In Saba Naqvi’s latest book titled “Shades of Saffron”, the former political editor of Outlook magazine purports to analyse the BJP and its rise to power from the time of Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Narendra Modi. The book is a breezy read culminating in the current BJP hegemony, with the last chapter ominously titled “BJP Inc”. This encapsulates the journey from Vajpayee to Modi, the enormous success in expanding Hindutva and the corporate sector’s unconditional support to the BJP, not just through contributions – which have been massive – but through the control of media to shape the narrative.
Shades of Saffron: From Vajpayee To Modi, Saba Naqvi. Westland, 2018.
There is a certain symmetry in the book in that she deals with the early struggles and coalition dramas associated with the Vajpayee years (Jayalalita comes out as the most difficult of the coalition partners) to the high noon of the BJP’s ascendency and with the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo comes the complete and total centralisation of power. Significantly, this is also reflected in the manner in which the party is funded and channels its monies, showing a corporatisation and centralisation hitherto unseen in the annals of modern Indian political history. Much has been written about the media savviness of the BJP and its domination of social media, less about its ability to tap funding from the corporate sector, and that too, from a clique of select industrialists. The apogee of this corporatisation is reflected in the swank new BJP headquarters which could easily pass off as that of a substantial multinational.
Although Naqvi describes herself as a political analyst and an authority on the BJP, there is a distinction between a good reporter of which there are increasingly few and a political analyst of substance who is able to chart a phenomenon and place it in a historic context as well as dealing with the ideology and outcomes. Naqvi’s analysis is sporadic and not particularly insightful as to outcomes. She also attributes to Modi the quote that “Vajpayee has become a leader. Sonia is a mere reader.” I seem to first recall that remark being used by M.J. Akbar around 2001-2002.
What is enjoyable is the manner in which she deals with the dramatist personae of the party in a series of excellent pen portraits and vignettes: Vajpayee, Uma Bharati, Arun Jaitley, the tragedy of L.K. Advani, the untimely demise of Pramod Mahajan, leading to the most enigmatic and complex character, Narendra Modi, of whom she has little new material to offer. To me, the only insight was his interaction with what she describes as affluent and sophisticated Gujaratis who gave him a window into the modern world away from RSS dogma, into other cultures, such as Pakistani plays and curiously, Western classical music. Is he interested in Wagner, for example? She refers to one Manoj Ladwa, a London based London School of Economics graduate and solicitor who played an important role in mentoring Modi on dealing with a cosmopolitan culture and international diplomacy.
Foreign policy as popular entertainment
One of her most insightful observations is the packaging of the nuclear blasts in 1998 to demonstrate that a hawkish foreign policy could yield huge political dividends, but invariably at the cost of old school diplomacy. In that sense, what Vajpayee triggered, Modi has taken to another level with the ‘surgical strike’, whereby foreign policy has ceased to be the domain of diplomats and policy wonks and morphed into a form of popular entertainment. This has important implications on how diplomacy is conducted, leading to unintended consequences.
The nuclear blasts, for example, did no favours to Pakistan. The intent was not just to show the world that India has nuclear capability, but to destroy Pakistan economically as it would be forced to explode its own bomb and face the ensuing sanctions, which were bound to prejudice it more. What happened as a consequence was the substitution of the US as Pakistan’s benefactor by Saudi Arabia, which wrote a blank cheque in relation to oil. That was a prelude to the military coup that saw off India’s only friend, Nawaz Sharif, who was overthrown by Parvez Musharraf, the brains behind Kargil. The blowback, placing the Pakistani hawks very much in charge, continues. But all this could have been avoided if we had not conducted the first explosion at that time. It set off what Gore Vidal in his insightful essay on the Middle East situation called “Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace”.
Whilst Naqvi is spot on in describing the seamless efficiency of the Modi-Shah paradigm of centralised political control with a powerful ideological cadre at its base interlocked with centralised funding from a few powerful corporate entities, the implications for our polity are not properly explored. There is much emphasis on matters which affect the liberal intelligentsia in terms of the rise in communal and anti-Dalit violence, less so on the policy implications of the corporatisation.
The belief in the corporate sector means that there is less concern for what is called the unorganised sector, which has been significant in job generation and exports. The fact that both the slow rate of job creation and exports have been major disappointments of this government should not come as a surprise. Similarly, the attitude of the government to rural distress and the plight of the farmers is yet another consequence of its urban and corporate bias. Amartya Sen has commented disparagingly about the great leap backwards regarding health and educational entitlements since 2014. More fundamentally, issues such as environmental degradation, the rights of tribals and forest dwellers over the natural resources on their lands also have not been addressed by a government which sees these regulations as impediments to economic growth and therefore necessary to be diluted or rescinded.
A necessary consequence?
The conundrum is that whether this outcome is a consequence of Narendra Modi’s personal beliefs or a necessary consequence of his corporatisation of what is now India’s biggest political party. Whilst it is uncontestable that Modi personally has a passion for order, invariably a trait associated with authoritarianism, he has an even greater hunger for power and most critically holding on to it. Ramchandra Guha in a recent talk described him as a narcissist and for a man who is reputed to change his outfit at least six times a day, that is very much in character.
The most convenient mode of Modi holding on to power is through corporatisation, not just of the party, but of India. But like with the Republicans in America, this agenda which benefits a few has to be coupled with a virulent nationalism to enthuse the masses. So in a curious sense, the most apparently enigmatic personality in Saba Naqvi’s book is perhaps the most transparent. He is a prisoner of his desire for power to control and for him, the scope for real action to address the deep seated problems of this country are limited by this. Accordingly, his true genius lies in packaging, manipulation of the media, in being a peddler of dreams.
Javed Gaya is a lawyer based in Mumbai.
