Sitting in a cab or the more convenient three-wheelers called auto rickshaws, while your driver negotiates the madness of India’s roads, you would be forgiven to think you are in your own city. For all Indian cities look the same.
But it would be a mistake to dismiss Ahmedabad just like any other Indian city. This is not just Gujarat’s largest city, it is also one of the most important and happening cities in the country. Its close association with India’s Independence movement and Mahatma Gandhi’s close ties with Ahmedabad and Gujarat make this a rather special and enduring relationship.
It’s thanks to Gandhi that Gujarat has always enjoyed a special place in the hearts and minds of all Indians. But few in Gujarat today seem to miss the great man who fought an unusual battle for India’s independence, inspiring numerous freedom movements and generations of leaders around the world.
In fact, whenever I bring up Gandhi in my conversations with politicians from the governing Bharatiya Janata Party as well as the opposition Congress, there’s a stunned silence in the room, as though I have said something embarrassingly forbidden. They squirm in their seats as they try to ignore my naive fervor for the Mahatma.
Eminent historian and social activist Achyut Yagnik, who runs a nongovernment organization called Sethu or the Center for Social Knowledge and Action, laughs at my invocation of Gandhi. “Please don’t talk of Gandhi. Nobody here cares for what he believed in anymore,” advises Yagnik with a touch of exasperation in his voice.
Yagnik is working on his latest project, a book to mark the 600th anniversary of Ahmedabad next year, the city founded by Ahmed Shah of Gujarat sultanate.
There’s no love lost for Gandhi’s ideals and values in today’s Gujarat. I realize with a shock that the Mahatma has become passé, an anachronism in his own land. This impression becomes all the more acute when you visit his modest ashram on the banks of River Sabarmati that runs through the city, neatly dividing it into old and new.
This is where the humble lawyer, who changed the world with his simple yet revolutionary doctrine of nonviolence, bringing the world’s greatest empire to its knees, spent his critical years.
Today’s Gujarat seems to belong to Narendra Modi, rather than the Mahatma. In a land fast waking up to the fruits of economic liberalization and instant gratification of capitalism and commercialism, there are few takers for Gandhi’s spirit-over-body outlook and his universalist philosophy based on truthfulness and fairness. Like it or not, today’s Gujarat — and perhaps India too — looks not to the past epitomized by Gandhi but to the future represented by Modi.
The maverick Gujarat chief minister has been a divisive figure, right from the word get-go, hopelessly fracturing one of the most prosperous and progressive states along religious and sectarian lines. This is starkly clear wherever you go in Gujarat. The Hindus and Muslims live in two separate worlds, totally divorced from each other.
However, it’s not possible to ignore what Modi has managed to accomplish over the past eight years or so. The former RSS pracharak (propagator) has been the best thing to happen to the state economically.
By aggressively wooing big business like the Tatas, Ambanis and the Mittals and rolling out red carpet for global players, Modi has become the darling of big boardroom operators as well as the powerful merchant classes in the state.
The numbers and statistics that Jay Narayan Vyas, the health and tourism minister and government spokesperson, throws at me as a tribute to the state’s phenomenal progress and all-round development are truly amazing.
While the rest of India has grown at the rate of 8 to 9 percent, Gujarat has maintained an incredible growth rate of 13 percent. Modern roads, 50,000 kilometers of fiber-optic networks, 2,200 kilometers of gas pipelines, uninterrupted power in rural areas, drinking water for 7,000 villages etcetera, etcetera.
The statistics are spellbinding. Gujarat has signed MoUs worth 13,500 crore rupees with foreign companies that will bring new jobs and economic opportunities to the state. Already, half of the new jobs created in India are said to be in Gujarat.
Opposition parties and independent observers like Yagnik question these claims saying the government statistics are hugely inflated. Yagnik points out that Gujarat has been an economic success story long before Modi came along. “We have always been a mercantile community and have traded with the world for thousands of years,” argues Yagnik. “Modi is taking credit for the hard work of ordinary Gujaratis for decades and centuries.”
Maybe there’s some sense in his argument. Nevertheless, Modi’s performance in Gujarat and his no-nonsense approach to governance coupled with his hard-line Hindutva outlook have transformed him into one of the tallest leaders in the BJP.
