Pragya Thakur's Godse remark: Modi must build bridges with intellectuals

The 2019 general election will be over in two days. The campaigning by all parties will go down in history as one of the worst ever. It has been marred by viciousness and foolishness both.

Absolutely the most horrific example of this was the remark by Ms Pragya Thakur of the BJP that Nathuram Godse was a patriot. Godse had assassinated Gandhiji in 1948. Many of the BJP’s candidates have spouted such nonsense.

One reason for this is that so many of them are so poorly educated. One of their chief ministers has said things like the Internet had been invented by ancient Hindus. And many such things.

And thereby hangs a tale.

Way back in 1996, I wrote an article in this newspaper saying that the problem with the BJP was that it didn’t have a respectable intellectual framework but that it did have many intellectuals on whose support it could count.

The next day, a good friend with heavy BJP leanings – he is now an MP – called to ask if I would like a chavanni membership of the party. I said no thanks.

Time passed. Three BJP-led governments headed by Atal Behari Vajpayee came and went. They were followed by two governments headed by Manmohan Singh. Both were men of substantial intellect.

Then in 2009, I wrote an article in the Hindu Business Line, where I was employed at the time, praising Narendra Modi’s Gujarat model. He called me that evening and said if you are ever in Ahmedabad, do come and see me.

Modi’s attitude

In 2010 I did happen to go to Ahmedabad to visit my cousin to see his 120 year old heritage SBI house. I called Mr Modi’s office and they asked me to come over, which I did.

Mr Modi met me in his home office and spent a little over an hour talking about this and that. When I got the chance I told him that he needed to build bridges with intellectuals.

He seemed reluctant and when I repeated myself, he indicated that he had no time for them. It was slightly disconcerting.

In May 2013, well before he was nominated by the BJP to its campaign leader in the 2014 election, I met him again along with two colleagues from the Hindu Business Line. We again told him what I had said three years earlier. But once again he declined even to entertain the idea.

Soon after he became prime minister the consequences of this attitude started becoming apparent. His government quickly ran into a series of confrontations with persons of intellect, not least because he appointed poorly educated persons to head educational institutions.

The current Vice Chancellor of JNU is an engineer with no understanding of the social sciences for which JNU is famous. In fact, he has set up an engineering school without any funding or faculty so far. Students have been admitted to the course without there being a building.

This is not surprising considering Mr Modi’s first minister for education has formal education only up to class 12. Wikipedia says her degree was from the School of Open Learning in Delhi.

Mr Modi also has a similar degree. The effects of this are there for all to see.

The strange thing about all this is the fact that the BJP and the RSS do have highly educated persons. But when it comes to consulting for policy advice he seems to ignore them.

Even where high-level appointments are concerned, persons with good educational backgrounds and advanced degrees – like Arun Jaitley, Nirmala Sitharaman, Bibek Debroy, Rajiv Kumar -- are rare. There is a distinct bias against the highly educated.

Only a week is left before the result of this elections are announced. It seems almost certain that Mr Modi will once again become the prime minister. One must hope that he will adopt a different approach to people of intellect this time.

He must remember that prime ministers are prime ministers and that they need not harbour prejudices against any other group of citizens, least of all intellectuals. Indeed, intellectuals are to a government what jewellery is to a bride:  both provide credibility and are sometimes useful.