The extent to which Modi’s Ghanchi origins will play a role in influencing the backward castes to regard him as one of their own is still uncertain. Anecdotal evidence points to the fact that many ‘backward’ communities are being confronted with a kinship choice: should they not back the first other backward classes leader with a realistic chance of becoming prime minister? Modi has never played the caste card, coming as he does from a tradition that dreams of the ‘political Hindu’. But the tale of a man who started life selling tea on a railway platform being challenged by the babalogs of entitlement touches both a caste and a class chord. This should have been apparent from day one; yet some people chose to pretend that this neo-subaltern dimension to Modi didn’t exist. The Gujarat chief minister was decried as an arriviste by a secularist establishment that combines its indulgence of everything non-Hindu with Brahmanical exclusivity. Approaching the complexities of the Modi phenomenon with a closed mind has led to strategic and tactical confusion within the Congress establishment. Admittedly, defining the perceptions of Modi is a daunting task since it covers a range of imagery. To some of his growing band of admirers he is a modern variant of Chhatrapati Shivaji confronting the enemies of Hindu nationhood; to another lot of people, Modi is the embodiment of the log cabin to White House story — an imagery that not only defines him but turns the tables of demonology on his opponents; to yet others he stands out as the only successful practitioner of non-statist, market economics that Indian politics has thrown up—a theme that ties in neatly with his popularity among a restless youth that is impatient with the tardy pace of economic growth; and, finally, to a very large section Modi encapsulates a decisive and muscular nationalism that was earlier associated with Indira Gandhi, a form of assertiveness that is immediately contrasted with the meekness of a remote-controlled Manmohan Singh. telegraphindia/1130927/jsp/opinion/story_17393833.jsp#.UkUj-YZkNOi
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 06:22:38 +0000
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