On the other
hand, he may be just the medicine that India needs. He governs with a strong hand because one
must in order to overcome the culture of corruption that stifles change in
India. Roads are not improved even when
the money is spent. It is all stolen
instead. When governments can build
roads, the rest naturally follows.
Fear mongering
is silly today. Performance will shape
his policies and outcomes will give him reelection. In the meantime the
congress party has a well-earned holiday and gets to clean house.
What is really
happening is that the Indian political system is wonderfully maturing to
produce a superior political system that will sort out the wheat from the chaff
however long it may take. Goods people
are rising through this system and reading about the personalities makes good
press.
Why
India’s New PM May Bring Disaster to India
By Subir Sinha, University of London |
May 17, 2014
Last Updated: May 17,
2014 8:05 am
Opposition Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) leader and India's next prime minister Narendra Modi greets
the gathering at the home of his 90-year-old mother in Gandhinagar, in the
western Indian state of Gujarat, Friday, May 16, 2014. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)
Narendra Modi and his
party, the BJP, have won the Indian election by a unexpectedly massive margin –
securing an outright majority. Congress and outgoing Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh have conceded defeat and congratulated Modi.
Given than the elections
have been declared “free and fair”, does this apparent magnitude of popular
support for Modi not suggest that the fears of people like me, who recently
signed a letter expressing concern at this prospect, are unjustified?
Modi appears to have been
democratically elected. But, as his record in Gujarat indicates, he has
exhibited a propensity to wield power in an undemocratic way and for
undemocratic ends. Within his own party, he prevents emergence of independent
leadership, making sure that potential rivals are politically finished. He
encourages defections from other parties, rewarding defectors with party
tickets, undermining the legitimacy of opposition.
He undermines key
constitutional bodies: whether agencies investigating the 2002 massacres or
extra-judicial killings in Gujarat, or the Election Commission. He centralises
power, once holding 14 portfolios in the state cabinet. He talks of “uprooting”
opponents and “erasing” opposing political parties, and his supporters promise
exile and incarceration to critics.
The cult of personality
around him likens him to Hindu gods: this militates against the principle of
political equality at the basis of democracy. He does not open himself to any
critical questioning, about the “Gujarat model” or about the massive finances
spent by his campaign. Gujarat, which he holds up as a model of “good
governance”, has the highest levels of violence against those seeking to use
the “right to information” to find out about the activities of his government.
Religious intolerance
Despite claims that
Gujarat’s Muslims are economically well-off and that there has been no major
anti-Muslim conflagration there since 2002, opinion polls suggest that 80 to
90% of minorities – Muslims but also Christians and Sikhs – have voted against
Modi. His actions against religious conversion and his militant opposition to
Christian missionaries have caused him visa troubles in Europe and the US, who
see him as a threat to religious freedoms.
He “softened” his image
since 2009 after the BJP lost badly in the general elections and it was felt
within the BJP that this was because they were too closely identified with 2002
and the Hindu far right. After this point, Modi converted from Hindu warrior to
“development” messiah. But recall that he was the head of the BJP in Surat when
riots, with large-scale use of rapes, broke out there in 1992. As chief
minister, he handed over control of events in 2002 to the far-right associates
of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal. He never once visited victims
of the riots.
Modi’s speechs now talk of
“India First”, but until recently they were peppered with taunts towards
Muslims, notoriously: “Hum paanch, hamaare pachees” (We are five and we have 25
children – implying that Muslims plan to secretly create a Muslim majority in
India, a staple of the Hindu far right).
Modi did not spend central
funds for scholarships for poor Muslim youth. Not one Muslim contested
elections on his party’s ticket for the state legislature, despite being 10 to
15% of the population.
In Gujarat today Muslims
cannot buy or rent property in Hindu majority areas. Recently, Modi’s
ex-associates in the Hindu far-right have called for forced eviction of Muslims
from such neighbourhoods. Influential party operators have threatened to send
his critics “to Pakistan”.
To polarise Hindus for
Modi, his right-hand man Amit Shah advised supporters to use the vote as a
“revenge” against Muslims and the parties they support, and described
Muslim-populated areas as “dens of terrorists”.
Shah gave seats to those
accused in the communal violence that broke out in UP before the elections.
Modi never contradicted the anti-minority voices in his party. Indeed, in his
speeches he often equated Hinduism with nationalism and Islam with terrorism
and illegal migration. His ultimate dog whistle to his supporters was that,
while he openly wore the headgear of every community in the country, he
publicly refused the Muslim skull cap.
Women’s rights
Why be concerned about
women’s rights when Modi has had the strong support of women in his state?
Well, what he says on women’s issues is puzzling. Modi told the Wall Street
Journal in 2012 that high malnutrition among Gujarat’s girls was because they
were “figure-conscious”.
He made political capital
from the high levels of violence against women in Delhi. But video-recording of
gang rapes and the circulation of the videos marked both the 1992 and 2002
riots in Gujarat when he held office. Maya Kodnani, now in prison for
overseeing the evisceration of 96 people, including pregnant women, was his
minister of women and children’s welfare: what murderous irony! His close
associate, Babu Bajrangi of the Hindu far-right Bajrang Dal, admits impunity in
“rescuing (kidnapping) Hindu girls in love with Muslim men and forcing them to
renounce their romance under duress. That both figures are in jail is despite
Modi’s efforts to protect them. His commitment to patriarchy are evident both
in his abandonment of his wife without, as far as we know, any maintenance or
other rights, and in the use of state intelligence agencies for surveillance of
a young women on the behest of her father.
The number of seats the BJP
itself gets, and Modi’s incentives and ability to manage the far-right of his
political base, will be key in determining how far these agendas will be
pursued. That along with the vigilance and opposition of those who find their
rights, lives and livelihoods under threat.
Subir Sinha studied
History at the University of Delhi (BA) and Political Science at Northwestern
University (MS, PhD), and has taught at Northwestern University and the
University of Vermont. His research interests are institutional change,
sustainable development, social movements, state-society relations in
development, and South Asian politics, with a current focus on decentralised
development in India, early postcolonial planning, and on the global
fishworkers’ movement. He does not work for, consult to, own shares in or
receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this
article, and has no relevant affiliations. This article was originally
published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
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