ANALYSIS Since there have been hundreds of allegations against Narendra Modi, it was good that he chose the format of ‘Aap Ki Adalat’ to take them up. It afforded him an opportunity to answer the allegations in front of the invited audience and even take questions from them, which is not possible in a one to one interview.
After watching his performance on the show, one feels that Modi has become an accomplished method actor. The voice modulation, the expressions and the meaningful pauses were all there in plenty. Also there were one liners and he played to the gallery to the hilt.
But beyond the histrionics was an honest attempt to answer some questions that have been troubling the minds of many Indians. Some of the answers were laced with bravado while others gave an open challenge to the Congress and others to prove what they allege.
For instance, when host Rajat Sharma told him that Anand Sharma has said that the BJP has spent 10000 crore rupees on the publicity of Modi and the party in these elections, an unperturbed Modi threw a challenge at the UPA government. He said that since they still have a month in power, they can use the Enforcement Directorate and the “full government machinery” to first find out where this kind of money came from and then get the Election Commission to act against him. On a lighter vein, he said that since they did not work in the 10 years they were in office, this will give them enough work. He said empty allegations without proof were demeaning.
When asked why he did not accept the Muslim headgear offered by an imam (at a meeting in Ahmedabad) whereas he wore traditional headgear or dresses of all regions when he visited them, Modi was blunt in saying that while he respects all castes, communities and religions, he holds his right to practice his and will not don a headgear to just appease a community or as a photo opportunity. At the same time, he assured the people that he held everyone’s headgear in high esteem and as prime minister, he would ensure strictest punishment to anyone maligning the headgear of any other community. (kisi doosre ki pagri uchalne waale ko sakth se sakth sazaa dena satta mein baithne wale ki jimmewari hai aur main use nibhaunga).
When a lady from the audience asked him if Christian churches would be desecrated if he came to power, Modi was astounded and said that to his knowledge, such things do not happen in India. If they did, he said he was not aware of them. He assured the lady that since the constitution allowed everyone to practice one’s own religion, no such thing will happen. He went on to say that Indians have long believed that there was only one God while there were many ways to approach him. He said he respected that view and believed in people’s freedom to choose their own path to God. He gave an example of the Parsi “micro minority,” as he called it, in Gujarat, whose places of worship were being enhanced and preserved by the government.
When Rajat Sharma pointedly asked him that there is no need then for people to be afraid of him, Modi said that yes, there is, but for corrupt and undisciplined people only. He said that an administration needs to instill fear in the minds of such people otherwise it cannot function. Other than those people, he said no one needs to be afraid of the Modi sarkar.
On the “kutte ka pilla” statement, he pointedly asked that he cannot understand how people deduced that he called Muslims by that name. He said that in India, people lament when even an ant gets killed. The metaphor is used to show the extent of the pain caused and it doesn’t mean that someone was called an ant. His answer, he said, was in that context only. He said that even the foreign correspondent who interviewed him had tweeted that Modi did not mean it the way Indian media was portraying it, but it had stuck negatively.
Finally, he involved the audience in asking that who was sowing zeher ki kheti. Playfully, he said that Rahul had said that Sonia told him that politics was poisonous. He then asked who has been ruling India for the last 60 years. Who had then consumed the most poison? And who then would belch out the most poison? Case closed.
He was categorical in stating that this the first time in India that a party (BJP) is fighting the elections on the issue of development. He said that since the Congress as well as other regional have done zero development, they have no counter to this. According to him, country needs to move away from petty issues and focus on development if it wishes to succeed.
The interview served two purposes. On the one hand it afforded Modi an opportunity to answer his critics and refute all allegations against him, which he did brilliantly. On the other hand, Indians got assurances from the horse’s mouth about things that were troubling them as there was too much negativity attached to Modi. In that sense, this interview will have a salutary effect in bringing Modi closer to people.
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