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Moditva and Gujarat’s decade of authoritarian rule

29 February 2012

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Gujarat’s decade of authoritarian rule

Girish Patel

February 29, 2012

BJP president Nitin Gadkari’s projection of Narendra Modi as one of the party’s prime ministerial candidates for 2014 should be taken up as a challenge by all those who value democracy, secularism and human rights. In the 2002-12 decade, the Gujarat chief minister has presided over the worst carnage of Muslims and embarked upon a path of soulless capitalist growth.

The 10 years of his rule are both a continuity and distinctive. When he became chief minister, Gujarat was already saffronised by Hindutva forces and had a fast growing economy.

Modi further brutalised the process of communalisation and aggravated the nature of capitalist growth in the state. He has taken advantage of both and established himself as "dharma-rakshak" and "vikas-purush".
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Just look at the distinctive features of Modi’s style of governance. Militant Hindutva is the basic principle of that style as is evident from the manner in which he exploited the Godhra train tragedy and allowed, or failed to contain, the mass killings of Muslims.

He abused POTA and raised the bogey of ’ISI conspiracy’ to allow the murder of alleged terrorists in fake encounters. This was successful in terrorizing Muslims and keeping Hindus in a state of perpetual fear.

The majoritarian communalism - euphemistically called ’cultural-nationalism’ by the BJP - has been a permanent fixture on Modi’s agenda.

He does not admit his government’s failure and would not show regret even for what was done to the Muslims in 2002. He simply does not talk about the 2002 riots as if the horrible events never happened.

The Indian constitution, for Modi, is only a form, not substance. For him, it is only an institutional arrangement for electing rulers, and not a socio-economic charter guaranteeing life, liberty, equality, fraternity and human dignity. Hence, Modi’s only focus is on how to win elections and establish his supremacy.

’Moditva’ considers democracy as equivalent to majority rule and nothing more. The democratic values of openness, dialogue, tolerance, dissent, mutual respect and respect for human rights have no place or value for Modi.

For him, winning elections is the only source of constitutional legitimacy. For every irregularity, impropriety, illegality, criminality and unconstitutionality, Modi’s answer is: "People have elected me."

He thus uses the democratic machinery to justify and legitimise violations of the constitution, collapse of the criminal justice system and denial of justice to the victims of the 2002 riots.

In a manner reminiscent of Louise XIV of France who said, ’I am the State,’ the Gujarat CM has concentrated all power in his own hands. His ministers are dummies, the state assembly is dysfunctional and all BJP MLAs are his captive audience. The police and the bureaucracy have become ’His Majesty’s’ most faithful servants.

The total identification of six crore Gujaratis with his individual personality is yet another feature of Modi’s style of governance. "Gujarat is Modi and Modi is Gujarat" is the implicit slogan for whoever attacks or criticises the chief minister.

The CM continues to spend crores to project himself through all kinds of propaganda and publicity. Modi claims to champion the cause of Gujarat’s ’asmita’, thus arousing in the people feelings of provincialism. He seems incapable of seeing the Gujarat society as consisting of different social sections, each with real problems of its own.

By talking of the state as a homogeneous whole, he wants to bypass the problems of injustice, inequality, deprivation, discrimination, backwardness and marginalization that widespread in society. By espousing formal equality, Modi ignores
substantial inequality.

His model of economic growth has ensured that a few industrialists of his preference are the main beneficiaries of his policies. They are given lands, natural resources, state incentives and concessions at the cost of agriculture and social services.

Now, with Gadkari’s announcement that Modi was a potential prime ministerial candidate, Moditva is already on the nation’s horizon. Shall we allow it to take over the entire country?

(The author is an eminent lawyer and human rights activist.)

P.S.

The above article from Daily News and Analysis is reproduced here for educational and non commercial use