Four out of five “topmost” BJP leaders against Modi….

Narendra Modi’s extensive and efficient PR machinery has created the impression that there is a “wave” running across the country in his support. Well, we’ll have to wait and see if that is true. But in the meantime, while Rajnath Singh and his bosses at RSS push ahead to make Modi the party’s PM candidate, a quick check at the top leadership of the party shows just how much support Modi has.

Take the five seniormost leaders of the party. There is the tallest of them all, Advani. Tallest, because even today, he is the one leader in the party who can unify the entire party. He’s the one – and not Vajpayee- who made the party what it is today, even though by pursuing a Hindutva agenda (read: Babri demolition) that he cannot be too proud of. That’s why partymen still refer to the time gone by as the “Advani-Vajpayee” era. Well, Advani is the biggest opponent of Modi. As per a story breaking now on ndtv.com, Advani has apparently cautioned his party that Modi will be a “disaster” if made the PM nominee.

Take the 2^nd seniormost leader of the party, Sushma Swaraj. I am rating her ahead of Arun Jaitley, because she is an “elected” leader, elected by the people directly…..And of course because she is the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha. I am also pitching her way ahead of Rajnath Singh, who everyone knows is a lightweight, a paper-pusher for the RSS. Well, Sushma is clearly opposed to Modi as well, going as far as to say that she wont be able to even perform her duties as the Leader of Opposition.

Both Advani and Sushma Swaraj fancy their chances at becoming the PM in case the BJP/NDA were to get even a half-decent score in 2014. Well, they are right. Both have a better chance of attracting allies, including importantly JD(U), than Modi has. And besides, for Advani, this surely has to be the last time he can take a shot at the top job. Besides, its not as if Advani is in frail health. He is alert physically and mentally, and capable of taking on many younger than him in the party!

Then take Yashwant Sinha, Finance Minister in the NDA government, head of the Standing Committee on Financial matters, and a strong voice in the party. For reasons which look specious (Modi’s appointment will take attention away from Congress’s corruption problmems etc), Yashwant Sinha also doesn’t want Modi’s candidate pre-announced. Why? Is he just being prescient about his party’s prospects if that were to happen, or is he also in the running in the PM’s race?

Then there is Murli Manohar Joshi, the veteran Parliamentarian and the head of the Parliamentary Accounts Committee. Given his stature in UP, Joshi has to be taken as one of the five seniormost leaders of the party. Given his aggressive Hindutva stand, its surprising he is opposing Modi. But the reason could well be a matter as simple as Modi wanting to contest from Varanasi, Joshi’s constituency. It could also be that Joshi looks at Modi as someone who’s out to usurp his Ayodhya and Babri credentials. Whatever the reason, Joshi is reportedly not keen to have Modi’s elevation announced now.

The only leader from the top five who supports Modi to the hilt is Arun Jaitley. But lets be honest here. Jaitley is a Rajya Sabha member, and whatever one may say, a Rajya Sabha leader has only that much power in the party.

Most of the leaders supporting Modi vociferously are lightweights like Ravi Shankar Prasad, Venkaiah Naidu (the party doesn’t even have a chance in his home state of AP), Nitin Gadkari and the likes. But they really don’t matter politically.

The real support for Modi comes from the RSS. Had it not been for the RSS, there would have been far more visisble opposition to Modi. But once the RSS passes a diktat, its pretty much considered done. We know what the RSS’s ideology is. Aggressive Hindutva, front opposition to the minorities, an exclusivist agenda, a focus on Brahmins and other upper castes, and an urban bias…..fits in perfectly with Modi’s persona.

So Rajnath may well ride roughshod over his seniormost colleagues, at the behest of the RSS, but he runs the risk of splitting the party. Think that’s not possible? Think again. Remember even the Congress, the party unified by a single family as the BJP alleges, has split several times in the past. Whether the party splits or not remains to be seen, but it has to be taken as a possibility. Suddenly, the “galaxy of leaders” that the BJP was so proud of, looks instead like just a bunch of self-serving power brokers. Suddenly the internal competition looks like an internal civil war. A split is eminently possible.

The real truth is that Modi will surely be appointed his party’s PM candidate. And soon at that. But this will be only done to tow the RSS’s line. It’s surely not reflective of the mood of the party….

