If he wants to be India’s next PM, Narendra Modi needs to start talking

Published originally in the Globe and Mail, July 4, 2013.

For his many ardent supporters, Narendra Modi represents the change they feel India is in dire need of.

Mr. Modi, 62 is chief minister of the western state of Gujarat and on June 9 was named campaigner-in-chief by the principal opposition, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), known for its Hindu-nationalist roots, as it gears up for state elections later this year and general elections next year. He is expected to be named the party’s prime ministerial candidate.

The announcement occurred amidst much fanfare at the party’s conclave last month in the state of Goa. Mr. Modi’s elevation has set off a churn both within his own party and the larger coalition it leads, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The day after the Goa announcement, 86-year-old Lal Krishna Advani, patriarch of the BJP, set off a mini-revolt by resigning his party positions. Mr. Advani and some of his loyal supporters skipped the important Goa meeting. He was persuaded the next day to withdraw his resignation. Most analysts believe that the reason for Mr. Advani’s outburst against the party he helped found reflects his unease at the rise of Mr. Modi Two weeks ago, in the wake of Mr. Modi’s new position, Nitish Kumar, chief minister of the state of Bihar, withdrew from the NDA, thus ending a seventeen-year alliance with the BJP. While Mr. Kumar didn’t say so explicitly, it’s an open secret that the reason was Mr. Modi, with whom he’s recently had a tense relationship.

Not a day goes by in India without Mr. Modi being in the headlines for one reason or another. For all intents and purposes, campaigning for next year’s elections has already begun.

If you go by what his internet fan base says, Mr. Modi is nothing short of a new messiah who’ll rid the country of corruption, poor governance, creaky infrastructure and politics oriented around catering to the nation’s minority communities. Instead, these supporters, who come largely from India’s urban middle class and from the diaspora, see a brave new world of high growth, efficient governance, well-functioning infrastructure and a politics presumably built around the values and culture of the nation’s Hindu majority.

Equally to his many staunch critics, Mr. Modi represents the latest incarnation of an assertive Hindu nationalism and a style of leadership marked by authoritarianism over consensus.

Mr. Modi’s twelve years running Gujarat provide a case study of just how he’d go about governing, as well as some of the potential pitfalls. Early in his tenure as chief minister in 2002, the state witnessed a major outbreak of Hindu-Muslim violence in the wake of the killing of 58 Hindu pilgrims that led to the deaths of nearly 2000 people, most of them Muslim, and the dispossession or orphaning of tens of thousands more. It was the most serious incident of inter-ethnic violence India has seen during the past 20 years.

While Mr. Modi has always asserted that his government did the best it could to prevent the violence and he’s received a clean bill of health from a preliminary report filed before India’s supreme court, his critics continue to contend that his government connived with the perpetrators of the violence or at the very least looked the other way. (Organizations such as Human Rights Watch have also argued that members of Mr. Modi’s government orchestrated the anti-Muslim violence). The events in 2002 continue to dog Mr. Modi to this day and may affect the BJP’s electoral prospects next year especially in states with large Muslim minorities.

Indeed, one likely reason Mr. Kumar of Bihar ended his partnership with the BJP is the fear of losing Muslim votes given the advent of Mr. Modi.

For his part, Mr. Modi has stressed his credentials as a pro-business and development-oriented politician, pointing to the great strides his state has made under his watch. Indeed, Gujarat’s economic success has also brought praise from the international community including from Prime Minister Stephen Harper who declared the state “an important partner” for Canada. Canada was a partner country of this year’s Vibrant Gujarat Summit, Mr.Modi’s annual schoomzefest for international and domestic investors. Mr. Modi also enjoys considerable support among the Indian diaspora in the United States and Canada, whom he addressed via video conference in March.

A visitor to the state’s capital Ahmedabad is bound to be struck by the city’s infrastructure, excellent by Indian standards, and by all of the new industry that has sprouted up. It’s also true that many Muslims in Gujarat, some of whom I’ve spoken to, say they have benefited from the state’s economic development; some, though by no means all, prominent voices within the Muslim community have spoken out in support of Mr. Modi. They point to the fact that there’s been no communal violence in the state since the riots of 2002.

Mr. Modi is routinely described in the Indian and international media as a “polarizing” figure. This is due as much to the fact that he has been reticent about speaking about the 2002 communal violence, refusing to be drawn on the subject in the rare interviews he grants to the media. Mr. Modi’s preferred style is to reach over the heads of mainstream media and interact directly with his supporters in the social media, who obviously aren’t asking him tough questions about 2002 or his governing style.

Rhetoric about Mr. Modi both from his supporters and detractors tends to be hyperbolic. His supporters as see him as a saviour, while his critics call him a fascist and even worse. The truth is, given the messy realities of Indian politics, Mr.Modi if elected prime minister is unlikely to be either. Indian voters therefore will need to decide if Mr. Modi, in spite of whatever baggage he may carry, represents even a modicum of hope and change over the arrogance, ineptitude and corruption of the incumbent Congress-led government – or whether there are too many question marks over what a Modi prime ministership would look like.

In the absence of Mr. Modi directly addressing the charges raised by his critics, the discourse will continue to be dominated by spin and counter-spin.

Mr. Modi has always been known as a great communicator. It’s time for him to start communicating.

Rupa Subramanya is based in Mumbai and co-author of Indianomix: Making Sense of Modern India . Follow her on Twitter @rupasubramanya