Is Gujarat a suitable model for India?

Narendra Modi’s victory for the third time in Gujarat is a moment of triumph that is an invitation for reflection. The question to ponder is not why Mr Modi won but what are the consequences of Mr Modi’s victory. One has to ask what it means for Gujarat and India.

Even a critic of Mr Modi has to accept that he has won democratically, but the critic still has the right to state his doubts.
Modi style of politics reflects what I call the decline of the political in Gujarat. An entire society was faced with a pre-emptive question wherein the future of Mr Modi was facilely equated with the future of Gujarat. In a way Mr Modi de-institutionalised Gujarat by turning party politics into an effete and ineffectual exercise. The BJP was consigned to the sidelines and the Congress was content with its impotence. What we watched in Gujarat was not an election or even a referendum. What was presented was an act of acclamation. Narcissism of the leader had destroyed the dynamics of local-level politics. Democratic politics is about struggle, debate, local issues and ideological rivalry. One rarely witnessed any of this in Gujarat.
The Congress, after an initial burst of politics, treated the state election as non-existent and was more content to preview Rahul Gandhi as its leader for 2014. It was as if two scenarios for the future — Mr Gandhi and Mr Modi as prime ministerial candidates — met in the present called Gujarat. What one saw was a trailer for the future, rather than a contest for the present.
The results might also be troubling in another way. It reflected a middle-class majoritarian consensus which seems to have little space for minorities, tribals or dalits. The latter three voted for the Congress having virtually no other option. Reacting to the results, the media virtually anointed
Mr Modi as Prime Minister. Gujarat felt that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Morarji Desai were not treated fairly by Delhi and recognises this as a moment for redressal. What the media often forgets is that being chief minister and Prime Minister are two entirely separate games. The scenarios, the expectations, the grammar of politics and governance are radically different.
But one has to acknowledge the pre-emptive nature of the political rivalry being set up. Mr Modi is not quite the darling of the RSS which might want a more modest pracharak. Second, while the BJP cadres might see him as a match-winner, the BJP leadership may be wary of Mr Modi as a leader of any coalition. Third, while the Modi-Rahul battle creates a lovely media event, the question is whether the inner dynamics of the two parties is moving in that direction. Do we need such a dynastic continuity? Mr Gandhi in his speeches in Gujarat invoked a family genealogy, but are genealogy and ancestry the real dynamics of electoral politics?
I must confess, the Gujarat election did show some potential for complexity. The tribal vote for instance did not go in a predictable way. The divide between rural and urban and the question of drought need serious study. Talking to people in Gujarat one senses doubt, uncertainty and critique which did not get converted into systematic politics. The ordinary man sees specific local questions but many of these did not get aggregated into a macro question about Mr Modi’s leadership. What is also clear is that tribals no longer vote automatically for the Congress.
There are deeper questions as we shift levels from state to Centre.
Mr Modi might be an effective chief minister, but the prospect of Mr Modi as future Prime Minister demands an act of political and ethical interrogation. The Prime Minister is a consensual figure. S/he knits together minority and majority, mainstream and marginal. Mr Modi lacks this coalitional power and the personality it demands. A man operating a consensus cannot act through an imperial diktat.
A Prime Minister has to be a leader. S/he has to have the skill to adjust and convince others. One thinks of Atal Behari Vajpayee or Indira Gandhi in this context. But Mr Modi is uneasy with difference and vindictive with dissent. While some would argue the same about Indira Gandhi, at a crisis moment she always proved her leadership. In fact, one of the worries of Mr Modi’s third term is that he might be vengeful towards dissenters.
It is not Mr Modi alone one is looking at. One has to ask if the Gujarat model of growth is good for India. Mr Modi’s model of urbanisation has been beneficial to corporations. One also has to ask whether the model of urbanisation being proposed is a middle-class one or does it have place for nomads, ethnics and pastoral groups. One recognises that Mr Modi’s Gujarat is friendly to business. The question is whether it is also friendly to other forms of livelihood. One needs an independent socio-ecological audit of Gujarat to decide if it makes sense for India. The media slogan that what Gujarat does today India will do tomorrow is a bit pre-mature.
This brings us to the subtle question one has to ask — whether a growth model or a schema for urbanisation is adequate for a vision of decent society.
Mr Modi’s rhetoric for growth and security might create a technocratic efficiency, but are we ready to accept technocratic authoritarianism? Authoritarianism may suit the Chinese but it does not make sense for a plural society like India.
One has to also ask for the negative consequences of Mr Modi’s growth model. How does one look at urbanisation and its discontents? Are memories of violence so easily eraseable? One wonders where civil society fits into Mr Modi’s model of a just society. Should models of growth also have a place for dissenting alternatives as a side bet for the future?
Mr Modi’s idea of growth is not quite a vision for a nation. It lacks an ethical and aesthetic power. Mr Modi evokes iconography of intolerance. He has to understand Sardar Patel’s idea of governance and Mahatma Gandhi’s ability to link ethics and politics. The irony is that it is the value frames of the Gujarat of the past that nullify his claim to the future.

The writer is a social science nomad