OF PATEL AND SHIVAJI

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a host of items on his to-do list but what could be uppermost on it became known recently when he urged party workers to make BJP “as diverse as India”. The exhortation is linked to BJP’s massive membership drive. But Modi is trying to pull his party out of the present stereotypes to which it is traditionally cast. Like the party of bhat (Brahmin) and sethia (trader) in Maharashtra. Or the party of the “Hindu right”, as the Western media routinely describes BJP for unknowable reasons.

Congress is lucky, or so it seemed, as it could rule most of the 67 years after Independence because it had no stereotypical stamp. To an entire generation, Congress was the “party of freedom struggle”. To the next generation it was the “party of governance”. As Modi has settled in his seat and has begun sensing the compulsions of power, he is feeling the necessity of BJP replacing Congress not only as the party in power but one that is capable of capturing India’s diversity. Its appeal must not be limited by stereotypes.

It is in this quest that Modi has begun to appropriate the icons of rivals, or unraveling an iconography entirely his own. It is for long that Shiv Sena in Maharashtra has monopolized Chatrapati Shivaji, the 17^th century Maratha warrior king. The Sena claims to be his sole cultural inheritor. Modi’s plan to overturn the Thackerays from this imaginary cultural bastion was obvious. It showed at the swearing-in ceremony of the new BJP cabinet in Maharashtra at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium, headed by Devendra Fadnavis. Memories of Shivaji were invoked throughout the function—with a giant screen projecting the image of the king at Raigad. And the new Chief Minister and his colleagues went round the stadium in a chariot a la Chatrapati Maharaj.

Before the swearing in, and till now, the relations between BJP and Shiv Sena have been tense, to say the least. By going it without the Sena in the assembly elections, coming first with just 22 seats short of simple majority, and showing little urgency to invite the Sena to participate in the government at any terms, BJP under Modi has shown it has little stomach for sharing the table with truculent partners. He may be appropriating the Maratha tradition of Shivaji worship, but it is with a specific purpose. If Uddhav Thackeray and his supporters think they have a claim on the Great Maratha, the BJP under Modi is rebutting it with the assertion that Shivaji is a national hero and therefore no exclusive mascot for a regional outfit. Besides, the Modi brigade made it a point to visit the memorial of Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray and pay respect to the departed leader’s memory. So the ‘Maratha manoos’ has nothing to gripe over.

It is not decided when the Sena will join the Fadnavis government and, if so, at what terms? But whatever may that be, it is clear that the Sena’s primacy in the Maharshtra ‘saffron’ set-up has ended, and it is now BJP’s turn to decide the state’s future course. In an ironic sense, Modi and his team are indeed internalizing India’s “diversities”.

The game is not always icon snatching. The twist that BJP gave to the commemoration of a particular day, October 31, is iconoclasm with a rare strategic edge. The day was the 30^th anniversary of Indira Gandhi’s assassination. It is also Sardar Balllavbhai Patel’s birth anniversary. Year after year, Congress bigwigs have observed the day by paying homage solely to Indira, Patel being remembered casually by some small groups, or not at all.

Last week, Modi left the traditional and unquestioning Congress supporters devoted to the trinity of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi gasping when he made the his government coldly ignore the death anniversary of Indira. Modi himself made just a passing reference to her in a speech, that too to describe the vengeful mass killing of Sikhs (Indira was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards) as a “dagger in the heart” of India. No previous Prime Minister, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, did either refrain from paying personal homage to Indira or mention the unpleasant truth of anti-Sikh violence on that day.

Modi robs his enemy of his 

banner, his colors and 

his emblem. 

Who is next ?

For Congress, it was not yet just deserts. It is a known fact that Sardar Patel was a thorn in the side of Nehru for a multiplicity of reasons, including turf battle. Much of it is documented and described even in standard history books. In a striking display of long memory of hostility, the Nehru-Gandhi clan stayed sullen about the Sardar all these years. He died as early as 1950 but Bharat Ratna, the highest national award, was not given to Patel despite the fact that without the “iron man”, many of the over five hundred princely states of the British centuries would have kept away from independent India. Finally, the Ratna award went to Patel in 1991, when P. V. Narasimha Rao—a bête noire of the leading Congress family—was prime minister. So vindictive was Nehru to Patel that when some Congress leaders approached him in the Sixties to erect his statue at a street square in Delhi, Patel Chowk, the then prime minister objected to its being financed by the state. It was finally done on public contribution by Jan Sangh MP late Kanwarlal Gupta. Interestingly, this was not done by Jan Sangh but by an NGO.

Modi marked the day off to Patel, and Patel only. And that too in grand style, complete with a ‘Run for Unity’. Congress clamored that Patel was its icon after all but timely reminder of its neglect to him in the media, obviously orchestrated, made the claim sound silly in the context of the party’s unflinching trinity worship.

If it is Shivaji in Maharashtra, it is Patel across India. The former will boomerang on the Sena. The latter, on Congress. When Modi attacks, he first robs his enemy of his banner, his colors and his emblem. Robbed of his history, the poor adversary stands defenceless out in the cold.

(The author is

National Editor 

of Lokmat group)