My friends, NaMo's friends

(Posted on Facebook as a note on 7 April 2013 at 17:29)

Every time I speak or exchange opinions with people in my milieu in this maximum city, who are in favour of Narendra Modi becoming the prime minister, I become despondent, sad and angry.

Now, first let me acknowledge and admit a few things. I don’t like Modi. And I think that he is a great user and abuser of statistics and the best political PR machine this world has seen since Joseph Goebbels. But that is not the crux of my admission. I do grudgingly admit that he has been a better administrator than most of the present crop of heads of provincial governments or most of the ministers and cabinet members at the central government. And that I do not have substantial reasons to believe that he has an economic rent seeking side, which is now par for the course for almost everybody in public service (aka politics/bureaucracy in India).

In today’s India, having these two qualities, is a compelling qualification. And I do agree that these two are almost sufficient for one to be chosen as the head of a province or for that matter a country, if of course there are no other serious disqualifiers. Now, about probable disqualifiers of Modi, I wish to maintain a bit reticence, on this occasion. My apprehension about Modi is a hunch arising out of his authoritarian demeanour and my reading of the history -history of Germany after WW I and rise of Hitler, history and popularity of Mrs. Gandhi and her emergency and its oppressive excesses and lastly history of Sharad Pawar and institutionalisation of rent seeking politics. And please note that I am have not mentioned Godhra but for this sentence.

While what the examples of Hitler and Indira Gandhi point to, is not difficult to comprehend, but it will suffice to say that both the leader were loved by the middle class and their contemporary constituencies, to emerge as dictators and oppressors later. But I think I should elaborate the Pawar analogy a bit. Growing up in the eighties, in an Eastern province, infamous for phlegmatic response by government, I often heard paeans about this Chief Minister in Maharashtra, which went like, "Sharad Pawar is a great administrator! While he takes bribe, the job gets done."  The business class and common man, completely fed up with the lethargy of the state and bureaucracy of the 70s and early 80s, welcomed this model, whereby a legislator, a representative of citizenry, a head of a province can seek and obtain huge financial gratification. The seeds of wide spread rent seeking which was blessed by the privileged class then proliferated across the country and manifested in Bangarappa, Jayalalitha, Mulayam Singh Yadav, YSR, Yeddyurappa and Gadkari to name a few, sparing no political hue at all.  I suspect that the people who are rooting for Narendra Modi today are ignoring this historic lesson. And hoys, I am told Hitler was not corrupt, as if that is the only evil human beings are capable of.

Another problem of speaking out against Narendra Modi, as the projected leader of the country is the fact that Congress has become completely indefensible in recent time. So, for the time being, I will have to suppress my opinion about him. But the lack of an alternative, between an out of touch, failing (and falling; everyday) and dynastic party which is in a state of total disarray, and an extreme right wing party led by clearly a potential autocrat, is the reason I feel pretty despondent.

But the reason I feel partly sad and partly angry, because over a period of time I have observed the people among urban upper middle class (and unfortunately Hindu) who support Modi as the rightful candidate for the head of state, and I have discovered a set of some common beliefs they hold, which they either express explicitly or imply through winded logic. From this correlation, of commonality of a set of rather pernicious beliefs and approval and patronage of Narendra Modi, I suspect an underlying causality, which points to a severe polarisation of this milieu. For me that is a big loss. Loss of friends, not as friends but as fellow thinkers. To me it is another perilous step in the continual shrinkage of that narrow space that is left for social and economic liberals in this country. And that makes me sad and angry.

As I write this, I realise that I will end up sharing this with some people. And I think that I owe it to them for them to know what these common set of beliefs that I have discovered among those who support Mr. Modi as the next prime minister. Without any further ado I start enumerating them:


NREGS was a rank bad idea because one, few or all of the following,

• People got money without doing work and that is not right
• All the money, or most of it was pilfered away
• It took away cheap labour from city construction sites, their homes and Punjab’s fields
• NREGS did nothing to bring back or save the economy during the slowdown; (Lord Keynes, you faggot, eat your heart out!)

