[Reader-list] INDIA COULD INDEED BECOME A SUPERPOWER WITH SOME CLEAR GOAL

[Bipin Trivedi]

‘Can our country become one of the world’s superpowers?’ Narendra Modi
answered the question himself by saying that his experience in Gujarat had
led him to believe that India could indeed become one of the world’s most
powerful countries if it set itself some clear goals. He said the ‘Gujarat
model’ was proof that the cynical, defeated mood that prevailed in the
country about our political leaders and governance in general was wrong. ‘In
Gujarat we have shown that those same government offices, those same
government officials and those same old laws and regulations can be used to
bring about development and change.’

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/analysis_cong-prejudices-hit-economic-federali
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Even before Narendra Modi arrived for his session at last week’s India Today
conclave, there was a buzz of excitement about his presence. Opinion in this
gathering of liberal opinion makers was heavily weighted against him. The
journalists were all implacably hostile and spent their time preparing
questions on the violence that swept through Gujarat in February 2002 and
that continues to haunt him wherever he goes. The drawing room intellectuals
in the audience were prepared to have a more open mind on the Chief Minister
of India’s fastest growing state, but admitted that there was something
about him that continued to give them the creeps.

All in all, there was a hornets’ nest awaiting him and this is why the speed
with which he disarmed the stings was so impressive. The Aaj Tak anchor,
Ajay Kumar, who introduced him made no effort to conceal his hostility and
although he admitted that Gujarat was making remarkable economic gains under
Modi, tempered this praise by adding that the chief minister was a ‘cunning
and clever’ politician. The implication was clear: no matter how impressive
this man may seem, remember what he did after Godhra. Modi ignored the
implication and began his address with this question. 

India, a superpower
‘Can our country become one of the world’s superpowers?’ He answered the
question himself by saying that his experience in Gujarat had led him to
believe that India could indeed become one of the world’s most powerful
countries if it set itself some clear goals. He said the ‘Gujarat model’ was
proof that the cynical, defeated mood that prevailed in the country about
our political leaders and governance in general was wrong. ‘In Gujarat we
have shown that those same government offices, those same government
officials and those same old laws and regulations can be used to bring about
development and change.’ 

By the time he got to pointing out that the 21st century was widely
acknowledged as Asia’s century and that the race was between China and India
he had everybody’s attention.  He then listed what he considered India’s
three advantages over China. 

Democracy, youth power, and a judicial system that worked. It was on these
three strengths, he said, that India needed to build.  In the rest of his
speech he explained what he had done in Gujarat to bring about the changes
that even his worst critics admit have happened. His secret, he admitted,
was that he had emulated another famous Gujarati politician, Mahatma Gandhi,
by copying how the Mahatma had enlisted the masses into the movement for
India’s freedom. There had been other leaders before him who had made their
contribution to the cause of freedom but they had failed to build a mass
movement. In Gujarat all the changes that have happened since Modi became
chief minister ten years ago were made possible because he made ordinary
people participate in them through campaigns to gain popular support. He
called it his ‘jan andalon’ method which he said he used for every change
from rural healthcare to agricultural productivity.

When he finished speaking the drawing room liberals in my vicinity whispered
among themselves about how wonderful it would be if Modi became prime
minister. The questions were, as usual, about the violence he had presided
over but they failed to deflect from the general sense of hope and optimism
that Modi had succeeded in creating. Everyone I spoke to agreed that what
India needed was a leader like Modi. What made this opinion even more
pervasive was that Modi made such a vibrant contrast to the lackluster
performance we had witnessed earlier from the Prime Minister. He addressed
the first session of the conclave and said nothing new. In the monotone we
have become accustomed to he gave us a catalogue of his government’s
‘achievements’. The Right to Information law, the Right to Education act,
the rural employment guarantee scheme, the rural health mission
the list was
long. When questioned about failures to deal with corruption, child
malnutrition and black money he gave a series of bland answers and
banalities. 

SRK and Modi
In a conclave glittering with stars, the two that shone brightest on the
first day of the conclave were Shahrukh Khan, for obvious reasons, and Modi,
for making people believe in the possibility that there could one day be
real change in politics and governance in India. If we had taken a
referendum that morning I am prepared to bet that more than 80% of the
audience would have voted in favour of a man they usually love to loathe.

Now for a few words about the India Today conclave. As someone who regularly
attends this sort of conclave and who has for more than fifteen years gone
every year to the greatest of them all in Davos, I have to say that last
week’s conclave was the best I have attended in years. Aroon Purie has
modeled his conclave on the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos
but so have many others. In Delhi there is a surfeit of Davos imitators and
most of them are so dull that after the first couple of sessions most people
start to flee. At the India Today conclave the sessions were so good that it
was hard to miss any. 

What made the sessions riveting was that almost none of them were
politically correct. So in a session on whether religion had destabilized
the sub-continent, Subramaniam Swamy was allowed to express the view that
there had been no religious problems in India until Islam and Christianity
came along and demanded that everyone accept that their religion was the
only way to God. He was allowed even to state that if Islam stopped
declaring itself to be God’s last message, half the sub-continent’s
religious problems would sort themselves out. In a session on Kashmir, the
secessionist leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, was allowed to state his well
known view that India had no right to Kashmir and that it belonged to
Pakistan. He may have been booed afterwards but he was allowed to make his
point. But, among the stars who glittered at the conclave, and there were
many, I have to admit without any concession to political correctness, that
Narendra Modi shone brighter than all the others. Even those who came
prepared to hate him left with a very different view. This is because he
spoke, not of his personal ‘achievements’ but about the country India could
become if we work towards a higher goal.