His other unique quality as leader emerged in initial years as the Gujarat chief minister. He never made public of having received 139 protest letters from the former chief minister often threatening to teach him a lesson for taking away the high post from a Patel community leader. In twenty years he has not sought, not even once to explain his stance even in the face of severe criticism as the communalist. Perhaps he believes, his personality is not fragile to go to pieces by criticism. He continued to move ahead at the pace and in the direction of his choice.
The astute politicians rarely reveal their real intents or their long term moves. It does not matter whether the leader is seeking the welfare of masses or moving ahead to consolidate his power by amassing it to be dictator. The Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had threatened his party conclave in September 1950 to allow him to operate according his choice or else he was prepared to resign and sit in opposition. The party was terrified to reverse its earlier unanimous resolution asking him to accept PD Tandon as the party chief though Tandon had defeated Acharya Kripalani specific choice of Nehru in the party election. This threat smacked of dictatorial tendencies. Yet same politician invited every critic to his chamber over a cup of tea and supplied every critic with full data to enable the critic to sharpen his acidic criticism. He explained to his minister Sadoba Patil that he was motivated to strengthen parliamentary debates. Politician adopting the dictatorial approach was strengthening parliamentary system.
Indira Gandhi was initially a feeble- minded female who appeared to be reluctant to occupy the post but soon she soon exploited service of the brilliant political old mind Dwarika Prasad Mishra to fight old guard in her party and prospering rightists outside. She then successfully exploited poor and economically weaker classes to consolidate her power. Her son Rajiv Gandhi wasted the great opportunity due to his ignorance of aspirations, needs and demands of the sections who had given him the largest numbers ever to occupy the seat of power. Narsimha Rao sat through without moving his finger even to watch the demolition of the symbol used as the historic shame of Indians by the sections for whom the religion and not the ability of citizens was the basis for identification of India as a nation.
Sonia Gandhi could not comprehend Indian psyche in her eagerness to retain the gaddi for her family through elevation of her son Rahul Gandhi. She did not allow her nominee to consolidate the party rule through economic reforms.
Narendra Modi was a trainee in the Sangh regimentation and had patience to work in the party backroom for twenty years. He used and displayed his organizing ability through the political journey of Lal Krishna Advani. He had retained his independent thinking power, a defiance of the basic rule in the Sangh that no student in the Sangh can retain or use independent thinking. His decade as the chief minister may have convinced him that relative poverty in more hurting. He may have seen most pedestrians rush to help a cyclist involved in accident with any kind of automobile vehicle.
India is the only country with 70 per cent of her population of working age group in the process of rapid social transformation since 1992 with literacy rate climbing up fast. He may have also noticed the yearning growing for dignity over the bread in Indian young. Most Indian young are reluctant to believe that divine power can deliver them free meal. Lessons he learnt from attitudes change in Indians were opposite to original tenets of the Sangh.
The electoral debacle of the party in 2009 election made the national leadership structure of the BJP without a capable personality. A vacuum of leadership was created which provided him the opportunity to build the popularity of his concept of economic power over the religion. The consistent failure of the traditional religion based ideas to win power had left no alternative to the Sangh chief except allowing him free hand.
Against all prevalent political ideas for winning affirmative responses his concept of the rapid economic growth delivered for the first time after 13 failures a clear mandate for the election symbol Lotus. It was not the victory of the party but of an individual who had shunned use of religious notions to win affirmative response. Disunity among his opponents or sharp division of votes against him may have contributed to his victory. Yet the important fact was absence of religion was staring. Indian voter had proved their modernity and their courage.
NaMo attempted for first 15 months to deliver on his promise to improve the growth pace. But he was not allowed. The political personality visible in his public utterances, his ideas were not consistent with the Sangh ideas. His ways reflected the Gandhian solutions. He did not hide his ideas of following the Mahatma Gandhi's concepts of attending first to deprived classes. His Jan Dhan scheme was to deliver for the first time the social security to unorganized section. Many believe he is only Sanghi in his ideas, concepts and actions. But it is not consistent with his homage to Mahatma Gandhi on the platform of Rail station in South Africa. His demonetization and the lock down also affected more the middle classes. Above all he has not visited the Sangh office in Delhi or Nagpur or his obeisance in last twenty years. His visits to countries in the Middle East are also indicative of his refusal to submit to the dictates from the Sangh. The silence of the Sangh Parivar and the party leaders further confirm that his approach to Indian people and politics does not follow the party.
NARENDRA MODI AN ENIGMA
Vijay Sanghvi - 2021-02-28 08:58
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an intricate political enigma. Very few have been able to read it through variety of facets of his personality as the human being and as an astute politician that emerged in two decades of his personality, thirteen years as the Gujarat chief minister and last seven years as the Prime Minister. He was merely a backroom boy in the party office for twenty years and few came to know of his ability and his organizing capacity during the Advani’s Rathyatra through seven states from Somnath to Ayodhya in 1990. Advani may have been impressed by the unique quality of his temper of not getting inflated by praise or be cast down by criticism. It may have prompted Advani to push forward his name as the potential leader of Gujarat to replace the state chief minister Keshubhai Patel.