Narendra Modi’s A for Abuse, B for bunkum….

In yet another speech yesterday, Narendra Modi A for Abused the Congress (his “ABCD of corruption” jab) and sputtered out more B for Bunkum. In every speech he delivers, he does the same. Makes me wonder if this really is the limit of his oratory and politics, or if he is even capable of dreaming up a vision for India.

I have not heard one constructive word from him ever. Since he (or his party) has shown a preference for the US-like Presidential system of elections, in which opposing candidates face off with each other, why doesn’t he follow the core ideology of that system? And tell us what his vision for India is? But Modi runs away from such things. Is it because he doesn’t even have a vision for India? A mock website created some time back bearing his name as its URL asked the visitor to click on a button “For more on my vision” – when the visitor tried doing that, the button would jump to some other place on the screen. It was impossible to know Modi’s vision! It appeared a little premature then, but now I am convinced Modi really doesn’t have a vision for the country.

I know Modi’s supporters will jump up in extreme anger and point to the “Gujarat model” as being his vision for India. Modi will make all of India like Gujarat…..blah blah blah. But what exactly has been Gujarat’s success? What is a stronger achievement – a state that has grown at some 10% per annum over the last 10 years – impressive surely – or a country that has grown at 8%+ over the same period? Even the most ordinary person knows that the country’s growth rate is the “average” of the high performing states and the low performing ones. By mathematical certaintly, the country’s average growth will be lesser than that of a good performing state’s. To prove this point – and only Modi’s strongest supporters need such proof – even if Modi became PM, the country would grow slower than Gujarat. If that happened, would Modi be called a bad PM? Or the CM better than the PM? Besides, Gujarat is hardly alone when it comes to fast growth. Maharashtra, Haryana, TN, AP, Delhi, from amongst the bigger states, that have all been growing rapidly. Gujarat’s position still remains 5^th in terms of GDP. What about social indicators? We know the sad story here – whether it is about HDI or women’s health or child issues – Gujarat fares poorly. So what is this Gujarat model really?

I am now also convinced that Modi only delivers “one-way speeches”, in which he can say anything and run away without having to answer tough questions, but never gives any “one-on-one interviews” in which he can be questioned on specifics. Apparently, Modi has only given three interviews so far. One of those was to Karan Thapar, who everyone knows brooks no bunkum from anyone, in which Modi walked out because he couldn’t handle the questions! If Modi is half as much of a leader as he pretends to be, why would he walk out of a tough situation? The BJP mocks the PM for not speaking much, but everyone knows that he is one of the foremost economists in the world, respected even by leaders of the G-20. But what about Modi, who otherwise speaks so much, but never gives one-on-one interviews?

In fact, I am now convinced that Modi knows very little of what people from his state are famous for – business. When he said “China spends 20% of its GDP on education” to a bunch of Fergusson college students, it wasn’t just a casual mistake. No Gujarati would make such a fundamental blunder. Modi made it because he simply doesn’t understand %, or maybe GDP, or education, and most certainly the three together. Equally when he makes illiterate comments on the Rupee, he cannot even begin to scratch the surface of the complex economic theories that determine forex values. His shallowness comes right through.

This is why Modi focuses on only two things. The first is to Abuse the Congress. That’s easy to do. Abusing comes easily to politicians, especially those without any positive agenda of their own. Modi is just better at oratory and so his abuses sound nattier, but they are, at the end of the day, just abuses. Why, Modi has even abused Nehru, forgetting even basic courtesies to leaders of that era (what’s courtesy?!), for guess what…..the falling rupee (http://tinyurl.com/o5l3wpa)!

The second is to do Bunkum, especially around religion. He is exceedingly comfortable with this. For when he refuses to integrate Muslims (and Christians and others) into his politics, it is bunkum. When he refuses to acknowledge and appreciate their culture, even refusing to wear their symbolic skull cap, its bunkum. And when he calls himself a Hindu nationalist, not an Indian nationalist, ignoring the diversity of India, its bunkum. When he uses Sardar Patel’s name, ignoring the great leader’s views on the RSS, its bunkum. And when he refuses to apologize for Godhra and the riots that followed in his state, its again bunkum. His entire politics is about bunkum.

