BJP : Superstar Rajinikanth JOINS HAND WITH MODI

Chennai: BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi today met Tamil superstar Rajinikanth at his residence in Chennai, setting off speculation, but the actor termed it as a courtesy call and said no political significance should be attached to it. Rajinikanth said he was a "well-wisher" of Modi and wished him "all the best" while the BJP leader described the superstar as a "good friend". BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi (L) and Tamil superstar Rajinikanth. Image courtesy Narendra Modi's Twitter handle "This is not a political meeting. When Modiji visited me when I was hospitalised, I had invited him to have a cup of tea with me whenever he came to Chennai. So he has come now," Rajinikanth told reporters outside his Poes Garden residence. Answering questions by media persons in the company of Modi, Rajinikant, dressed in starched white shirt and dhoti, said, "I am happy he is here." Shaking hands and then hugging each other in front of the huge gathering of his fans, who had thronged his residence to get a glimpse of their superstar, Rajinikanth said, "He is my well-wisher and I'm his well-wisher." Modi's meeting with Rajinikanth ahead of 24 April Lok Sabha polls in Tamil Nadu where BJP has stitched an alliance of six parties fuelled speculation that the saffron party leader was likely to seek the superstar's support. Rajinikanth has been maintaining steadfastly his apolitical stand. However, the actor, who has a vast fan following, wished Modi "All the best!" Quickly responding, Modi, dressed in a saffron shirt and dhoti, said, "I wished him on the eve of Tamil New Year. He is a good friend." Modi, who arrived at the airport, drove straight to Rajinikanth's residence where the meeting lasted briefly and pleasantries were exchanged. The BJP, which has been making all out efforts to lay its footprint in Tamil Nadu for the first time, has been desperately looking for support of Rajinikanth to brighten its poll prospects. Rajinikanth, who enjoys a cult status, has been maintaining a safe distance from political parties, despite being lured by political outfits. Modi, who was in Chennai to attend AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa's swearing-in as chief minister on 16 May 2011, had also visited a private hospital where Rajinikanth was undergoing treatment for respiratory problems and wished him speedy recovery. It was during that meeting Rajinikanth had invited Modi to his residence. PTI

NARENDAR MODI -Authors and able allies

Are these biographies or hagiographies, asks the writer of the latest crop of books on political leaders.

In the year of the general elections, hagiographies seem to be in. Barring occasional rays of hope, authors today increasingly resemble medieval courtiers.

Pick up the latest biography of Narendra Modi, Sudesh Verma’s The Gamechanger and you could be excused for thinking that the Gujarat Chief Minister is the panacea for all the maladies afflicting the nation. The title of Verma’s book, though, seems tame when one comes across D.P. Singh’s Narendra Modi: Yes, He Can… Only He can save India from Impending Doom. The cover leaves no room for speculation. Or try Akhilesh Yadav: Winds of Change by Sunita Aron. Then there isRahul by Jatin Gandhi and Veenu Sandhu that tells us the Gandhi scion is a patient man ready to bide his time for final success. But, Rahul Gandhi being both inaccessible and inscrutable, the husband-wife team had a mountain to climb.

Add other books on our leaders, their economics, their politics and it seems there is no dearth of modern-day Chanakyas! We are spoiled for choice. Some of the books attempt to woo slinking shadows, others prop up individuals squandered in a maze of narcissism. Our media is often accused of being both pliant and given to predilections. But authors? In the season of elections, nobody, it seems, minds a good harvest. And some authors have turned into able allies. They paint their subjects with a halo — men who never sinned, were only sinned against. Alternately, they build a myth around them.

Sample this: On the failed marriage of the Gujarat Chief Minister, Verma writes, “Narendra was able to defend his action by remembering Gautama Buddha. Narendra’s friends recall his explanation in private talks that even Buddha had left his wife, son and all pleasures and luxuries of a royal life in search of Truth….”

And how is this for an anecdote from childhood to embellish the narrative: “Once, Narendra was badly injured when a crocodile hit his left foot with its tail. A croc’s tail is strong; a hit by it can be fatal… Narendra was an eighth grade student then. He got nine stitches on his left foot near the ankle and was bed-ridden for more than a week… This incident would have scared any other child for the rest of his life, but not Narendra. Within a month, he was back in the lake.” Later Verma adds, “While coming back from his swimming routine, he found a baby crocodile lying alone at the side of the lake. It was more than a foot long. ND took the baby croc to his residence to nurse it…”

Verma claims he gleaned these details because of his team of five members. “I took leave for eight months to write the book. I spoke to his relatives, his neighbours. I was privileged enough to meet Modi more than half a dozen times. It changed my perception of him. He was more sinned against.”

Aron, on the other hand, does not attempt to invest Akhilesh with a halo; she gets help from unexpected quarters. Akhilesh, in a direct reference to the much-hailed sultan, was called Tipu in childhood. However, when talking of his birth, Aron cannot resist painting a picture that reminds readers of the birth of Krishna, replete with songs, bhajans and gaiety. Aron writes, “…There was anxiety in the air as a frail Malti Devi moaned with labour pains…The midwife tried to comfort Malti, who was in her early thirties, in a room faintly lit by a lantern. An infant’s first cry around 5.30 a.m. triggered a flurry of activity in the house. An excited midwife announced the birth of a baby boy and triggered celebrations. There were smiles all around and sweets were distributed even as people started pouring in to bless the boy. The sound of dholak reverberated as women with their faces covered in ghunghats sang jachchaand jananas to welcome the new arrival in the family of an ordinary farmer.”

