Saturday, December 29, 2007

Narendra Modi - A necessary Evil

“Love him or hate him , you cannot ignore him” – These were the lines that the media constantly used to describe Modi throughout its election coverage .As all the pundits and psephologists continue to brainstorm the victory of their own coined term “Moditva” analyzing various conventional factors like various caste combinations , anti incumbency, dissidents, they all are reaching paradoxical results .

It is not that CMs haven’t been able to pull off successive victories in past . Be it Lalu Yadav banking heavily on Muslim-Yadav vote bank or Left because of its strong cadre . It is just that Modi had nothing in his favor, even his own personality was not favoring him completely .

It is not possible for many people to digest the fact that a CM who virtually turned his face the other way when people were burnt ,when humanity lost its relevance can win elections after elections . The very argument of polarization is being rejected because he did not do too well in riots affected area of central Gujrat.

Then why is that Modi registered such a phenomenal victory ? The very reason is that people questioning him on the grounds haven’t been able to define the grounds well .It seems to be a very popular thought in politics today that a certain level of standards is to be maintained. So the leaders like Lalu Yadav and Mayawati even being most corrupt are acceptable though they may not be of any good for people because they are above those standards! Being corrupt or non efficient is within the standards!.But Modi is not acceptable for his inaction against violence perpetrator's in a very emotionally charged situation .Fact is both are not justified and we should not have such leaders. But moral issues for common man are totally different . Indians as usual have a very short memory and the issues more important to them are peace and bread and butter .

Now is the Hindu voter in Gujrat insensitive if he is voting for Modi? Fact is that the alternatives provided to him are Congress which is equally blood stained with Sikh riots having strikingly similarities with Gujrat riots ,dividing country on castes and religion by appeasing minorities or the left which is responsible for an equally brutal genocide in Nandigram .

Let us now look at Modi’s journey in Gujrat :

When modi became CM he had never contested any election which would have surely made him more politically correct and moderate . So when he was faced with Godhra issue , the religious or sect sentiment got better off him and he completely overlooked his Rajdharm as CM . Now as far as gujrat riots were concerned , they were disgrace to humanity but then which riots were not . One has to understand, when its riots , there should not be any expectation of humanity . Riots are like wars where no sense or humanity prevails . And it will always be debatable whether a man brings out worst in the war or whether a war brings out worst in the man . Wars are bad so are riots.

But after 2002 Gujrat has been completely peaceful without any curfew when whole nation continued burning .He is man of great integrity. Just for a change an honest politician having zero tolerance for corruption and inefficiency .He too has shades of grey , authoritative but decisive , efficient administrator but non inclusive reach . Most importantly he has been a great visionary giving electricity to all the villages , developing rural economy , reducing drop out rates of girls to 2 % from 49 % , winning awards for best e-governed states , fastest developing state of Asia , reducing bureaucracy , winning all round praise from corporate world and average middle class citizen delivering what he promised . As far as the argument that his development is limited to urban areas , the agricultural growth is 10 percent compared to average national of 2 percent .

The same congress which is accusing Modi of showing fake figures of growth itself in an independent report by Rajeev Gandhi foundation headed by Sonia Gandhi declared Gujrat No. 1 state in economic freedom index , RBI claiming that Gujrat showed a growth of 10.5 % in GDP and 25 % of the total foreign investment in India has actually come to Gujarat .

So is economics is all that matters today? Is he a necessary evil that we want for our society to work efficiently because development in Moditva comes with an additonal baggage of communal divide.

Well the fact is that he has another chance now to reach out to all those who are hurt giving them a healing touch . Its time for this nation to move on , Gujrat to move on and by moving on I mean an inclusive move having all stratus of society to move together .

3 comments:

Conversation-Scraps said...

it was well written...but uve miniaturized the major point of he turning his face nd y defend him whn it is so clear tht it was a pogrom...but thn its my opinion nd u hav a right to express urs...overall a nice attempt

Sreejit Nair said...

hi ashish...good analysis...I agree with you on the fact that 2002 was just a minor blot on his impeccable record as CM of gujarat...

Makrand Kumar said...

badly written...nothing can be build on bad foundation!..i don't understand how can people support a murderer....that also mass murderer !!