gujarat. Similarly, Hindutva is not a dirty word in Gujarat-where 50,000 ill-equipped people had laid down their lives in a single day trying to defend the Somnath temple against Mahmud of Ghazni's invasion in AD 1026.

The slogans of 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' and 'Vande Mataram' that marked the election campaigns show the BJP workers' deep commitment to nationalist ideology. To quote Sardar Patel, "Comparisons are odious, but India without Gujarat is like the Sardar without soul". If the Congress was trying to win the elections without being sensitive to this soul- Hindutva-it was gravely mistaken. As tone is more important than words in a speech, so the Congress failed with its soft Hindutva because it abysmally lacked confidence in what it said. While people could feel every word of Mr Modi was dipped in pain for Gujarat's identity, they found nothing but smattering verbosity in Ms Gandhi. Thus, Mr Modi has become a phenomenon not only in Gujarat, or in India but even abroad.

Despite the advantage of anti-incumbency twice over, the Congress has lost in Gujarat due to its non-committal approach on social issues. But who triumphed in Gujarat-is it Mr Modi, or the BJP, or even the Sangh Parivar? My answer that it is the 'time-spirit' that has triumphed in Gujarat. When the Gandhian experiment of communal harmony proved a devastating defeat in his own lifetime, it's no good to remind ourselves that Gujarat is Gandhi's State except as an academic exercise. Gujarat is Gandhi's State indeed, but it is also the State of MA Jinnah who claimed in August 1946: "We shall have India divided or destroyed." If someone on the basis of a misquote ascribed to the VHP's Ashok Singhal the claim that Gujarat is the laboratory of Hindutva, one could equally claim Godhra was a laboratory of Islamic fundamentalism quite on lines of Jinnah's Direct Action.

But as neighbouring Maharastra equally harboured two illustrious contemporaries GK Gokhale, a moderate, and Bal Gangadhar Tilak, an extremist, so Gujarat produced two doyens Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel with poles-apart views on Hindutva. Gujaratis take pride in their mercantile tendencies and values pragmatism. Hence, Sardar Patel, who stands as the hallmark of pragmatic but patriotic politics in India, inspires the present generation more.

The ghost of "fatwa-politics", a tradition that had flourished under the Congress protégé, returned during the Gujarat elections. The Imam of the Ahmedabad Jama Masjid, Maulana Mohammed Shabbir, exhorted Gujarat's Muslims to vote en bloc for the Congress. It was a dim-witted move, on which the VHP was quick to capitalise by releasing its Gujarati version and asking Hindu voters to "retaliate in ballots". But for once, it was enough to fathom the shallowness of the Congress' claim to secularism.

The Gujarat elections hogged greater media attention than even the general elections in the country. Obviously, something more than treasury benches was at stake. The contest was symbolic: The validity of nationalism against pseudo-secularism. Pakistan, where a coalition propped by a six-party fundamentalist force has recently assumed power in a General Pervez Musharraf-engineered election, took keen interest in this bordering State. Mr Modi was not joking when he said that if BJP won in the elections, the whole of India would celebrate and if it lost, 'Mian Musharraf' would himself burst crackers in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Karachi. As the Gujarat elections have proved to be flagship of nationalism, one hopes Pakistan will surrender its cracker-pile to us!