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Dr. Modi and Dr. Hyde
Rajdeep
Sardesai
The anti-Sikh riots were far more
horrific than the post-Godhra violence. The 1984 riots have seen
just 13 convictions; in Gujarat, the fast-track courts have already
convicted more than 15. The 1984 riots occurred in several high
security areas in the heart of the national capital; the 2002
violence spread more thinly to parts of rural Gujarat as well.
 On
the very day that Lalu Yadav marched to the Prime Minister’s
residence demanding Narendra Modi’s arrest in the wake of the
Tehelka sting exposé, a small group of Sikh widows were protesting
at the capital’s Jantar Mantar on the 23rd anniversary of the
anti-Sikh riots. One eye on the TV cameras, the other firmly on the
Muslim vote, Lalu was making the headlines. The widows were
yesterday’s story. While the 2002 Gujarat riots have become a cause
celebre for the secular establishment, 1984 has never quite acquired
the same profile.
On the face of it,
the anti-Sikh riots were far more horrific than the post-Godhra
violence. More than 2,700 people were killed in 1984, as per the
official death toll; in Gujarat, it was a little over a thousand.
The 1984 riots have seen just 13 convictions; in Gujarat, the
fast-track courts have already convicted more than 15 persons in
different cases. The 1984 riots occurred in several high security
areas in the heart of the national capital; the 2002 violence spread
more thinly to parts of rural Gujarat as well. As a powerful recent
book, When a Tree Shook Delhi, confirms, senior Congress
politicians, including Union ministers, were actually present on the
streets, allegedly leading the mobs in 1984; in Gujarat, the direct
evidence against Modi’s cabinet members is still based principally
on police phone records. While then Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee did make some token attempt to distance himself from the
Gujarat rioters, it took a Sikh Congress PM in 2005 to finally
accept that 1984 was a “national shame”, and that the truth had
never come out. Rajiv Gandhi’s statement that “when a big tree
falls, the earth shakes” is recorded history; Narendra Modi’s
“action-reaction” comment was officially denied.
Why then is Modi
such a hate figure today for the secularists while Rajiv Gandhi,
then Home Minister Narasimha Rao and the entire top Congress
leadership have escaped public censure? The answer might unlock not
just the Modi enigma, but also the content of Indian secularism, and
perhaps indicate just how much India has changed in the last two
decades.
Firstly, in 1984,
the Indian judiciary was perhaps a little less adversarial towards
the politician than it is today, and certainly less proactive in
driving the political agenda. There was no Supreme Court as willing
to directly indict the political leadership as it is today — Modi
was likened to Nero by former Chief Justice V.N. Khare; in 1984, the
Supreme Court would have probably seen such a remark as a
transgression of judicial authority.
 Secondly, human
rights activists were perhaps far less organised in 1984 than they
are today. The ability to create a sustained moral and legal
pressure on the system, to network with other NGOs and to cultivate
the media is perhaps far greater now than it was in 1984, although
many groups like the PUCL and PUDR as well as the Nagrik Ekta Manch
did embark on processions and fact-finding missions. A Teesta
Setalvad can actually become a rallying point for those seeking
justice in a manner that was perhaps not possible 23 years ago.
Thirdly, and most
crucially, the 2002 riots were the first in the age
of round-the-clock ‘live’ television. Gujarat was India’s first
television riot. There was remarkable journalism done in the 1980s
(as also after Ayodhya), but somehow, the power and sanctity of the
written word cannot match the impact and immediacy of the television
image. Whether it was the visuals of street carnage five years ago
or the voices of Sangh parivar footsoldiers bragging about their
‘achievements’ with chilling candour, the audio-visual image has the
ability to confirm, even magnify, the gravity of the crime in a way
that, at times, even the finest prose cannot. The television camera
reduced the mental and geographical distance between the Gujarat
riots and a national viewership in a manner that the newspaper in
1984 could not. It also, especially in the context of a paralysed
political class, became the ‘real’ opposition, questioning and
challenging the Gujarat government’s claims to be a non-partisan
upholder of the Constitution.
