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Edit September 27, 2013 12:04:13 AM |
By FPJ Bureau
Edit September 27, 2013 12:04:13 AM |
By FPJ Bureau
When Modi deciphers Gandhi
He has
used his old trick to introduce a connection between his unabashed
personal desire to be the prime minister with a 63-year-old Gandhian
goal
There
are enough indicators in Modi’s track record to assess the ruthless
manner with which he deals with his political opponents. Indeed, there
is a long list of persons who have suffered thus at his hands in
Gujarat. Besides, this approach is completely in sync with the political
approach of the Sangh Parivar that has pushed for his propulsion to the
national centre-stage
One of the qualities of the Gujarat
chief minister, Narendra Modi, that endears him to his loyal fan
following is the panache with which he delivers the punchline in his
speeches. In his quest for the prime minister’s post, he has discovered
that he cannot get this coveted prize unless he finishes the Congress
Party. So, he exhorts his followers to create an India that is free of
it. For those who are believers in his credo, this is an endearing
thought.
In one of his customary oratorical flourishes, he has drawn a link
between a concept enunciated by the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi
at the time of Independence in 1947 to his current quest for power. Let
us refresh our memory about the father of nation’s idea. He had said:
”Though split into two, India having attained political independence
through means provided by the Indian National Congress, the Congress ,in
its present shape and form, i.e., as a propaganda vehicle and
parliamentary machine, has outlived its use. India has still to attain
social, moral and economic independence in terms of its seven hundred
thousand villages as distinguished from its cities and towns.
The
struggle for the ascendancy of civil over military power is bound to
take place in India’s progress towards its democratic goal. It must be
kept out of unhealthy competition with political parties and communal
bodies. For these and other similar reasons, the A. I. C .C. resolves to
disband the existing Congress organization and flower into a Lok Sevak
Sangh under the following rules, with power to alter them as occasion
may demand.”
Now we can be generous and excuse the Gujarat chief minister if he has
not gone into the fine print of this statement, and has simply latched
on to the idea that the Congress had outlived its use in 1947. Putting
two and two together, he has cleverly envisioned that if something was
not done in the wake of Independence, then in a spirit of the cliché
better late then never, it would be good to achieve the ‘ Gandhian goal
to finish the Congress,’ now and by that logic, help him realise his
dream of becoming the prime minister. We can see that Modi has used his
old trick to introduce this connection between his unabashed personal
desire to be the prime minister with a 63-year-old Gandhian goal. This
is a well-practised technique. Much in the same way he used to tell his
Gujarat audiences in 2002 that if he won, they would celebrate, and if
he lost, then Mian Musharraf would be celebrating. This clearly skips
the reality. Neither was Musharraf a factor in the Gujarat elections,
nor is the late Mahatma Gandhi much of a revered figure for the Sangh
Parivar that they should mourn for his unfulfilled dream. After all,
this was not the only dream the father of nation had, which has remained
unfulfilled.
But this distortion is not the only problem when Modi deciphers Gandhi
for us. All of us have lofty, impractical ideas that we keep expressing.
The beauty of the Mahatma was that he was a prolific writer and most of
his thoughts have survived in the collected works. He used to think
aloud, and this idea that the Congress should disband itself and
transform into a Lok Sevak Sangh to ensure that ” the struggle for the
ascendancy of civil over military power ….India’s progress towards its
democratic goal… must be kept out of unhealthy competition with
political parties and communal bodies” makes it clear that the nature of
the party’s basic commitments was not to change.
But when Modi talks of a Congress free- India, he is clearly rooting for
dictatorship. He is trying to sell a dream that should he emerge
victorious in the 2014 elections, as his convinced supporters tell us,
then there would be no opposition party. He carefully chooses his words,
he is making it clear from the roooftops that he wants a Congress
free-India. He is not suggesting or asking the people to merely defeat
the Congress in the polls, but he is exhorting his supporters to ‘finish
the Congress.” He is actually talking of the end of democracy through a
ballot, and this is essential fascism.
It would be injurious to our democratic health, if we condone this
excess as a mere election rhetoric. There are enough indicators in
Modi’s track record to assess the ruthless manner with which he deals
with his political opponents. Indeed, there is a long list of persons
who have suffered thus at his hands in Gujarat. Besides, this approach
is completely in sync with the political approach of the Sangh Parivar
that has pushed for his propulsion to the national centrestage. It is
not for nothing that the Sangh is described as fascist and
fundamentalist.
Interestingly, democratic elections have been held in this country for
the last six decades. The Congress has been one of the major parties
that has been in the fray right from the first general elections. No
one, including some of its fiercest opponents like the socialists Ram
Manohar Lohia and George Fernandes have ever used these expressions in
their anti-Congress discourse. This is because they were all
anti-Congress, but they were all committed to the values of democracy.
The delicacy of the language is the essence of democratic discourse. You
have every right to be critical, but then there is no need to be
inimical or venomous. The problem when Modi deciphers Gandhi is that the
soul of the discourse is not in the decoding process. When Gandhi
wanted the Congress to disband, he was setting a higher purpose for it,
but when Modi seks the same goal, he is guided by narrow personal goals
of political power. Gandhi wanted the Congress to shun power for a
higher goal, but with Modi it is quite the opposite. This is something
that reminds one about the devil quoting the scripture.
