2014: The Election That Changed India (7 page)

The election results in December 2007 confirmed that
the Congress had self-destructed once again and Modi’s strategy had worked brilliantly. The
BJP won 117 seats, the Congress just fifty-nine. Chief minister once again, Modi was now brimming
with confidence. ‘
Gujarat ki janta ne mere virodhiyon ko jawab diya hai’
(The
people of Gujarat have answered my critics) was his firm response while flashing the victory sign.
He was now the unrivalled king of Gujarat. But like all ambitious politicians, he wanted more.

There are two dates that define Narendra
Modi’s twelve-year chief ministership of Gujarat. The first was 27 February 2002—the
Godhra train burning and the riots conferred on Modi, for better or worse, the image of a Hindutva
icon. The second was 7 October 2008. On that day, the Tata group announced that they would be
setting up the Tata Nano plant at Sanand in Gujarat. Its small car project had faced massive
opposition over land displacement at its original choice of Singur in Bengal, fuelled by Mamata
Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress. Looking for an alternative site, the Tatas plumped for Gujarat
as Modi offered them land at a very nominal rate.

That day, Ratan Tata, the Tata chairman, held a
joint press conference with Modi. ‘This is an extremely momentous day for us. We have been
through a sad experience, but so quickly we have a
new home,’ said a
delighted Tata, adding, ‘there is a good M (Modi) and a bad M (Mamata)!’

A beaming Modi responded, ‘I welcome the
Tatas. For me, this project entails nationalistic spirit.’ The truth is, it was more than just
a business deal or even ‘nationalism’ for Modi. This was a symbolic victory, the moment
when he finally got what election triumphs alone could not win for him—credibility as a
trustworthy administrator. His attitude during the 2002 riots had won him the hearts of the
traditional BJP constituency who saw him as a leader who had stood up to ‘Islamic
terrorists’ and ‘pseudo-secularists’. Being endorsed by Ratan Tata and rubbing
shoulders with him gave Modi the legitimacy he secretly craved for amongst the middle class and
elite well beyond Gujarat.

The Tatas, after all, are not just any other
corporate. They are seen as one of India’s oldest and most respected business brands, the gold
standard, in a way, of Indian business. Their Parsi roots can be traced to Gujarat. As Tata
admitted, ‘We are in our home.
Amhe anhiya na chhe
(We are from here).’ Modi,
never one to miss an opportunity, also reminded the audience of how a hundred years ago Jamshedji
Tata had helped Gujarat by donating Rs 1000 during a famine to save cattle. It was all very cosy and
convenient. Tatas desperately needed land; Modi thirsted for reinvention.

That year, Ratan Tata was chosen the CNN-IBN Indian
of the Year in the business category, principally for the manner in which he had established a
global presence for the Tatas. I asked him for his views on Modi. ‘He is a dynamic chief
minister who has been good to us and for business in general,’ was the answer. CII
2002–03 seemed far, far away.

This was, then, the moment when Modi’s
ambitions began to soar beyond Gujarat. A new self-confidence shone through, of a leader who
believed his isolation was over. In this period, Modi travelled to China and Japan, countries whose
economic and political systems he had long admired. This was also when Modi’s public relations
machinery began working overtime to make him more ‘acceptable’ across the world. The US
had denied him a visa in 2005 in the
aftermath of the riots, but his NRI
supporters, including the Overseas Friends of the BJP, began to vigorously lobby for him at Capitol
Hill.

In 2007, Modi had reportedly hired a global PR
agency, APCO, at a cost of $25,000 a month. The brief was simple—market Modi globally and sell
the Vibrant Gujarat image. Modi insisted that he had not hired any PR company for his personal image
building. But it’s true that he was undergoing a visible makeover. His speeches became more
deliberate; the chief minister’s office would release well-sculpted images of a
‘softer’ man—reading a book, playing with children, flying kites—all
designed to showcase a New Age politician. Select journalists and opinion leaders were flown to
Gandhinagar and would write glowing reports on Modi’s capabilities. Modi even got a book on
climate change ghostwritten which was released by former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. He also took
his first tentative steps towards a social media outreach by signing into Facebook and Twitter in
2009.

