[Reader-list] Newly tested hard/software: Version 2.0

[S.Fatima]

Newly tested in his Gujarat lab: Hindutva 2.0
Varghese K George

New Delhi, December 23 • “Gali Gali me naara hai, Aaj
Gujarat kal Delhi Hamara Hai. One country, one people,
one leader—Narendra Modi.” 

An SMS sent out by Vande Gujarat, an organisation that
works out of Gujarat BJP office, on Sunday. 

• A banner outside the BJP office in Delhi screamed,
“Jo Hindu hit ki baat karega, wohi desh par raj
karega.” On the freshly printed banner, Narendra Modi
gleamed life-size and the party president, Rajnath
Singh, was stamp-size. The original poster boy of
Hindutva, L K Advani did not find a place at all. 

The signals after the results left little room for
ambiguity. So while Rajnath Singh told Gujarat Chief
Minister Narendra Modi who called at 12.20 pm that
“You’ve done it,” and L K Advani heaped praises on
“Gujarat’s dynamic and highly popular” leader, the BJP
leadership was trying not to over-emphasise Modi’s
role in the Gujarat victory. Spokesmen in Ahmedabad
and Delhi spoke about a “team effort” with Modi as the
man of the match. 

“Nobody is bigger than the party,” said Singh. “Modi
will remain chief minister of Gujarat and Advaniji
will lead the party in the Lok Sabha elections,” said
Arun Jaitley, BJP general secretary in-charge of the
elections. 

But Sunday’s win announced loudly that Narendra Modi
has arrived on the national scene. So has Hindutva
2.0. Advani’s original Rath Yatra started from Gujarat
and spread the message of Hindu pride and cultural
nationalism. Advani tried to link suraj — good
governance — to Hindutva in 2004, but failed. 

In Modi’s regional version, Hindu and Gujarati pride
blend with economic prosperity—Bharat Maata is a mere
slogan in the beginning. And unlike Advani, Modi has
won. 

The core of the pan-Indian Hindutva philosophy of the
Sangh Parivar is retained—that a united, Hindu upsurge
is the necessary and sufficient condition for material
progress. Gujarat was touted as “the laboratory of
Hindutva.” Many others may have won individual
elections, but Narendra Modi showed it as a
sustainable philosophy that even withstands
anti-incumbency. 

“The BJP has been winning Gujarat since 1990 and this
is our fifth victory,” Modi said today. But during the
campaign, Modi’s reference point was 2002 when he won
the election for the first time. “In the last five
years has there been a riot? Curfew? Has any terrorist
struck Gujarat? Isn’t your business running well?
Isn’t your daughter walking on the streets without
being harassed?” Modi asked his adulatory audience
during the campaign and the point was not easy to
miss. 

Everyone knew Gujarat’s progress did not start in
2002. But Modi’s voters accepted that things have
changed for better since 2002. 

Hindutva 2.0 is not driven by trishul-wielding sadhus,
but by professionals and the middle class; by farmers
who eagerly move on to Bt cotton and are impatient for
Narmada waters. 

The BJP national leadership or the Sangh Parivar
cannot easily concede the fact of an individual
reorienting its politics and defying the organization.
They are therefore emphasising the party’s role-at
least as much as Modi’s. “It is victory of our
ideology and we will go ahead with ideology and
development issues. Modi was the chief minister there
and under his leadership the state government has
given development to the state,” Singh said. “He and
his government had a clean image and worked for
development. Under his leadership, Gujarat has emerged
as a model state,” the BJP president said. 

“My party has conclusively shown that the people of
Gujarat have voted for good governance, development
and a leadership that delivers,” said BJP prime
ministerial candidate L K Advani. 

There is no other leader in the BJP who can
single-handedly win a state, and other leaders
naturally feel insecure. Rajnath Singh had insured
himself, by actively facilitating the declaration of L
K Advani as the prime ministerial candidate. Modi and
Arun Jaitely are trying to ward off any conflict. Modi
thanked the “guidance of the national leadership,’ and
congratulated Rajanth Singh for the victory. Jaitley
said “Modi is a disciplined BJP worker and will remain
in Gujarat.” 

It is difficult for the BJP to replicate the Gujarat
experiment in other states given the vast difference
between the “laboratory” and the real world. But every
BJP leader will now secretly aspire to do a Modi in
his or her respective states. However, in the days to
come, Narendra Modi will have more true enemies and
more false friends in the Parivar. 



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