Modi as in Deng

Modi as in Deng

Reform is China's second revolution.
Deng Xiaoping

In power terms, political correctness is a reasonably modern phenomenon. In history, the blood and gore of conquest was usually cast in terms of valour, vision and the capacity to rule. It was understood statecraft was not a province for wimps. But another demeanour, far less militaristic, that works nowadays, is that of the doer with a modicum of style.

Chief Minister Narendra Modi recently went to Beijing with a large entourage of Gujarat’s finest business leaders. He went in response to an ongoing Chinese initiative from the Central Committee of the CCP. Another possible Opposition prime ministerial candidate, Mr. Nitish Kumar of Bihar, has also recently been to Beijing on the same invitation format, as have several others, including Haryana’s Mr. Hooda.

Modi however is the only Indian CM who can boast of Chinese rates of growth. Gujarat has an overall figure of 12%, per annum, with even the usually moribund agricultural sector turning in a record-breaking 10% last year. The urban population of Gujarat, at 40% of the total, more closely resembles the demographic in China. Our near inviolate shibboleth is that “India lives in its villages”. That profundity was pronounced by the Mahatma, Gujarat’s greatest gift to the nation and the world, over a half century ago. Unsung as he undoubtedly is, Sardar Patel also from the womb of Gujarat, with a great deal more realpolitik to him if not the greatness, makes up a close second to MAK Gandhi.

Modi, also cast in decidedly heroic hue, is seen by the Chinese as an Indian Deng Xiaoping, himself long on the periphery of national power, but once installed centre stage, the one who took China on its spectacular trajectory to make it the fastest growing economy in the world.  Our NaMo, impressed as he is with Chinese achievements, is not content however, to slavishly ape Chinese growth methods.

He sees the business opportunity more as a Chinese one, and asked his hosts to desist from egging Pakistan on to make trouble for India, inclusive of the Chinese presence in POK. He also referred to the brandishing of Chinese maps that include large tracts of Indian territory such as Arunachal Pradesh and Akshai Chin on the Chinese side of the fence.

Modi does not think such essentially hostile attitudes are going to help Chinese companies get lucrative Indian contracts in infrastructure, telecom, and energy, amongst other things. Hardly the talk of a supplicant, and to give credit to his hosts, they took such pointed remarks on board without demur.

But even if China sees Modi as a possible future prime minister of India, they don’t have to fight through the thicket of rivals and detractors that NaMO has to tackle. Of course the matter that most stands in Modi’s way towards power at the centre, is the perception that he either caused, or colluded, with mob fury, during and in the aftermath of the Godhra riots that took some 3,500 lives. While technically and legally it may be very difficult to lay any such blame at his door, the damage has already been done.

The irony of this situation is that this country itself was born in the grip of communal violence, with perhaps a half million lives lost in the process. But it did next to no damage to the subsequent political careers of the principal beneficiaries, Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Jawaharlal Nehru.

Mr. Jinnah of course coughed his last soon after, but you could hardly blame his tuberculosis on his politics. The third beneficiary in glory, if not in pelf and power, was the beribboned Lord Mountbatten of Burma, but when he was finally blown up in a fishing skiff many years later, it was the IRA that did it, and not any part of the Hindu-Muslim diaspora.

In recent history, there was Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s invasion of the Golden Temple at Amritsar, that bizarre use of tanks through narrow lanes, and that of the regular army.

There were about a thousand casualties around the lanes, rooms, pools and terraces of the temple. The net effect was one of desecration and sacrilege. The martyrdom of Bhindranwale, when a judicially sanctioned noose would have been infinitely better was a corollary, and deeply wounded Sikh pride, a consequence. And then, there was the whispering from the shadows, echoing with the ghosts of Jallianwala Baug, located just a few alleyways away, in the same city.

Later came the Shakespearean aftermath, that of Mrs. Gandhi’s murder at her wicket gate, and the 4,800 Sikhs butchered in the Capital in swift retaliation. The

carnage organised, it is maintained to this day, by prominent members of the Congress Party, over four days of barbarity.

And yet it is Godhra, where the first provocation involved the deliberate burning alive of  scores of  Hindu pilgrims inside locked railway carriages, and Ayodhya, wherein nobody was killed during the demolition of Babar’s mosque; which are held out as prime examples of communal intolerance in this country.

Having the bountiful money tap of Government advertising is a good way to control the flow of news and analysis, even allegedly third-rate analysis, as certain judges with extra-curricular views have it. It is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black, if one only casts a glance at the state of our judiciary and the functioning of our legal system. But casting stones at others is the sub-continental idea of free speech. Though we have never been much good at taking what we love to dish out.

Coming back to Mr. Modi and the great neo-liberal cant about his unsuitability for the top job because of his communal credentials, and coming, as he does, from that “communal party”, is so much talk that can harm our national progress.

The importance of NaMO is that  there is practically no one from any party with his development record. And as for his communalism, even if it is taken on face value, it cannot be seen to be any worse than that of any other politician, including Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, who justified the Sikh killings in Delhi circa 1984, in philosophical and arboreal similes. 

Deng the doppelganger was purged twice by Mao, but managed to upstage Mao’s designated successor Hua Guofeng. He then took control of the second generation reform that has catapulted China to its present prominence.

Modi has similar potential, albeit in a different political context and discourse, and this has not been lost on the Chinese. As for NaMo himself, he prepared for his visit carefully and made his presentation on Gujarat in correct Mandarin. 

 (1,105 words)

13^th November 2011

Gautam Mukherjee     

Published as Leader Edit on the Edit Page of The Pioneer as "Modi could be India's Deng" on  15th November 2011. Also online at www.dailypioneer where it is also archived under Columnists.