So here is a fervent appeal to Modi. Keep doing the two things that you do very well. We want to hear more of both, sir. That way, we get to know you better. When we heard you on the Food Security Bill for example (for which you abused the Congress), we learnt that in fact, you would like to give more, and cheaper than the Congress gave. The protests were all bunkum! And when you spoke on India’s border skirmishes with Pakistan and China, we came to know that you would take a hard line, meaning we should prepare ourselves for a conflagration at the borders during your tenure. And when we heard you at Fergusson college, we understood that every number you dish out is bunkum. The more you speak sir, the more we get to know you. So please do speak more.

The real truth is that forget the Congress’s vision expostulated as ABCD by Modi yesterday. This may or may not be true but what is definitely true is Modi’s A and B – Abuse and Bunkum. That’s become the defining features of the BJP’s presumptive PM candidate….

Vinod Rai must be squirming over TRAI recco on 2G reserve fees….

The man who many say destroyed India’s telecom sector – with brazen intrusions into policy making and bizarre claims of “notional” loss – must be squirming upon reading today’s newspapers. TRAI has recommended a further cut in 2G reserve fees – the starting point for auctions – by up to 60% compared to the March 2013 levels in a desperate bid to start auctions and allocate spectrum. At the newly recommended levels, the reserve fee is now just a little over half of the Rs 14000 crores for 5 MHz of spectrum in the 1800 Mhz band set for auctions first held in Nov 2012.

Vinod Rai – the CAG who brought out the 2G “scam” – could still argue that the reserve fee itself is higher than the Rs 1651 crores final fee the government decided to take from telcos in 2008. True, but does he realize how the higher spectrum charges have changed the contours of the telecom industry? Telecom tariffs have grown by anywhere between 20-50% since the new auctions policy came about. The price of expensive spectrum is being paid by the subscriber. So in effect, assuming that spectrum auctions succeed now, the government is raking in the moolah, at the cost of the subscriber. Now there is nothing wrong in this model per se, but should policy be decided by the government of the day, or by the CAG?

When successive auctions in Nov 2012 and March 2013 failed, Vinod Rai said something to the effect that the big telecom companies had formed “cartels” and decided not to bid so as to pressurize the government into lowering reserve fees. That’s a convenient argument, without Rai offering any proof of the same. But it’s quite a desperate argument really, because if anything, telecom companies are the most worried today about renewing their current licenses, with their expiry date – Sept 2014 – fast approaching.

Vinod Rai’s arguments were always flawed. First, he benchmarked the 2G loss on 3G, knowing fully well that 3G is an advanced technology used to ferry data at high speeds, for which consumers would be willing to pay higher rates. That aside, what has the 3G experience been? India has somewhere around 35 million subscribers of 3G (900+ million on 2G). Data accounts for less than 7% of telecom revenues (global average: 20% or so). Indians – some 150 million of them – are condemned to use slow-speed 2G to fulfill their data needs because they cannot afford 3G. Clearly, 3G spectrum rates were too high; it was a flawed auction. Yet Vinod Rai made that one of the benchmarks. Second, he used an even more bizarre benchmark for calculating the loss. He claimed that since Swan, Unitech and Tata had sold off stakes in their companies at much higher valuations after acquiring cheap spectrum (Swan: 45% for Rs 4200 crores; Unitech: Rs 6200 crores for 65%), this higher amount reflected the true value of the licenses. This is plain silly. Everyone knows that spectrum is only one of the ingredients in telecom. There are thousands of crores of equipment to be procured, another few thousands of operational expenses to be incurred, and many more thousands of crores of losses to be borne in the initial years (which can extend to more than 15 years, as in the case of Vodafone). Where are all these expenses going to come from? The higher valuations that Rai used led to capital inflows into the company, so that it could be deployed for all this. The promoters of Swan or Unitech did not take any money home. They didn’t make any profits, forget windfall profits. The auditor – a Harvard educated man I am told – did not understand this simple thing? And third, Vinod Rai used a loose offer made by Singapore Telecom (which it later withdrew) to the PM apparently (is this how this country does business) to value 2G higher.