All pro-poor subsidies are bad,because one, few or all of the following,

• Subsidies are evil
• Subsidies foster laziness and inefficiency
• Subsidies never reach the people
• Subsidies are the only reason we have deficit, not tax evasion

Poverty:

• Most poor are responsible for their economic plight, and neither the state, nor citizens who are better off,should 'sacrifice' anything for them.
• Poverty is still largely caused by high population and the tendency of poor people (and Muslims) to procreate indiscriminately. We must have strict China-like rules to contain this (same people, for all you know, are making presentations about demographic dividend of India to their Board and Investors. And ironically, they forget that the Congress that they hate so much, had propagated this thought during Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi era.)

Casteism and affirmative action:

• Casteism is not relevant anymore
• People from lower castes are responsible for their economic plight
• There is no correlation between caste and poverty
• Reservation should be totally abolished; there is no case for affirmative action based on Caste
• Upper caste Hindus are actually economically more hard up now

Muslims:

• Muslims are responsible for their economic plight
• All or most Muslims are planning to raise large families to change the ethnic profile
• Muslims have been unduly pandered by all non-BJP parties
• Muslims are 'mostly'anti-Indian

Privatization is panacea:

• Education should be fully privatized.
• Healthcare should be fully privatized
• The air we breathe, should be privatized (well, not yet, but perhaps not too far)

Corporatization is a panacea and everything can be solved through that

• Country, state, cities,government all should be run as a company
• Politicians should be"incentivised and attracted to this 'sector' ", by large salaries and thus they will not be corrupt (this view is courtesy one Mr. Chetan Bhagat, whois a fiction author parallel to bollywood in quality and popularity, and a commentator on anything under the blue sky, patronised by the Tabloids of India)

Other issues:

• All or most civic problems in Mumbai and NCR is attributable to illegal Bangladeshi Immigrants
• Dual income, less than forty,financial services professionals, having own house in south or central Mumbai,worth more than a million dollar, are true representatives of Indian middle class
• Capital punishment is just and should not be abolished
• They all tend to 'like' one Republican canard going around on the FB about how Obama's 'socialism' is equivalent to giving equal and average grade to everybody in the class and howthat will take the country/ society down. They can be forgiven their ignorance that Obama is not a socialist. But this preference suggests that they believe their socio-economic privilege is entirely on account of their merit and the social milieu they are born into has nothing to do with it. This is why they are against any sort of subsidy, reservation and they believe that the poor are responsible for their plight.

Narendra Modi & Gujarat:

• Befor Narendra Modi, Gujarat was a backward state
• The inherent entrepreneurship of Gujaratis, has nothing to do with Gujarat's growth
• Narendra Modi has not done anything wrong and cannot do anything wrong
• You can't criticise Narendra Modi because Congress is rank bad even if you are not a Congress supporter(what a sterling peace of logic that is!!)

Culpability of Sonia Gandhi/ Narendra Modi:

• In spite of various evidences,statements by senior police personnels who have been in Gujarat those days, the state of Muslim settlements in Ahmedabad and interim pronouncements by various committees and commissions, Narendra Modi is innocent as he has not been declared guilty by any court or the SIT.
• Sonia Gandhi is downright corrupt and has made anywhere between 10 to 100 billion dollars and no court verdict is required for them.

This is not a complete list, but almost complete. I know that the moment I put this out for public consumption, I will have people among the supporters of Modi screaming hoarse "I don't endorse point number 2, 3 and 7, or 1,6 and 9 etc.!!!" Sure. I am not claiming 100% correlation. But, if any of these supporters claim that they do not, in the heart of their heart, support or endorse most or all of the above,then they are lying.

And that is sad.
This piece is not about a choice between Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi. This piece is actually not even about Narendra Modi, although he embodies the underlying issue. This is about the fundamental beliefs of those who are favoring Modi, and for us to ponder about what that portends.