Ironically, what the
dramatic television images also did was transform Modi into a
larger-than-life figure. From a relatively anonymous pracharak who
had never fought an election, he was now either the hero or villain
of hate politics, depending on one’s ideological leanings. Modi, in
fact, brilliantly used the media exposure to create the spectre of a
confrontation between himself and the so-called ‘anti-Hindu’ English
language media. The sharp rhetoric in public speeches, the
intimidatory tone towards journalists and even the recent walk-out
from an interview were designed to position himself as a macho hero
who was being targeted by an ideological media. Indeed, by
pigeonholing the non-Gujarati media in particular as ‘enemy number
one’, Modi was able to cultivate a sense of ‘us’ versus ‘them’
within his core constituency. As a result, far from being apologetic
about the post-Godhra violence, he was almost dismissive of the
criticism. This seeming lack of remorse at the violence has only
added to the polarisation: the critics demonised him, and his
supporters valourised him as a Hindu hriday samrat.
In a sense, Modi has
become symbolic of the Hindu-Muslim faultlines that exist in our
society, a symbol of the darkness within. Those faultlines run far
deeper and are far more central to identity politics than the
Hindu-Sikh divide of the 1980s could ever have been. The divide
of the 1980s was a temporary eruption, occasioned more by political
mismanagement than any fundamental shift in attitudes between
members of the two communities. The scars of 1984 could be healed
with time, because the origins of the Hindu-Sikh tension were not
based on historic resentments and popular prejudices.
By contrast, and
rather uncomfortably, 2002
 seems part of a more sustained campaign
of hate, prejudice and violence between Hindus and Muslims, one
which tapped into a wider constituency in Gujarat and beyond. Which
is why there isn’t a greater sense of collective outrage at the behaviour of those caught on camera detailing the worst possible
crimes against humanity. Which is also why a substantial section
of the rank and file of the BJP, a party whose rise in national
politics was spurred by the growing communal divide, seems to have
endorsed Modi’s brand of politics.
Interestingly, the
original patent to this type of militant Hindutva politics belonged
to Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray. Like Modi in 2002, Thackeray too
was unapologetic about his actions during the 1992-93 Mumbai riots.
In fact, he went a step further than Modi when he openly said “he
was proud of his boys”. Both Modi and Thackeray revelled in their
image as authoritarian political bosses who would tolerate no
internal dissent. Like Modi, Thackeray too has attempted to create
an ‘enemy-like situation’ with the the English language media, one
designed purely to reinforce his stature as the ‘supremo’ among his
supporters.
The difference is
that while Thackeray had little to offer beyond the demagoguery.
Modi, as Chief Minister, has chosen a ‘Hindutva-plus’ model, one in
which a fierce commitment to ideology is matched by an equally
aggressive commitment to economic growth. While Thackeray has often
been dismissed as an eccentric rabble-rouser, Modi enjoys the
stature of being a focused, workaholic CM.
So, while
sociologist Ashis Nandy may have come out of a meeting with Modi 10
years ago and warned a colleague that he had met the country’s first
“textbook fascist”, industrialists who shared a dais with him at the
Vibrant Gujarat celebrations last year admiringly described him as a
“growth-oriented, highly motivated chief minister”. Perhaps, it’s
this dualism — Dr Modi and Mr Hyde — that lies at the heart of the
Modi phenomenon. Not only does he appeal to the desire for greater
material progress, but his existence is perhaps a symbol of a hidden
alter ego, a doppleganger that undoubtedly still exists in many
Hindu hearts. Modi says in public what many may say in private. A
centuries-old, unsaid prejudice that still has not been properly
confronted and cauterised is Modi’s secret weapon. It makes him more
electable. And also more feared.
(courtesy The
Hindustan Times)
14
November, 2007
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