Vinod Rai is now safely retired. He is a hero for many, most certainly for the BJP which spun his notional loss into a “national” loss. Imagine the legacy of Vinod Rai. First, as auditor, he didn’t understand basic accounting. Then he inspired othes, including the likes of – believe it or not – CBI to become accountants and put their own estimates of loss out. Then his pathetic report provided the germ of the idea for Anna Hazare’s “my way or the highway” April 2011 fasts/farce. And later, he virtually compelled the Supreme Court to take one of its worst economic decisions ever – canceling all 122 licenses issued by Raja. What wrong had they done in following the country’s policy? Collectively, the CAG, CBI, Anna and the SC hit at the very credibility of this government. Why it could not defend itself more strongly is something I can’t understand. Why they could not back Kapil Sibal who said “no loss” because the government “wanted to keep spectrum cheap” is something only they can explain. The government cowered under the attack, giving the impression that it was guilty. Our insane, illiterate and irresponsible media feasted on all this, amplifying the “tamasha”, forcing PCI Chairman Markandey Katju to comment (maybe in a different context) that journalists in India were “mediocre” and they should take qualification tests before being entering the profession. And our people, fed on a daily dose of Ekta Kapoor’s hyper-sensational dramas, lapped up the gossip without understanding one word of it. The telecom sector in the meanwhile crashed. Airtel’s net profits have plummeted from some Rs 7744 crores in 2008-9 to Rs 5096 crores in 2012-13; its market capitalization has been dented more than an accident-hit car.

The real truth is that TRAI has made a sensible recommendation of lowering reserve fees significantly. Should reserve fees – the starting point for bidding – have been set even lower? I believe so, since a low fee would attract more bidders and help determine final prices more realistically. But even with what it has done now, TRAI will restore some sanity – which Vinod Rai destroyed – to the telecom sector….

Forget the country, Modi can’t even unite his own party….

BJP President Rajnath Singh has reportedly told his RSS bosses that Modi will be anointed the party’s PM candidate by next week (today’s TOI). Several disturbing reports about Modi and his government (the Vanzara letter, the sting tapes, Governor’s return of the Lok Ayukta Bill) last week appear to have only egged on the party boss to hasten the announcement. I suspect Rajnath Singh thinks that the reports have been planted by Modi’s opponents, and in retort, he wants to snub them with this announcement. Well, god bless the BJP! Or rather, Ram bless the BJP!

Rajnath Singh may succeed in using the RSS to mute out Advani and Sushma Swaraj, but are these two the type who will happily take an instruction of this type? Sushma Swaraj has said that she will not be able to function as Leader of Opposition if this announcement were made. Why? Would she morally feel unable to look other MPs in their eyes for the kind of leader her party has chosen? Or is it that the announcement will publicly tell the world that her chances of becoming the PM are over? Considering her seniority, she is bound to be given a ministerial position if Modi wins…..will she be willing to take the job under Modi? I doubt it.

And then what about Shivraj Singh Chouhan, struggling (yes, especially after the Congress hinted that they might prop up Jyotiraditya Scindia as their CM candidate) to retain power in MP. As per a story in ET yesterday, “he made it clear that in Madhya Pradesh at least, the communal polarisation that accompanies Modi’s name would be detrimental to the party’s prospects”. Chouhan doesn’t want Modi’s name announced before the assembly elections. Surprising isn’t it? MP has a Muslim population of less than 5%. The Hindus in MP are solidly behind the BJP’s Hindutva rhetoric. And even in MP, Modi is a problem? Why? Or again, is it a case of the CM wanting to keep his chances of becoming PM open, especially if, as expected, the BJP falls way short of a majority on its own? Like Modi did in Gujarat, if Shivraj Singh Chouhan wins MP for the 3^rd time in a row, wouldn’t he suddenly become a strong contender for the PM?

And then what’s wrong with Manohar Parrikar? This man was singing paeans of Modi just a few months back. It was in his state that Modi was anointed the campaign chief. What was his need to make the statement he made, that Godhra was a blot on Modi and he could have handled the situation better? Why is it that BJP leaders change their tune, and suddenly try to become liberal when they speak with foreign media? Are they caught in some kind of a moral trap, where they are forced to take antediluvian positions on social/religious issues inside the country, and so they try to burnish their image when they speak with outsiders? Hadn’t the BJP also told the US, back in 2008, that they actually supported the Indo-US nuclear deal (Wikileaks), when they had already decided to vote against it in Parliament? Why couldn’t they tell the US on its face that they didn’t like the deal? But such double-speak has become quite the character of the party. One thing for us locals; another for the outsider!

