2014: The Election That Changed India (5 page)

The violence perpetrated by their own cadres also
meant that
Modi’s benefactors in Delhi, Vajpayee and Advani, were faced
with the tough choice of whether to act against their chief minister. The closest Vajpayee came to
ticking off Modi was almost a month after the riots when he visited Ahmedabad and spoke of a
leader’s ‘raj dharma’ to keep the peace.

The immediate aftermath of the riots did, however,
spark off a churning within the BJP and the political system. The Opposition was baying for his
blood; international human rights agencies were demanding a full inquiry; the media and judiciary
were relentlessly raising discomfiting questions. Matters needed to be settled one way or the other
at the BJP national executive in Goa in April that year. I followed Modi from Gujarat to Goa, again
a journey with a slight personal touch. While I was born in Ahmedabad, my late father had been born
in Margao in Goa. It was in the balmy air of Goa that Modi’s destiny was to be settled.

The plush Hotel Marriott in Panaji’s Miramar
Beach area was the rather unlikely setting for deciding the fate of the Gujarat chief minister in
early April 2002. It was faintly amusing to see old-time RSS leaders in their dhotis and kurtas
slinking past bikini-clad women sunbathing by the hotel swimming pool. But there were no poolside
distractions for the gathered denizens of the Sangh whose focus of attention was squarely on Modi.
He arrived at the conclave of the party’s national executive, and claimed to me that he was
ready to resign. I recall sending out what we call a ‘news flash’, even as Modi
delivered a short speech at the meeting. ‘I want to speak on Gujarat. From the party’s
point of view, this is a grave issue. There is a need for a free and frank discussion. To enable
this, I will place my resignation before this body. It is time we decided what direction the party
and the country will take from this point onwards.’

Was this offer of resignation spontaneous, or was it
part of an orchestrated strategy to force the party to support him in its hour of crisis? The top
BJP leadership had been divided on the issue
while the RSS had put its weight
behind Modi. L.K. Advani was clear—if Modi resigned, the party could not face the electorate
in Gujarat. ‘The “pseudo-secularists” may not approve, but Modi has emerged as the
defender of “Hindu interests” in the aftermath of Godhra—he is a hero for our
cadres,’ was the gist of Advani’s argument. Vajpayee was equally
clear—Modi’s failure to control the riots was a blot on the ruling coalition at the
Centre, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and would only lead to its break-up. In the end, the
Advani logic won out—the national executive rejected Modi’s offer to resign. The party
had re-emphasized its faith in its core Hindutva ideology—the ideology that unites and
galvanizes its cadres, the voter-mobilizing machine, far more effectively than any other plank.

Years later, I sat over a drink at the India
International Centre bar with Brajesh Mishra, Vajpayee’s all-powerful principal secretary, to
find out why the former prime minister fell in line so easily. ‘Make no mistake, Vajpayee
wanted Modi to resign. But while he may have been in charge of the government, the party did not
belong to him. The BJP is not the Congress. If the party and the RSS come together even a prime
minister like Vajpayee cannot have his way,’ said Mishra, a trifle wistfully. In a television
interview after his surprise defeat in the 2004 general elections, Vajpayee admitted that not
removing Modi at the time was a mistake. I see it slightly differently. I believe that in the
madness of the summer of 2002, Vajpayee could not have afforded to force Modi to resign. Godhra and
the riots which followed had transformed Modi into a Hindu Hriday Samrat—he now represented
the soul of the brotherhood in saffron. Through the trauma of the riots, a new leader had been born.
Vajpayee, by contrast, was simply the acceptable public face of a coalition government.

The decision to reject Modi’s offer of
resignation electrified the Goa gathering. Cries of ‘Modi Zindabad’, ‘
Desh ka
neta kaisa ho, Narendra Modi jaisa ho
’ (A nation’s leader should be like Narendra
Modi) rent the air. Foreign guests in the Marriott lobby must have wondered if they had strayed into
a victory rally. That evening, I
managed to catch up with Modi. The trademark
aggression was back. ‘Some people in the media and pseudo-secular elite have been carrying on
a conspiracy against the people of Gujarat. We will not allow it,’ he said with a triumphant
firmness.

Modi had rediscovered his mojo and also his campaign
plank. From that moment onwards, he would inextricably identify himself with six crore Gujaratis,
their sense of hurt and their aspirations. By targeting him, Gujarat was being targeted; he was not
the villain of 2002 but its victim. He had defended the state against ‘terrorists’ and
had protected the people, and yet ‘pseudo-secularists’ were gunning for him. He
didn’t even need to directly refer to the riots and Hindu–Muslim relations; Godhra had
ensured the underlying message was clear to the voters. If it needed to be amplified, the likes of
Togadia were always there.

The political narrative in place, Modi decided to
call for elections in July that year, eight months ahead of schedule. When the Election Commission
rejected the call for an early election, citing law and order concerns and the continued need to
rehabilitate riot victims, Modi chose to confront the commission. The chief election commissioner
was no longer just J.M. Lyngdoh, but was derisively referred to by Modi as James Michael Lyngdoh,
the emphasis being on his Christian identity. It was to be the beginning of a phase in Modi’s
politics where the lines between what constituted politically correct behaviour and what was simply
politically expedient would be routinely crossed.

