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Narendra Modi loves to invoke Gandhi. Not Rahul, but the Mahatma. In his latest rally in Mumbai, Modi told supporters - ‘don’t impress, inspire like Gandhi’. In Bhopal the other day, he asked the nation to ‘rid India of the Congress’ and ‘fulfill Mahatma Gandhi’s dream’. At a function in Gandhinagar a few months ago he spoke of the relevance of the Mahatma’s economic ideals in today’s context, saying if we follow his principals, we wouldn’t need to look for new ways to develop our country.
Gandhi has been a recurrent theme in Modi’s oratory for some years now. Back in 2010, while addressing the BJP’s inaugural session of Suraj Sankalp, Modi had said governance was best defined by Gandhi’s values.
‘Do the policies help the poorest and weakest man? If yes, that is good governance.’ Modi pronounced.
If the BJP’s Prime Minister designate shows himself to be possessed by Gandhian ideals, his devotees seem to like the idea of plonking their leader on the same pedestal as the Mahatma. Anil Ambani gave glorification a new meaning altogether when he put his father Dhirubhai Ambani and Narendra Modi with that ‘Arjuna like clarity of vision’ in the same bracket as Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Prakash Singh Badal showed us a rare instance of coalition bonhomie when he said "Gujarat is the state which gave birth to Mahatma Gandhi, which gave us Sardar Patel and now it has given 'Sardar' Modi.” The BJP itself has compared its mascot to the father of the nation a number of times in the past.
Madhu Kishwar, the firebrand feminist doesn’t tire of telling anyone who is willing to listen, of her belief that Modi is the only leader who takes Mahatma Gandhi’s message seriously. And Subramanian Swamy, the man who zealously guns after scamsters and erroneous policy proposals of the government, used... guess who... to defend Modi’s practice of charging money to attend rallies? Mahatma Gandhi!
“Mahatama Gandhi used to do it... for his autographs he used to take Rs 5" Swamy claimed.
So, do Modi, the former RSS sevak turned India's latest obsession, and Mahatma Gandhi, father of the nation, who ironically, was assassinated by Nathuram Godse an ex-carder of Modi’s brethren, really share anything at all in common? Apart from the fact that they both hail from Gujarat?
On occasion of Gandhi's birthday, lets contrast the two men on some of the basic principles that Gandhi held most dear to his model of governance.
1) SECULARISM
M.K Gandhi was known to be a devout Hindu, and yet someone who strongly believed in diversity and respect for other faiths. “Gandhi promised Muslims honour and equality in a nation from Khyber to Chittagong” writes M.J. Akbar in his column Mahatma Versus Modi: The Tale of two ‘nationalists’, in the Times of India.
Harsh Mandar illustrated Gandhi's ideals about secularism with an interesting incident in his column in The Hindu a few years ago.
'Fasting for communal peace during the Partition riots in Calcutta, Gandhi is said to have been confronted by a Hindu man nearly crazed by grief and hate, because a Muslim mob had killed his young son. Mohandas gently counseled him that if he really wished to overcome his suffering, he should find a Muslim boy, the age of his son, whose parents were killed by Hindu mobs. And he should bring the boy up like his own son, but in the faith of his parents.'
That in a nutshell, was Gandhi's approach to religion and faith.
Modi on the other hand calls himself a "Hindu nationalist". When asked whether he felt guilty for what happened in 2002, he said he didn't. He felt sad of course, just as an occupant of a car that runs over a puppy would.
Over 1000 people were killed during the Godhra riots, and majority of them were Muslims. The state has since seen growing marginalization of the minority community; 42.4% Muslims in urban Gujarat are poor compared with 33.9% in India as a whole, according to a Planning Commission report. UP and Bihar have worse ratios, but that’s hardly reason for solace, especially in the context of Gujarat’s galloping growth.
2) SATYAGRAHA
Non-violent dissent was the cornerstone of Gandhi's struggle against British occupation of India.
He approached the idea of dissent through Satyagraha - a word coined by him and loosely translated as "insistence on truth" or non-violent resistance. He deployed the tenets of Satyagraha in fighting not only for India's independence, but also during his earlier struggles in South Africa. The civil disobedience movement which began with the salt satyagraha or dandi march influenced movements across the world; Nelson Mandela's struggle in South Africa under apartheid, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s campaigns during the civil rights movement among others.
Modi isn't exactly known to tolerate non-cooperation or dissent.
Remember Rahul Dholakia's controversial film Parzania, which portrayed the devastating story of a family caught in the 2002 Gujarat violence? It was unofficially banned in the state. Ironically, so was a controversial book on Gandhi, which Modi termed perverse, because it suggested the Mahatma was bisexual.
Modi also loathes tough questions. He walks out of TV interviews quite often, and doesnt talk about Godhra. As if as an insignia of a leader with total power, he now also has a channel named after him.
It's called NaMo.
3) SWARAJ
If Gandhi did indeed dream that India must rid herself of the Congress, it was because he rightly feared the corrupting influence that a monolithic, centralized force with immense political power could wield.
It was this distrust about the autocratic rule of a nation-state, that gave birth to the concept of Swaraj - which not only meant independence from foreign rule, but also from the edict of hierarchy.
It is in some sense an antithesis to Modi's perceived style of governance.
The 'Modi style' has increasingly drawn the ire of critics, for being authoritarian. The police, the bureaucracy and the cabinet are perceived as dummies under his captivity. And the scathing letter recently, by suspended IPS officer DG Vanzara was telling evidence of how Gujarat functions. The police were mere adherents of Modi's 'conscious policy' on encounters.
4) SWADESHI
Central to Gandhi's way of life was the theory of 'swadeshi' or home economy. Gandhi believed true India was to be found in its villages and not in its cities. His vision was for a decentralized economy encompassing self governing, self reliant communities with the power to decide their fate. The Swadeshi philosophy avoided excess dependence on external markets and sought for a sustainable existance.
Gujarat post independence, and under Modi, has gone quiet diametrically, in the opposite direction.
It is all about big business, foreign investment, SEZs and urban sprawls. Villages don't figure in Modi's scheme of things. Gujarat topped the pace of urbanization with 42% of its population living in towns, which means more and more people are migrating out of the villages.
Rural poverty in parts of Gujarat is as high as 50% and Modi's developmental model while benefitting certain segments of the population, hasn't entirely had a trickledown effect as Gandhi would have liked.
It's economy is more vulnurable to global disruptions today according to economists like Y K Alagh, because of its overdependence on sectors such as trade and manufacturing. A study done jointly by the Economic and Political Weekly and IGIDR points to the 'rising contribution of import dependent and export oriented petroleum refineries on Gujarat's coast to the state's manufacturing.'
Not all of this is terrible or unwarranted in the current globalized context - but there is nothing Gandhian about Gujarat’s development model.What then is Modi talking about?
CHALK AND CHEESE
As parallels are drawn with reckless abandon, let's be quite clear - the man we want to elect as Prime Minister, and the man we regard as father of the nation are as distinct as can be.
Modi kurtas' will dominate Gujarat govt's khadi marketing drive to commemorate Bapu's birth anniversary say today's papers.
Will his favorite Gucci scarf be also thrown in as an added detail?