Of course, the RSS manages to mute all criticism of Modi. Shivraj Singh Chouhan has reportedly denied the ET report. So has Manohar Parrikar! Some internal democracy this!

In any case, the point I want to make is that Modi has been a hugely divisive leader even within the BJP. As is true of his fan base which is loyal and limited, but vocal, here too, he has a fiercely loyal but small base of leaders supporting him. They infest TV studios and create the impression that Modi is THE man. But every now and then, a Yashwant Sinha and a Shatrughan Sinha embarrassingly creep out of the woodworks. Not to talk of the scores of other party leaders who are waiting for the picture to become clearer before they announce their stands.

Modi cant unite his own party. Not surprisingly, he cannot unite his allies. Forget the JD(U). Even the Shiv Sena, one of its few staunch allies of the BJP, has supported Sushma Swaraj for PM in the past. That’s probably why Modi is trying to cozy up to the MNS. There is also fire brewing in the party’s relations with the Shiromani Akali Dal, with Modi refusing to accommodate Sikhs migrants in Kutch. What is worse is that Sikhs in the UK have appealed that the UK should not allow Modi into their country (http://tinyurl.com/n8859fk). Looks like the “anti-minority” tag that sticks irremovably to Modi has now been extended to Sikhs as well. Forget the minorities, even those strongly opposed to the Congress, be it the  SP and BSP in UP, the TMC or Left in WB, Jagan or TRS in AP or JD(U) or RJD in Bihar, don’t want anything to do with Modi. Some PM candidate he will make!

Modi may divide his own party, and his allies. But the one segment that he dominates is the journalists’ lobby. Everyone from Ashok Malik to Madhu Kishwar to Swapan Dasgupta to Minhaz Merchant to many other gods of journalism is a vocal supporter of Modi, willing even to ignore the most serious of accusations levied against him by Vanzara. They are his/his party’s real advocates in media. When they appear on TV, one knows the position they will take even before the anchor announces the topic of discussion! They will criticize the Congress when the going is bad (rupee etc) and also when things improve (praising Raghuram Rajan and hinting that a good man in the government would have cured India’s economic woes). Such is the quality of our seniormost journalists! Unabashedly biased. And what is worse, they don’t even declare their political leanings beforehand. They prefer to be called “senior journalist”. These so called journalists should switch careers and become mere bloggers!

The real truth is that Modi’s announcement as PM candidate next week will be the last in a series of good news that the Congress has received in the last two weeks. The Congress knows that this move will shift the whole electoral dialogue away from corruption and policy paralysis to Godhra and Ayodhya. The party must be keeping its fingers crossed!

Madras Café sends a message, especially to the BJP….

I watched the Shoojit Sircar film, Madras Café yesterday. I don’t want to comment on the film itself, but the story did make me do some research on the beginnings of the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. And the message that came out was loud and clear. The majority community should never ever assert its domination so strongly as to trample the others. The minorities may cow down for a bit, but that’s when deep seated suspicions, and distrust and disrespect for the majority, enters their minds.

Wikipedia makes reading the origins of the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict easy. Here’s what it says: After their election to the State Council in 1936, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) members N.M. Perera and Philip Gunawardena demanded the replacement of English as the official language by Sinhala and Tamil. In November 1936, a motion that 'in the Municipal and Police Courts of the Island the proceedings should be in the vernacular' and that 'entries in police stations should be recorded in the language in which they are originally stated' were passed by the State Council and referred to the Legal Secretary. So far so good. Both languages were to be treated on par. This created the right spirit for both communities to put up a collective fight for independence.

But just see what happened a little later: However, in 1944, J.R. Jayawardene moved in the State Council that Sinhala should replace English as the official language. In 1956 Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike's passage of the "Sinhala Only Act" led to ethnic riots. The civil war is a direct result of the escalation of the confrontational politics that followed. It is this period of partisan politics played by leaders of the dominant Sinhalese population that sowed the seeds of the civil conflict. It is only recently that the country has managed to find peace, by vanquishing the LTTE in 2009 (It’s not a victory for the majority over the minority. Both Sri Lankan and Indian governments thought of the LTTE as a terrorist organization, hardly representing the Tamilians).