Always a natty dresser, he became even more
trendsetting with his Modi kurtas, designed by the Ahmedabad tailoring shop Jade Blue. At different
functions on a single day, he would always be dressed for the occasion, often changing three or four
times a day. He was always fond of pens, only now the brand in the pocket was Mont Blanc, the
sunglasses were Bulgari, the watches flashy and expensive. A former aide told me at the time,
‘Narendrabhai sees himself not just as the chief minister of Gujarat—he is the CEO of
Gujarat Inc.’

This was also a period when the Gujarat government
launched an aggressive campaign to promote tourism. In December 2009, the Amitabh Bachchan starrer
Paa
was released. The film’s producers were pushing for an entertainment tax
exemption. Bachchan met the Gujarat chief minister who readily agreed on one condition—
Amitabh would have to be a brand ambassador for the Gujarat tourism campaign. Till then, Bachchan
was seen to be firmly in the Samajwadi Party (SP) camp—his wife Jaya was a party MP, as was
his close friend Amar Singh. He had even done a ‘
UP Mein Hain Dum
’ (UP Is
Strong) campaign for the SP in the 2007 assembly election. Now, he would be identified with
‘
Khushboo Gujarat Ki
’
(The Scent of Gujarat), with
Ogilvy and Mather being hired for a massive ad blitz. Modi had scored another political point.

While Modi was repositioning himself, the BJP was
caught in a time warp. The party had chosen L.K. Advani as its prime ministerial candidate for the
2009 elections in the hope that he could be projected as a ‘tough’, decisive leader in
contrast to Manmohan Singh’s softer, gentler image. The voter, however, did not seem enthused
by the prospect of an octogenarian leader spearheading a new India. Moreover, in the aftermath of
the Indo-US nuclear deal, ‘Singh is King’ was the refrain, especially among the urban
middle classes. The UPA-led Congress scored a decisive victory in the polls. The BJP was left
wondering if it would ever return to its glory days.

Modi may not publicly admit it, but this is where he
began sensing his chances as a potential BJP prime ministerial candidate. The Advani–Vajpayee
era was drawing to a close and there was an emerging leadership vacuum. Pramod Mahajan, the man I
had expected to lead the BJP into the future, had died in tragic circumstances in 2006, killed by
his own brother. Sushma Swaraj was a crowd-puller but appeared to lack the political heft to lead
the party. Arun Jaitley was not a mass leader and needed Modi’s support to get elected to the
Rajya Sabha. Rajnath Singh as party president had just led the BJP to a defeat in the general
elections. Modi was, in a sense, the natural choice.

That Modi was now looking squarely at Delhi became
clearer in September 2011 when he launched a Sadbhavana Yatra (Peace Mission), aimed primarily at
reaching out to the Muslims. The yatra was the most direct attempt made by Modi to shed the baggage
of the post-Godhra riots. It was shadowed by controversy when Modi refused to wear a skullcap
offered to him by a Muslim cleric, Maulvi Sayed Imam. When I asked him about it later, Modi’s
answer was emphatic.
‘Topi pehenne se koi secular nahi banta!’
(You don’t
become secular by wearing a cap.) The words would cross my mind later when during the 2014 campaign,
Modi wore different headgear, including a Sikh turban, at almost every public meeting.

The larger message being sent out during the
Sadbhavana Yatra,
though, was obvious—the Hindutva icon was unwilling
to be a prisoner of his origins. He wanted to position himself as a more inclusive leader. The
overarching slogan was ‘
Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas
’ (Together with Everyone,
Development for All).

Zafar Sareshwala, a BMW car dealer in Ahmedabad, was
among those involved in the execution of the yatra. Once a fierce critic of Modi—he claims to
have suffered financial losses during the 2002 riots—he had become Modi’s Muslim
‘face’ on television. Whenever he came to Delhi, he’d bring me Ahmedabad’s
famous mutton samosas and insist that Modi had evolved into a new persona. ‘Trust me, Modi is
genuine about his desire to reach out to Muslims and has even met several ulemas in private. Even
the VHP and the BJP cadres were opposed to the yatra, but Modi did not buckle. He wants to forget
the past and only look to the future,’ Sareshwala would tell me.

