Making Sense of Modi's India PDF
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MAKING SENSE OF MODI’S INDIA Meghnad Desai Gyanendra Pandey Shruti Kapila Radhika Desai R. Jagannathan Faisal Devji Beena Sarwar Sudheendra Kulkarni Zoya Hasan V. Krishna Ananth Andrew Whitehead Sevanti Ninan Rashmee Roshan Lall HarperCollins Publishers India Contents Introduction India as a Hindu Nation – and Other Ideas of India Meghnad Desai A People’s History of India, 1947–2014: Inclusive Development Not for All Gyanendra Pandey Conservatism and the Cult of the Individual in a Populist Age Shruti Kapila The Question of Fascism Radhika Desai Who Is the Real Narendra Modi: A ‘Communal Czar’ or an ‘Inclusive Icon’? R. Jagannathan The Rediscovery of India Faisal Devji View from Pakistan: ‘Religious’ Politics and the Democratic Political Process Beena Sarwar India under Modi: Will the Turning Point Be Followed by a Point of Return? Sudheendra Kulkarni Collapse of the Congress Zoya Hasan The Decline of the Left: A Casualty of Ideological Contradictions V. Krishna Ananth Modi’s World: Beyond Selfies and Tweets Andrew Whitehead The Media: Moving to the Right? Sevanti Ninan An Aam NRI’s View of the ‘New’ India Rashmee Roshan Lall Notes About the Book About the Authors Copyright Introduction In a few months, Narendra Modi will have completed two years in office. Vowing to build a ‘new’ India, he came to power with a massive mandate after a bitterly fought election in May 2014. His idea of an India ideologically and culturally different from the post- independent Nehruvian one has been endlessly debated. But it remains a big conundrum with no clarity as to what his big alternative vision is. So, where’s India headed under Modi? For an answer, it is important, first, to grasp the profound meaning of the 2014 verdict, which, many believe, has not been fully understood. It is true that at one level the vote was against a bumbling, ‘corrupt’ and leaderless Congress, but at a deeper level it was also a comprehensive repudiation of the concept of a benign, tolerant and liberal India in favour of a majoritarian and economically laissez-faire nation unencumbered by ‘soft’ Nehruvian baggage. But nearly two years later, the country remains precariously poised at a point where, having voted for a decisive break with the past, it is still waiting expectantly to be led to the new promised land. There’s growing scepticism as to whether Modi really has a new long-term vision; whether the talk of a ‘new’ India is simply a sales pitch. As a slogan, ‘new’ India has a nice ring, but slogans, however seductive, are no substitute for a philosophical vision. This book is an attempt, with the help of Modi’s supporters and critics alike, to analyse the Modi ‘phenomenon’, the factors behind it, and what it means for the future of India. Such a debate is important at a time when there are deep and legitimate concerns about the future of secularism amid calls for a redefinition of traditional notions of nationhood. ISSUES AT STAKE Here is a flavour of the issues raised in this volume. Meghnad Desai draws on the history of European nationalism to analyse the nature of Hindu nationalist resurgence. And though a supporter of Modi’s ‘development’ pledge, he shares concerns about his Hindutva baggage. R. Jagannathan, also a Modi supporter, tries to figure out his vision and what he represents. Is Modi really the man we see on the tin? ‘What is he like as a person as opposed to his airbrushed image? What does he really believe in as opposed to what he has said after becoming prime minister of India? What is his economics about?’ he asks. His answers to these and a series of other questions he raises add up to an intriguing portrait of a man who remains an enigma as much to his critics as to his admirers. Gyanendra Pandey examines Modi’s development agenda in the light of the new global fashion that insists on development, ‘sought at times in spite of the people, often against the interests of the poor and unprivileged: working people, the underemployed and unemployed’. And he worries that this development model is now being sought to be imposed on India’s poor and marginalized sections, which are presented as ‘backward’ and ‘primitive’ and which ‘must be drawn into “our” time – the time of development – however great the cost’. Making sense of the ‘real’ character of the RSS has been one of the most hotly debated issues of our time; and it has assumed a new urgency in view of Modi’s RSS roots and the perception that his government is being remote-controlled by Mohan Bhagwat. The RSS’s insistence that it is simply a social and cultural organization with no political agenda has long been questioned, but there is no consensus on the real nature of the beast, with the academia and the commentariat deeply divided over whether it can be characterized as a fascist organization. In a trenchant analysis, Radhika Desai declares her impatience with the ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ that have tended to characterize the debate and what she calls the ‘tediously earnest discussions of the founding ideas of the Hindutva ideologues’ that have prevented academics such as Christophe Jaffrelot from designating the RSS as a fascist organization. Drawing on the history of European