It has become a regular sight to see spokespersons of the Bharatiya Janata Party robustly defend Narendra Modi on the nightly television panel discussions. The more someone attacks, the more the party’s representatives shout back. The defence put up by BJP members from Gujarat is even more robust; they brook no criticism at all and do not mind going for the critic’s jugular.

But it is a thankless job. Whichever way you look at it, Mr Modi has now become a burden for the BJP and, by extension, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh. As long as he is around, he will always be targeted and the BJP will have no choice but to expend energy and resources to defend him. This distracts the party from other vital tasks such as organisation building and preparing for the general elections in 2014.
The critics have figured this out. They know that they just have to press the Modi button and the BJP will get provoked. Whether it is some finding, a statement by a commission looking into the Gujarat riots or, as seen recently, the merest hint that the BJP may project Mr Modi as a future Prime Minister, the detractors latch on to it and get going. Almost on cue, the BJP’s hackles will rise and instead of dealing with the matter with some equanimity, the party will come out with all guns blazing. For the BJP, defending Mr Modi has become a matter of honour, to the detriment of every other issue.
Interestingly, the Modi-baiters have only grown and are no longer confined to those who are battling his administration to ensure that justice is done to victims of the Gujarat pogrom. He has rivals within the party and the RSS and also among NDA allies. Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray doesn’t care for him and now, Nitish Kumar, a vital part of the NDA coalition, has declared in no uncertain terms that he doesn’t consider Mr Modi prime ministerial material. This may be due to tactical reasons — though earlier he had expressed his displeasure at the Gujarat chief minister’s attempts to seize the limelight in Bihar, now Mr Kumar himself is a hopeful for the top job in case of a Third/Fourth Front government. Mr Kumar realises that questions will be asked about his long-term relationship with the BJP, so he trots out Mr Modi’s name as a way to show that he has not sold out. For good measure, he mentions “secularism”, the one term guaranteed to get not only the BJP but also the RSS worked up. And so the game goes on, as everyone does the ritual dance to carve out a small niche for himself or herself in the next two years. For many, the name of this game is “isolate Modi at any cost”.
Mr Modi does not help his own cause because of his angular personality. Heads of government should be conciliatory and carry every one with them. Mr Modi on the other hand comes across as arrogant and pre-disposed to picking up a fight. The body language and the tone are aggressive and his reported vindictiveness, as seen in the Sanjay Joshi episode, doesn’t do him any favours. By itself that wouldn’t matter; not all politicians are cuddly and likeable. But with the Gujarat riots issue hanging over him, it worsens his case.
The BJP is caught in a bind. They cannot just let him down, given his popularity and election-winnability. On the other hand, the party risks being seen as ready to defend what happened in Gujarat in 2002 at any cost. Each small development in the long-winding enquiry into the whole grisly affair therefore is turned into an opportunity to “exonerate” Mr Modi, so that the party can move on.
Mr Modi has become an albatross around the party’s neck. In the past, several BJP worthies have quit (or have been made to quit) whenever serious charges have been hurled against them — L.K. Advani stepped down when the hawala allegations came up, Bangaru Laxman was made to resign after he was caught on camera accepting cash. Even B.S. Yeddyurappa was finally forced out once the charges against him became untenable. Why has the party not asked Mr Modi to go? It is not as if he is universally admired within the organisation; there is now sufficient evidence of dissidence in the Gujarat unit and not everyone in the upper echelons cares for him. Surely there is also a realisation that sticking by him will have a heavy political cost because the allies will drift away. Yet the BJP persists with him.
Mr Modi’s popularity in the state only partly explains this. Asking him to go will make Gujaratis (and perhaps other supporters, too) angry and the BJP doesn’t want to risk it. Why needlessly give up a good state? But Mr Modi is also troublesome for another reason — chiding him or pulling him down will mean dealing with the ghosts of Gujarat. The BJP has not been able to fully confront what happened in 2002; after Atal Behari Vajpayee’s “raj dharma” comment about Mr Modi’s obligation to take responsibility, the party has gone into complete denial about the whole affair, treating it as little more than a bugbear of hyper-active activists and sundry busybodies. That there is still the question of justice for the victims has never been considered. The Gujarat riots remain a blind spot for the party that it is not prepared to squarely look in the eye. No BJP leader has ever talked about Gujarat in any way except in relation to Mr Modi. Far from apologising or talking about justice for the victims and their relatives, the BJP chooses to ignore those horrific events, thinking that mere victory in elections is evidence that no one really cares any more about what happened in 2002 and what is happening now. Undoubtedly the same attitude will be seen in the forthcoming state elections. Mr Modi’s victory will be seen as a vindication that he remains popular. Another round of denial will begin. But the rest of the world does not see it quite the same way and will continue bringing it up. And the BJP’s articulate spokespersons will have to keep answering those allegations for a long time to come.