The dominant Sinhalese have learnt a bitter lesson. Divisive politics won’t work. It will destroy the country. For a long time, there was a worry that Jaffna would secede and become a separate country (Eelam). Fortunately, the country survived. Fortunately, President Rajapaksa has started making conciliatory sounds now. He has stated that the conflict was never a Tamil-Sinhalese conflict, but one between a terrorist organization and the Sri Lankan state. Here’s what Australian publication, Opinion wrote (http://tinyurl.com/mn3f5c8): Rajapaksa is confident the different communities can get along fine. He points out to me that in the street that houses his own office, there are Buddhist and Hindu temples, a Christian church and a mosque, all within tens of metres of each other. Sinhalese schools now have classes in Tamil, while Tamil schools have classes in Sinhalese. If this same spirit had existed earlier, the civil conflict would never have happened.

A conciliatory tone is the only thing that works in a country with large diversities. A certain large heartedness is expected of the majority community to make the minorities feel at home. Those who are still not convinced should read about how Yugoslavia imploded. There was so much conflicts between the Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins, Bosniaks and Slovenes that the country had to be split up into seven different parts.

The similarities between Sri Lankan and Indian diversities are striking. And the message to Indian politicians is the same. Sri Lanka has some 11% Tamilians and 75% Sinhalese. Most Tamilians are Hindus, and most Sinhalese are Buddhists. There is a smattering of Christians in both countries. If anything, India has much more diversity than Sri Lanka. Just like the first signs of discord were sown in Sri Lanka in the 1930s and 40s, so also were they sown in India in the 1940s when the demand for Pakistan first came about. There have been several ethnic conflicts in Sri Lanka since its independence. So have there been Hindu-Muslim conflicts in India. Sri Lanka ended up in the civil war.Lets hope and pray that we don’t end up with a civil war between the two communities.

To ensure that a civil war doesn’t happen, our leaders have to learn the language that Rajapaksa learnt to speak. A majority does not make a community superior. It doesn’t give it the right to make rules to suit itself. All religious institutions must be allowed to co-exist. The state cannot take sides; it has to be non-partisan. This was what Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru knew. That’s why they made India secular. That’s why they fought for the minorities. That’s why we are still united as one nation.

Lets not undo their good work. Let’s not demolish another Babri masjid like we did in 1991. That was the turning point for relations between the two communities. The demolition led to riots all over India, and polarization of votes, and the Godhra tragedy, and the post-Godhra Gujarat riots, and the setting up of the Indian Mujahideen, and umpteen terrorist attacks by outfits based in India and outside. This is the standard trajectory that conflicts take before they end up creating a full blown civil war. All politicians have to start zipping their mouths. The BJP in particular needs to take note of this. It unabashedly plays the Hindutva card whenever it feels threatened politically. It anoints the person under whose watch 2002 happened as its campaign chief. It draws inspiration from the RSS, whose leaders have never moved away from Muslim bashing. All this has to change if we have to bring lasting peace to India. That’s the message from Madras café.

The real truth is that there is no role for divisive politics in a diverse country like India. Hindutva – soft or hard – is a wrong concept. It cannot be the basis on which a political party derives its strength. This just has to change….

Unsavory tales of governance from Gujarat….

So many stories coming from Gujarat, now that Modi has decided to project himself as the BJP’s PM candidate. As the smog around him lifts, it becomes more and more clear that Gujarat is hardly the exemplar of great governance it is made out to be. At first, it was only the fake claims of development: hugely exaggerated investment numbers courtesy Vibrant Gujarat, brushing-under-the-carpet of the dark spots like HDI numbers, and of course, usurping of the state’s prosperity and development, even though that predated his regime. But now, questions of basic governance are being raised.