fascism and her own close study of the RSS doctrine and its pattern of behaviour, she has no doubt that it is fascist in tooth and claw. The entire Sangh Parivar, including the BJP, represents well-recognized ‘fascist’ tendencies dressed up in democratic posturing, she argues. Faisal Devji casts a critical eye on the secularism-versus- communalism debate in which a ‘secular’ Congress and ‘communal’ BJP are portrayed as representing the opposite ends of Indian politics. He finds such a discourse ‘too superficial’ and unhelpful in understanding the nature of Indian polity, which is often marked by ‘greater continuity between parties … than is usually recognized to be the case’. It is in the light of such ‘continuities’ that he analyses the implications of the Modi victory and throws up some intriguing questions. Zoya Hasan looks at the causes and implications of the Congress collapse and warns that any attempt by the Congress leadership to ‘reshape itself as pale saffron in a bid to mimic the winner will only help to legitimize the right-wing political discourse, while failing to pick up the electoral dividends from this competitive wooing of the Hindu vote’. Krishna Ananth, in his critique of the decline of the Left, calls for a root-and-branch overhaul of its blinkered ideological programme and flawed tactics if it is serious about making itself relevant again in national politics. Shruti Kapila warns that the personality cult being sought to be built around Modi, which, far from making any attempt to discourage, he is actively promoting, could come to haunt the BJP besides producing ‘unforeseen consequences’ for Indian democracy. Sudheendra Kulkarni, a former BJP activist who knows the Sangh Parivar inside out, warns against its ‘anti-Muslim and anti-minorities propaganda’ and criticizes Modi for not reining it in. But, ultimately, he believes that compulsions of power and Modi’s political instincts for survival would force him to ‘distance’ his government from such elements and ‘actively curb’ them. ‘Modi is an astute politician and he knows that alienating a large section of the Indian population would create problems for his premiership – especially for his desire to win a second term in 2019,’ he writes. But will he? The role of the media, owned by big corporates, in promoting Modi has come under close scrutiny. There is a perception that, to use L.K. Advani’s memorable phrase from the Emergency, the media seems only too eager to ‘crawl’ when ‘asked to simply bend’. But Sevanti Ninan, one of India’s more sober media commentators, has a more nuanced take on it. She questions the ‘catch-all’ media label used to describe ‘a technologically diverse universe of communication’, and the tendency, then, to ascribe to it ‘a common behaviour pattern … as in, the media is turning right, or turning saffron, or enabling the ascent of Narendra Modi’. ‘But is there a pattern, and is it consistent?’ she asks in a closely argued analysis of the rapidly changing complexion of the Indian media. She finds much of the debate too simplistic which, according to her, ignores an understanding of the increasingly complex media environment. Modi’s forays into foreign policy and his bid to raise India’s profile in the international arena have impressed many, but he has also been accused of using foreign policy to project India as a ‘Hindu power’ with his nationalistic – ‘Hindu pride’ – narrative, especially in his pitch to Indian expats abroad. Andrew Whitehead, a former BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) correspondent in Delhi, offers an insight into how the West views the new Indian prime minister. Modi, he says, has ‘got off to a good start’ and is seen in most Western capitals as a leader who ‘wants to strike a new, more positive note in his country’s engagement with Western powers’ and ‘needs to be met halfway’. But this is combined with ‘an anxiety about the BJP’s at times stridently assertive religion-based nationalism’. ‘If Barack Obama has delivered the choicest of tributes, he has also voiced anxieties about communal tension and violence in India,’ he writes, alluding to the US President’s remarks on his visit to India in January 2015 on the Sangh Parivar’s hate campaigns against Muslims and Christians. Finally, what is the view from across the border in Pakistan? And what do Indian expats other than Modi’s supporters in Manhattan and Wembley make of the ‘new’ India in the making? Beena Sarwar and Rashmee Roshan Lall provide refreshingly candid perspectives that might make interesting reading for many newly nationalist Indians. Arguably, independent India has seldom been as politically and culturally polarized as it is today. Recent months have seen an alarming rise in hate speech, shrill Hindu nationalistic rhetoric, attacks on dissenting writers and academics (renowned rationalist thinker M.M. Kalburgi was shot dead for his views on idol worship and Hindu rituals, prompting many eminent writers to return their Sahitya Akademi awards) and controversies around beef eating and ‘Hindu sensitivities’. Clearly, the emerging face of Modi’s ‘new’ India is not looking pretty. Maybe it is a passing phase; but at the moment it is hard to be too optimistic. Over to the debate.
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