Hate him for his past, be suspicious of forces driving his present and be wary what he means for the country’s future, but give it to Narendra Modi, whenever he speaks he makes all those concerns irrelevant. He holds you in thrall with the ease of a consummate showman and makes you, at least till the show is on, believe him. That was the case in Kanpur too. It made you realise if speeches made leaders, then Modi would easily be the tallest leader in the country.
But a leader is much more than oratorical flourish. Probably no one understands it better than Modi himself. Being a smart politician, he also realises showmanship without substance is a vacuous exercise. In Kanpur, he tried to bring in content to his speech, like he has been doing everywhere, to appear different. However — however is a word that would always dog Modi — he failed to make an impact. The speeches surely are getting a bit jaded. He complains too much, but offers no real solution to anything.
Modi has the obvious advantage. He is an opposition leader and the current media favourite, so he can launch no-holds-barred attacks on the government and the Congress that heads it, and get away with it. But he was supposed to be a leader with great ideas. Where are these ideas?
At Kanpur, he railed against the secularism of the Congress. “I believe Hindus should become good Hindus, Muslims good Muslims, Sikhs good Sikhs… this will build a good India,” he said. You are tempted to believe, despite 2002 and despite those hate speeches after the riots in Gujarat, that he is a nice man who means good. But why haven’t we heard a word from him about the organisation that has promoted him to where he is? This is the organisation that certainly does not believe in allowing Muslims to be good Muslims or other minorities to be good minorities.
Is Modi he fooling everybody around? If Modi is as good as his speeches are, he would be perfectly acceptable as a leader. His youth-speak is alright, so is his approach to secularism, as are his views on the economy, but can we separate him from the Sangh Parivar that backs him? That is where the entire Modi dilemma lies for the lay citizen. If he gets respite from communalism, other things would fall in place. Would he be courageous enough to announce that he does not believe in the Sangh’s version of India? Fat chance. He has been timid on this all along.
‘India First’ is a good idea, for the ears at least, though one must admit it is nothing beyond being a catchy slogan. If by ‘India First’ he means the idea of India that should precede all other considerations, it is great. But what idea of India it is? A majoritarian country where minorities must be shown their place? Modi may not believe in this India — at least that is what his speeches suggest — but has he been bold enough to assert himself in this respect. No. That is why it is difficult to believe Modi.
The good thing about Modi is he trying to connect with all the constituencies ignored by the Congress and all other parties. Rahul Gandhi, for all the decibels in his speeches, still does not talk about the aspirations of the youth or about jobs and employment — in fact, no other leader or party does. Modi talks young despite his age. In all secular topics there is hardly anything to to fault him — you might not agree with his views on the economy but still it is a neutral subject open to debate — but his credibility depends on how he approaches the question of minorities and political Hindutva.
Can he stand up and declare — without talking through insinuations, which he has been doing so far — that he believes in India as it is? That brings in another related question: can he extricate himself from the extreme ideological elements that identify with him?
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