Take two stories which have come out in the news in the last couple of days. Vanzara’s resignation letter is of course the most telling. As if it required any proof, the point that Vanzara makes is that the political bigwigs in Gujarat knew of the encounters (fake or otherwise). And its obvious isn’t it? How can a police officer and his team just keep going about killing supposed terrorists without the knowledge of their bosses? And how is it that such fake encounters only started after Modi took over (Its not to do with Godhra as Vanzara claims; anyone who has lived in Gujarat knows that the Hindu-Muslim conflict existed from earlier times; encounters could have been orchestrated even back then but they never were)? So the Gujarat government is in a trap now; if Vanzara is right, it shows that the top leadership of the party was involved in the heinous acts of crime against the minorities and if Vanzara is lying, then what kind of governance is it when the Home Minister/CM don’t know what their own police officers are up to? Either way, Modi’s governance gets questioned.

When Vanzara writes “The Gujarat CID/CBI arrested me… for alleged fake encounters. If that is true, then CBI investigating officers of all four encounter cases of Shohrabuddin, Tulasiram, Sadique Jamal and Isharat Jahan have to arrest the policy formulators as we, being field officers, implemented the conscious policy of this government”, he is laying the blame straight on Modi’s doorsteps. When he adds “I have to state ...that this spineless government of Gujarat which is valiant only in words ... coward in deeds and impotent in actions has ceased to command my allegiance, trust and loyalty”, maybe he is angry, but this questions the carefully nurtured “hardline” image of Modi’s. There is also a hidden threat embedded here. God knows what Vanzara will spill out next. It’s like when a terrorist is arrested, much more hitherto-unknown grist emerges.

The other shocker in the news is the PIL filed in the Supreme Court alleging Modi knew of the fake encounter. According to firstpost (http://tinyurl.com/nlr55lz), “Journalist Pushp Sharma, who conducted the sting operation, today told a press conference to have recordings which indicated that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was aware that Prajapati was killed in a fake encounter.” And also: “According to Sharma, he has recordings that indicate the BJP leaders were successful in getting Narmada Prajapati, Tulsi’s mother, to sign at least six blank vakalatnamas (documents which declare who one’s lawyer is). “These documents which Narmada Prajapati signed are very crucial because with them it allowed the lawyer to change the course of the trial the way the BJP wanted to,” he said”. This is really really bad. Getting blank papers signed by the mother is hardly the sign of a well governed state. It’s hardly an endorsement of Modi’s governance.

Then again, the Lok Ayukta story – the Governor returning back the state’s hurriedly enacted bill – brings to the fore the complete lack of commitment of the Modi government and the BJP towards fighting corruption. First Karnataka, where the party was routed for corruption. Now Gujarat, where the CM, with all his smarts, wants to ensure that a strong Lok Ayukta never comes about in the state. When Modi kept losing one legal battle after another against the appointment of Justice Mehta as the Lok Ayukta, he enacted a new law grabbing more powers for the ruling establishment to anoint the key functionary. But why is Modi so worried about having an independently appointed Lok Ayukta? Why has there not been any Lok Ayukta in the state for nearly ten years? What would a Lok Ayukta find in the state? And can we expect Modi to enact a similarly weak Lokpal Act at the center if he becomes PM? And if he does that, what will he tell Anna Hazare? His party has already backtracked from the unified Lokpal-Lok Ayukta Act commitment made to him. It’s strange, but I thought the BJP accused the Congress of not bringing out a strong Lokpal. Here, the tables have been reversed. Is this Modi’s brand of strong governance?

The real truth is that both of these stories paint a picture of Modi which is hardly inspiring. He is hardly the guru of governance that he is made out to be. His style of governance is one of muzzling dissent and squashing any challenges to him or his government. With a solid majority in the Assembly (and credit to him for that), he has built a great aura around himself. But when we scratch the surface, we see a totally different picture. And its very unsavory….

Asaram Bapu unites, economic policy divides BJP….

I refer to two separate issues which help define the BJP for us. One is the alleged sexual assault case against self-professed godman Asaram Bapu, on whom the media has showered saturation coverage, and the BJP’s lack of any clear economic vision, as captured in today’s Business Standard. Both of these help crystallize what the top claimant to the next government stands for. Unfortunately, the picture that emerges is hardly exciting.