On the streets of Gujarat, opinion was more divided
among minority groups. If you met someone who had been personally affected by the riots, like Baroda
university professor Dr J.S. Bandukwala, he would tell you that Modi needed to at least show some
remorse for failing to stop the violence. ‘My home was destroyed by the rioters. Not once did
Modi even try and contact me to express any sense of solidarity for our loss,’ says the
professor with quiet dignity.

In February 2012, I did a programme on the tenth
anniversary of the riots. My journey took me to Gulberg Society where sixty-nine people had been
killed, with several in the list of those missing. Among the missing was a teenage boy Azhar, son of
Dara and Rupa Mody, a devout Parsi couple. Along with my school friend, film-maker Rahul Dholakia, I
had met the Modys just after the riot flames had been doused. On the wall of their tiny house was a
picture of young Azhar with the Indian tricolour at the school Republic Day parade just a month
before the riots. Rahul had decided to make a film on the Mody family’s struggle to locate
their son. The film
Parzania
would go on to win a slew of national awards, but
couldn’t be released in Gujarat because the theatre owners feared a backlash.

I had stayed in touch with the Modys and was
shooting with them at Sabarmati Ashram. No one from the Gujarat government had even tried to help
them all these years. Their only support had come from human rights activists, such as Teesta
Setalvad, who were branded as anti-national by Modi’s men. ‘Couldn’t such a big
man like Modi come even once and speak to us?’ Rupa Mody asked me tearfully. As a father of a
lanky teenage son myself, I couldn’t hold back my tears.

For the same news documentary I also travelled to a
slum colony, Citizen Nagar, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. Here, the riot-affected families had been
literally ‘dumped’ in subhuman conditions near a large garbage mound into which the
city’s waste flowed. ‘Modi talks of Vibrant Gujarat, but for whom is this Vibrant
Gujarat, only for the rich?’ one of the locals asked me angrily. In Juhapura, a Muslim ghetto
in the heart of Ahmedabad—sometimes referred to as the city’s Gaza Strip—the mood
was equally unforgiving. ‘Modi goes everywhere marketing himself, why doesn’t he come to
Juhapura?’ was a question posed by many out there.

Interestingly, the more affluent Muslims had made
their peace with Modi. Many Gujarati Bohra Muslims are traders and businessmen—they were ready
to break bread with Modi so long as he could assure them a return to communal harmony and rapid
economic growth. In my grandmother’s building in the walled city, there were many Muslim
middle-class families who had reconciled themselves to a Modi-led Gujarat. ‘We have no problem
with Modiji so long as we get security,’ one of them told me. Many younger, educated Muslims
too seemed ready to give him a chance. ‘It’s ten years now since the riots, it’s
time to move on,’ was how a young management graduate explained his position.

And yet, how do you move on when your house has been
razed and your relatives killed? Modi has claimed that his government’s track record in
prosecuting the guilty was much better than the Congress’s in 1984. One of his ministers, Maya
Kodnani, was among those who had received a life sentence. And that Gujarat had seen no major
communal outbreak since 2002.

The truth is a little more bitter and complex. Yes,
1984 was a terrible shame, but then so was 2002. Any comparisons in death toll figures would reduce
human lives to a tragic zero-sum game—‘my riot’ versus ‘your riot’.
Yes, Gujarat has also seen more successful prosecutions, but many of these were achieved only
because of the tireless work done by a Supreme Court-supervised Special Investigating Team (SIT) and
indomitable activists like Setalvad, and not because of the efforts of the Gujarat police. Honest
police officers who testified against the government were hounded. Lawyers who appeared for the
victims, like the late Mukul Sinha, were ostracized. As for Gujarat being riot free, I can only
quote what an Ahmedabad-based political activist once told me, ‘Bhaisaab, after the big riots
of 2002, why do you need a small riot? Muslims in Modi’s Gujarat have been shown their
place.’