So much so his one-time mentor Lal Krishna Advani, who is contesting for Parliament from the state capital Gandhinagar and is being projected as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, is feeling threatened.
Earlier this week, two former federal ministers Arun Shourie and Arun Jaitley pitched for Modi as prime minister. Interestingly, this happened bang in the middle of an all-important election and at a time when Advani was campaigning alongside Modi in Gujarat.
Even though a red-faced Advani found it hard to “explain” the Modi-for-PM call by his party leaders while he was still in the race for the top job, it is not hard to see where Modi is headed.
Even the media appears to have fallen in love with the man who once served buns and tea at a roadside stall in Ahmedabad. The Times of India, the country’s largest selling newspaper, has been running a campaign of sorts for the chief minister. So is Modi indeed destined for greater glory and power at Delhi? Will the still celibate satrap from Gujarat go on to lead the world’s largest democracy and rising superpower? Well, it’s not as improbable as it once sounded.
He has created himself a large constituency of affluent, upwardly mobile Indians who are not too hung up on irrelevant issues like political correctness, justice and the rule of law. This constituency is not just confined to Gujarat but is pan-Indian. India could certainly do with a determined, go-getter leader like him to sort out its myriad problems.
Ironically though, while “missile Modi” looks all set to take off for his next target, there’s a little, teeny-weeny problem that could yet derail his Delhi yatra. The irritating issue of the infamous 2002 religious pogrom that killed nearly 2,000 Muslims refuses to go away.
At least eight of Gujarat’s ministers, several top officials and ruling party functionaries are facing charges of actively planning and abetting the massacre of Muslims across the state in February 2002.
A sitting minister Maya Kodnani has already been put behind the bars on the evidence of cell phone data presented by a brave police official, Rahul Sharma, before the Justice Banerjee Commission.
As I write this sitting in a quaint, little Ahmedabad hotel, India’s Supreme Court has asked the Special Investigation Team looking into the 2002 tragedy to probe Chief Minister Modi’s role. The top court acted on a complaint by the widow of Ahsan Jafri, a former member of Parliament who was butchered during the attacks.
Dr. Mukul Sinha, a Gujarat High Court lawyer and convenor of Jan Sangarsh Manch, an organization fighting for justice and rehabilitation of the 2002 victims, is confident justice will finally prevail.
It’s brave and selfless individuals like Dr. Sinha who have helped a deeply demoralized and traumatized community to come out of its shell and start afresh.
It wouldn’t be easy for the state’s nearly seven million Muslims to regain their confidence in themselves and their place in the world’s greatest democracy. But they are trying hard, thanks to support from people like Dr. Sinha and the faceless multitudes across India that make this a great country like no other.
Meanwhile, in a huge irony of epic proportions if anyone can stop Modi’s proud march to Delhi, it’s Modi himself. As his past appears to be catching up with him, there are growing calls asking him to apologize for 2002 and reach out to the Muslim community.
The Times of India, in a front page story titled, Can Godhra abort Missile Modi?, this week advised the chief minister to say “sorry” and move on. Invoking the Congress’ apology to the Sikhs for the 1984 carnage and Advani’s own belated remorse for the Babri Masjid demolition, the paper pleaded with Modi to similarly break away from his past.
Even the Muslim community appears keen to move on and bridge the gulf with the Hindu majority, although there’s still great bitterness and anger over the past. Tens of thousands of families evicted by the 2002 attacks are still living in refugee camps in despicable conditions. Nevertheless, they would like to forgive and forget, as state Congress Vice President Momin puts it.
The question is, is Modi ready to move on? Unlikely, if you understand the persona of the Gujarat leader built on machoism of a stubborn kind.
But no matter what Modi chooses to do and whether his political trajectory eventually takes him to Delhi or not, Gujarat’s — and India’s Muslims — cannot afford to give up hope and on their future in the country. India’s democratic institutions, its truly independent judiciary and its inclusive and tolerant society will ensure they eventually get justice and their due. The wheels of justice may take their time to move but they do move in India. From the Mahatma to Modi, Gujarat and India have certainly come a long way. But it’s not the end of the road. Hope springs eternal in the breasts of a billion Indians.
— Aijaz Zaka Syed is a Dubai-based commentator and can be reached at [email protected]