Take Asaram Bapu. Two responses have characterized the BJP’s stance on the issue. One is that of utter silence. I searched the net and found hardly any important leader’s comment on the subject. I couldn’t hear anything attributed to Advani, Jaitley or Rajnath Singh. Even Sushma Swaraj kept quiet on the issue, until she was needled by Digvijaya Singh. And even then, her response was over twitter, where she has merely 6.5 lac followers, not over mass media where millions of people would have gotten to see her stand. And even over twitter, her statement appeared mild: “I told the media in Vidisha yesterday also. In our country we have a law that is same for everybody” and “There is no one big or small. The law will take its own course”. Now this last line about the law taking its own course is usually a euphemism for a soft stand; an attempt to befuddle the issue and distance oneself from it. All that the voluble Narendra Modi had to say was “If saints will indulge in such things then it is a big mark on society” (source: DNA). A minor criticism. But not a word said on whether he should be arrested or not. It was left to lightweight Mukhtas Abbas Naqvi to say “The police should be allowed to do its work. Asaram Bapu is acknowledged as a saint and whatever chaos had taken place, shouldn't have happened” (source: Business Standard). Again, no comment on his arrest. Shivraj Singh Chouhan, CM of MP where Asaram has a big following had no comments to offer.

The second response of the BJP has been one of keeping a close eye on developments and testing the waters on defending him. Subramanian Swamy, who recently merged his party into the BJP, tweeted this yesterday “I have sent my legal sharp cookies to assess the police documents on the Asaram Bapu case. Await my tweet”. Uma Bharati, the aggressive face of the BJP said this (as quoted in DNA): “Rape charges against Asaram Bapu is a well planned Congress conspiracy”. C’mon.

It’s nobody’s case that Asaram Bapu has been found guilty. He may well be innocent, and due process of law should indeed be followed. But just because he is a godman, the BJP has gone soft. As a contrast, this is what Sushma Swaraj said when a 5-year old girl was raped recently in Delhi: “Nothing short of death sentence in cases of rape of children and cases involving brutality and barbarity will help” (source: DNA). Even here, the accused had not been proved guilty till then. But the leader found a good opportunity to show where she stood. Was it because this rape had happened in Delhi, where an election looms large? In the same way, she said this on yahoo about the Delhi rape/murder victim “that harsh punishment to the perpetrators of the December 16, 2012 gang rape in the national capital could serve as a deterrent to those committing these crimes”. This is the kind of language we want to hear from our leaders on all cases of assault, even if they are allegedly carried out by godmen right?

So the BJP appears to be going soft on Asaram Bapu. It’s like the party has closed ranks on the subject. There is unanimity on how to handle the issue: mostly keep silent.

Now look at the discord over economic policy. I have for long argued that the BJP has offered no alternative vision to the Congress’s. They criticize the Congress all the time, but don’t let us know what is on their own mind. Are they pro or anti-subsidy? Are they pro or anti the Food Security Bill? They made a lot of noise against it, but they voted for it. At the first opportunity, they quote Chhatisgarh’s even more generous act. In a story titled “Uncertainty dogs BJP’s economic policy”, the Business Standard says Gopal Agarwal, head of BJP’s economic cell “agrees the party lacks a consensus on reforms”. The paper mentions “Although the NDA during its tenure promoted FDI, the BJP has opposed the government in increasing FDI in the telecom and insurance sectors”. The paper mentions another of BJP’s ex-economic advisors (he quit the party) Jagdish Shettigar saying that the party’s opposition to government on most economic issues is driven by “narrow politics”. Shettigar also mention’s the BJP’s opposition to petrol price hikes in this context. Clearly, the BJP is a divided house. There is no unanimity on economic policy. This explains why they always criticize, but never offer anything of their own.

The real truth is that seen together, the two issues tell us something we already know about the BJP. That the thing that unites the party, its raison d’etre, is Hinduism. The party stands for Hinduism. Its main political plank is Hinduism. Every time there is even a mild threat to its Hindutva image, it speaks up loudly. Equally, when there is any embarassment caused by one of the religion’s practitioners, it goes mute. I am not saying that this is not an acceptable political strategy. Only that the BJP should be more candid about it. To that extent, I appreciate Modi’s “I am a Hindu nationalist” posters. At least the man has the guts to say who he is, and what he stands for. Most of the others just hide behind small fig leaves.