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Modi speech: Course correction or more political masking?

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Pawan Khera
Pawan KheraFeb 19, 2015 | 18:20

Modi speech: Course correction or more political masking?

The impact of the results of the Delhi Assembly elections can best be seen in two steps taken by Narendra Modi this week. Both steps were taken with a view to do a PR course correction - his statement on religious harmony and the auctioning of his infamous personalised suit.

International media quoted Narendra Modi's speech on religious harmony at the National Celebration of the elevation to sainthood of Kuriakose Elias Chavara and Mother Euphrasia. The fact that it took a massive defeat and two stinging comments by President Obama for Prime Minister Modi to make amends on his stand on religious harmony tells us a story that could well become the epitaph of the meteoric rise and fall of the graph of Narendra Modi's image.

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Is this course correction? Or a post-haste masking of what was increasingly being seen as the face of hard-line Hindutva. Did Narendra Modi lack the electoral confidence in Gujarat or the 2014 Lok Sabha elections that he never chose to make such utterances with sincerity either in 2002 or even later? In fact, the script of his Becharaji speech of September 2002 reads almost like the speeches of some Mahants and Sadhvis in news these days.

The Vajpayee era in BJP worked well for the party. Even if the rest of the party stridently pursued and executed the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Vajpayee continued to be the mask of the party, acceptable to the moderate elements of the Hindu society who questioned the secularism of the Congress but firmly believed demolitions and riots were not the answer. Vajpayee's well timed silences, poetic justifications and careful usage of politically loaded phrases like "raj dharma" etc made him appear a helpless man forever caught up in ethical dilemma and stuck in the wrong party.

With the fading away of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani attempted to wear the mask of moderation through his brief but disastrous rendezvous with the Jinnah narrative. He hoped to be seen as a moderate contrast to Narendra Modi, who by then had captured the imagination of radical Hindus. Vajpayee could get away being the mukhauta of the BJP because on contentious communal issues he kept his politics nuanced. Advani's politics of rath yatras brought rich electoral dividends for the party but also ended up typecasting him as a hardliner. As the prime ministerial candidate in the 2009 elections, LK Advani could not inspire many. The hardliners did not forgive him for his Jinnah moment and the moderates could never forget his role in the Babri Masjid demolition. He was also seen as the man who promoted and protected Narendra Modi in Gujarat.

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The advent of Narendra Modi changed all of this. The face and the mask both belonged to the same man - the face of the man whose past catered well to the strident instincts of the radical Hindu and the mask of development agenda addressed aspirational India too. He changed the language of his politics. An extremely robust PR machinery made his campaign a formidable package. He had something for everybody on his menu.

With the electoral success of this package, while aspirational India awaits delivery, the so called fringe elements are wasting no time in making their presence heard, seen and felt. Modi finds himself unable to effectively put a stop to the utterances and activities of the fringe which is increasingly threatening to become mainstream.

The results of Delhi Assembly came as a rude wake-up call for Modi. He realised his loud lip service to a development agenda could obviously show no results but his silence on love jihad and ghar wapsi was showing immediate results. For a man who aimed at using the Obama visit as a vote catching event, the drubbing of Delhi showed how disconnected his PR machinery was from ground reality.

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A commentator on Twitter analysed the Delhi results as "Modi suited, BJP booted". Despite the "jaanta nahin hai, main kaun hoon?" culture of the city, Delhi prefers humility in its leaders. When Mani Shankar Aiyar made fun of the chaiwala, Modi looked like a humble victim of the barbs of the ruling party and the city danced even to his jarring tunes. When Modi, the prime minister (who wore a suit worth one million rupees), attacks him from the Ramlila Ground, Arvind Kejriwal appears to be the victim. Delhi loves its own voice. When the city speaks, it speaks to silence all other loud voices.

Last updated: February 19, 2015 | 18:20
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