Statesman or strongman: Dilemma of being Modi
The poorly-structured negotiations with the PDP by BJP’s negotiators have resulted in Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mufti Mohammed Sayyed taking advantage of the alliance, leading to the release of Hurriyat hardliner Masarat Alam and the subsequent terror attacks — owing to the enhanced will of the terror outfits. This has raised serious questions about the Modi government's ability to deliver on the tall promises it made on issues related to national security.
This year alone, there have been more than 40 ceasefire violations by Pakistan on the Line Of Control (LoC), but Mufti continues to be soft on Pakistan. His statement after the first terror attack that non-state actors were responsible for it just as they are for similar attacks in Pakistan virtually absolved the country of complicity. It overlooks the grave fact that despite facing the menace of terror in its bloodiest form, as it did in the Peshawar attack, Pakistan is still using terrorists to destablise Jammu and Kashmir. This is notwithstanding the fact that there has been a marked improvement in the overall national security scenario, particularly in Assam after the arrival of the Modi government.
The blunders in Kashmir are all the more surprising because the prime minister himself has been BJP general secretary in-charge of J&K in the past and knows the ground situation — particularly the differences among the non-Wahabis, Wahabis and the ultra-Wahabis, with the last section being open supporters of solving the Kashmir issue in Pakistan’s favour by building pressure through terrorism. By all accounts, the first blunder on part of the Modi government and BJP chief Amit Shah was the appointment of Ram Madhav as the key negotiator for talks with PDP following the fractured mandate in the J&K elections. The decision overlooked the fact that he is seen as being too soft to carry out a task requiring toughness and skill in equal degree.
Madhav has done a great job for the RSS by introducing it to new sections in India and abroad in a widely-acclaimed outreach programme that extended to many powerful governments across the world. His efforts bore fruit when many foreign governments started seeing the RSS differently. However, on national security, Madhav is seen as being soft from an ideological angle.
In a television debate last year, Madhav, when cornered by All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen's (AIMIM) Asaduddin Owaisi, virtually disowned Veer Savarkar, the Hindutva ideologue and father of the right wingers’ national security vision despite the fact that all the predictions that Savarkar made around 70 years ago on India’s security scenario, from Kashmir and Assam to Pakistan and China, are coming true today.
When Owaisi attacked Madhav by quoting selective passages from Savarkar’s books, instead of defending the Hindutva ideologue by stating that he was against Muslim fundamentalism and minority appeasement, in favour of equal Hindu-Muslims rights, and had never hinted that Muslims should be treated as second class citizens in a Hindu majority country, Madhav abandoned Savarkar saying, ''Savarkar was never a member of the RSS.” While it is true that Savarkar was never an RSS member, it is also true that the author of the “Hindutva” that RSS professes is Savarkar himself. An RSS leader commenting on that programme says, “It was like abandoning your own guru in the name of Chanakyaniti.”
Modi’s soft attitude in terms of his ideological outlook, in some areas of national security, is visible from this glaring fact: Before the 2014 victory, Sardar Patel’s name would be on Modi's lips. But since he became the prime minister, he started harping on Gandhiji. Nothing wrong in it, except the fact that though Gandhi and Sardar were one in their political, social and economic vision, they were poles apart when it came to national security and fighting aggressors.
During World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was shocked when Gandhiji advised him that UK should lay down arms before Hitler to avoid the horrible bloodshed and instead rely on its moral force. Sardar Patel and Pandit Nehru were equally taken aback by Gandhiji's advice to Churchill. On the other hand, Sardar didn’t hesitate to use armed force against the Nizam of Hyderabad when he resisted a merger with the Indian Union. Modi may be right in choosing Gandhi for taking forward his development vision. However, he is on the wrong track if he extends Gandhi’s ideas to the arena of national security in a bid to become a symbol of peace from being an icon of Hindutva — unless he harbours hope for a shot at the Nobel Peace Prize, in his subconscious mind.
In fact, it would be better if Modi were to take a leaf out of the definition of a true statesman given by noted historian Jadunath Sarkar in his book House of Shivaji. Sarkar, while describing the great Maratha ruler who combined tact, tolerance, aggression, skill and love for justice, all in equal degree, says: "A spineless leader who tries to be everything to everybody can never become a statesman. A statesman can make compromise for a larger national cause because adhering to abstract perfection will fail him. But that compromise must be as little as possible so that he doesn't lose public support and weaken his national goal.”
Modi made a great gesture by celebrating his first Diwali amongst the flood-ravaged Kashmiris. If, even after such a gesture, Mufti is unwilling to reciprocate and continues to flirt with the hardliners, then Modi has to act and show him his third eye. And after bringing almost unimagined transparency in governance, as reflected in the coal and other biddings, and hitting at the transfer-posting culture in Delhi, Modi has enough stature and public support to act tough on Kashmir.
The prime minister's softness is also visible in his many other decisions. For example, though he has appointed Zafar Sareshwala, a member of the orthodox Deobandi sect, the vice-chancellor of Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), he is yet to give any high post to a leader of the moderate Barelvi or Sufi sect, whose followers are the key supporters of the BJP from within the Sunni Muslim community. The question is does Modi go by political strength alone since the Deobandis are united and the Barelvis scattered. If so, then he must specify before his supporters what kind of national security vision he has for the nation.
Surender Kumar, a politically conscious Delhi taxiwala aptly sums up the way many have started seeing Modi: "Modiji has set the bureaucracy right. He has brought transparency in governance not seen in many years. It’s all the work of a desh bhakt. But on Kashmir, Pakistan and radical islamists, he has to be firm. On this, he can allow his 56-inch chest to shrink at his own and the nation’s peril”.
As one of Modi’s die hard supporters recently commented on social media: “We want strongman Modi, not statesman Modi.”