Itching for a confrontation, Modi decided to embark
on a statewide Gujarat Gaurav Yatra ahead of the elections which had been rescheduled for December
that year. Modi claimed he wished to invoke a sense of Gujarati ‘pride’ which he said
had been unfairly tarnished by the criticism over the riots. What he really wanted to do was remind
the predominantly Hindu electorate of the state how he had ‘defended’ their interests
even at great personal cost. A new slogan was invented—
‘Dekho, dekho kaun aya,
Gujarat ka sher aya’
(See, see, the lion of Gujarat has come). Modi was now pitched as a
Gir lion and a modern-day Sardar Patel rolled into one.

The Gaurav Yatra was launched from the Bhathiji
Maharaj temple in the village of Fagvel in early September. I was seated in the front row in the
press enclosure when Modi spotted me. Pointing to me in his speech, he said, ‘Some journalists
come from Delhi and target our Gujarat. They say we failed to control the riots and damage the image
of peace-loving Gujaratis; but you tell me, will we allow this conspiracy against Gujarat to
continue?’

The combative tone had been set. For the next four
weeks, Modi used the Gaurav Yatra to portray himself as the ‘saviour’ of Gujarat. When
the Akshardham temple was attacked on 24 September while the yatra was on, Modi turned adversity
into opportunity. It gave him a chance to attack Pakistan, and in particular, its president Pervez
Musharraf. In every speech, he would refer to ‘Miyan’ Musharraf and blame him for
terrorism. The public target may have been Musharraf, but the message was really aimed at local
Muslim groups—the Godhra train burning, after all, was still fresh in public memory.

The distinctly communal edge to the Gaurav Yatra
surfaced in its most vitriolic form during a rally in Becharji on 9 September. This is where Modi
referred to the riot relief camps as ‘baby-producing centres’ with his infamous
one-liner,
‘Hum paanch, hamare pachhees’
(We five, our twenty-five). In an
interview to his admirer Madhu Kishwar, Modi later claimed that he was not referring to relief camps
but to the country’s population problem. He told her, ‘This phrase was not uttered just
to target relief camps. I say it even now that the population of our country is increasing rapidly.
Today, if a farmer has five sons, they will soon, between them, produce twenty-five.’

Few will buy Modi’s explanation. The entire
Gaurav Yatra was taking place against the backdrop of the riots. The tone of Modi’s speeches
was set by the fragility of communal relations and the climate of fear and hate that had been
sparked off by the violence. That he was allowed to get away with such blatant appeals to religion
reflects the limitations of the law and the bankruptcy of the Opposition Congress in the state. The
agenda had been set; only the people’s verdict remained to be delivered.

That verdict was delivered on 15 December 2002. The
night before, the Congress general secretary in charge of Gujarat, Kamal Nath, had rung me up
exuding complete confidence. Nath is now a nine-time Lok Sabha MP, and had a swagger which is
rapidly disappearing from the Congress. ‘Rajdeep, let’s do a dinner bet. You’ve
got this one horribly wrong. We are winning it,’ he said boastfully. Only a day earlier, I had
predicted on our election analysis programme on television that Modi might win a two-thirds
majority. Most exit polls had been a little more conservative in their estimates. My logic was
simple—the post-Godhra riots had divided Gujarat on religious lines and the Hindu vote bank
had been consolidated by Modi. Nath preferred to focus on micro details of constituencies and
regions.

On that occasion, I was proven right and the veteran
politician wrong (though he still has to buy me the dinner!). The BJP won an impressive 126 seats,
the Congress just fifty-one. The BJP swept the riot-hit belt of north and central Gujarat, lending
further credence to the theory that the violence had only served to polarize the electorate.
Modi’s strategy had worked. Only, he wasn’t quite done yet.

That evening at the BJP headquarters, Modi agreed to
do a ‘live’ interview with me. The mood amongst the cadres was not just jubilant but
vengeful too. A large mob that had gathered outside wanted to ‘teach a lesson’ to those
who had tried to ‘malign’ Gujarat and its chief minister. Some of the journalists were
forced to escape through the backdoor of the office to avoid the mob. Rather than calming the
situation, Modi proceeded to sermonize. ‘Today, all of you must apologize to the people of
Gujarat who have given you a befitting answer.’ Surrounded by his supporters, Modi was an
intimidating sight—steely eyes, a finger pointing at the camera, the face impassive. It was
one of the most difficult interviews I have ever done.

That year, Modi was chosen by
India Today
newsmagazine as its Newsmaker of the Year. In a cover story on the Gujarat chief minister in its
April 2002 issue, he was described as ‘The Hero of Hatred’. Its tag line said: ‘A
culpable Modi becomes the new inspiration for the BJP even as this offends the allies, infuriates
the
Opposition and divides the nation.’ After almost three decades in
public life, the organizational man turned television spokesperson turned chief minister was now a
national figure. An RSS pracharak who was once accused of lacking a mass base, who had only fought
his first election earlier that year, finally had an identity.

Modi’s victory in 2002 gave him the chance to
establish himself as the Supreme Leader of Gujarat. He did not squander it. Over the next few years,
he set about systematically decimating all opposition within and outside the BJP. The ageing
Keshubhai Patel was confined to the occasional rumbling at being sidelined. Suresh Mehta, another
former chief minister, was too gentle to offer any real threat. Kashiram Rana, a former state BJP
president, was denied a Lok Sabha ticket. Gordhan Zadaphia, who was minister of state for home
during the riots and was close to Togadia, was forced out of the party and eventually formed his own
group. ‘Modi is the ultimate dictator—he will not tolerate anyone even questioning his
decisions or leadership,’ Zadaphia once told me. Ironically, just before the 2014 elections,
Zadaphia returned to the BJP and was forced to publicly acknowledge Modi as his leader.