Aron, however, says that she wrote the book like a journalist. “I don’t know how the book is going to be positioned in the election year. It is up to the publishers. It has formally not been released yet as the CM is busy. Incidentally, I found him very reticent in my talks and I spoke to a lot of relatives and others to take the story forward. I used a novel-like narrative, built the story on anecdotes.” But winds of change? “Yes, there are winds of change; there is a generational shift in U.P. politics,” she insists.

Not too different in mood and spirit is Arun Sinha’s Nitish Kumar and the Rise of Bihar. Sinha, a college-time friend of the Bihar CM, writes like a friend too. No uncomfortable questions, no sneak asides.

Then there are others who have revisited a political subject. For instance, veteran M.V. Kamath and Kalindi Randeri with The Man of the Moment: Modi, or Sameer Kochhar withModiNomics. Kamath and his co-author had earlier authored another book on Modi, The Architect of a Modern State.

Many of these works are not easy to read. Their prose is laboured, tainted with pedantry, breathless with stuffiness. Life is not linear; a single-strand narrative cannot render it accurately. These days, as we have discovered, the language of political discourse is both banal and inaccurate.

Some works, when they shift focus from the immediate subject, make interesting reading, like Aarthi Ramachandran’s Decoding Rahul Gandhi, but where is the bravura, that dash of irreverence? Certainly not in Pappu Yadav’s Hindi autobiography, or even Sutanu Guru’s more nuanced Beyond Rahul versus Modi.

However, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay’s and Kingshuk Nag’s books — Narendra Modi: The Man, the Times and The NaMo Story respectively — are a breath of fresh air. Neither seeks to impart a halo to Modi nor run him down unnecessarily. Mukhopadhyay says, “On Modi there is tremendous polarisation; either you are 150 per cent with him or against him. It is difficult to be nuanced. I was taking a risk of being isolated by either camp. I spoke to Modi many times. Fortunately, there has been a huge response from the market. But, yes, Modi has stopped speaking to me. Probablybecause he found the style offensive as I have taken small jabs at him. No bookstore has had an event in Ahmedabad.”

A Hindi version of the book has been brought out by Yatra and several Malayalam books have borrowed from his biography, but no Marathi or Gujarati publisher has come forward.

Nag did not interview Modi. He says, “You can love him, or hate him, but there is no way that you can ignore Narendra Modi.” Interestingly, Nag had the idea for the book from 2002 but when he approached a publisher, he was advised, “Write a book from the Hindu point of view.” It took another 10 years before a publisher (Roli Books) agreed to a biography that would neither “demonise” nor “lionise” the subject.

Another similar case is Sankarshan Thakur’s well-researched, persuasively-argued book on Nitish Kumar Single Man. Incidentally, Thakur had, much earlier, written about Nitish’s main rival Laloo Prasad Yadav in The Making of Laloo, the Unmaking of Bihar.

These are, however, exceptions in an age keen to rewrite its times.

Modi asks Mulayam-"Why so many riots in UP"

"Congress, SP and BSP are misleading the people by wearing the veil of secularism to conceal their failures," the Gujarat Chief Minister told a massive rally in Lucknow on Sunday

Unleashing a scathing attack on the troika of Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Sunday accused them of covering up their failures by creating a hype over "threat to secularism" and said their "extermination" was certain in the upcoming general elections.

"SaBKa vinaash tay hai (their extermination is certain)" he said while accusing the three parties of "divide and rule" and relegating secularism to a mere "election slogan." Secularism for the BJP, he said, was an "article of faith" which placed "India First" and "united people" on the path of development.

Personally directing his attack on SP supremo Muyalam Singh, Mr. Modi said: "There have been 150 riots in the one year rule of your son (UP CM Akhilesh Yadav). In Gujarat, in the last 10 years there have been no riots. You try and compare with us? Our heads bow in shame due to your politics and goondagardi." To correct Mr. Modi, the SP came to power in 2012 making it two years of Mr. Yadav's rule.

"Netaji conceded defeat"

Addressing the last of his party's eight rallies in UP at the massive Ramabai grounds in the State capital, Mr. Modi took the SP chief head on, claiming that Mr. Singh had "conceded defeat" in his address in Allahabad. "Netaji says don't compete on the size of the crowds at the rallies. It means he has already admitted defeat. He is asking me to fight on development issues. I'm glad he has been forced by us to talk about development and leave his old ways. I am in favour of development politics and have been urging political parties to end their votebank politics.

From a stage that adorned a huge poster of Atal Bihari Vajpayee with "272 plus" imprinted on it, the Gujarat Chief Minister evoked the former PM's Lucknow connection.

Continuing his attack on the SP, Mr. Modi said the party was divided into two camps, the "Samajvirodhi Party" (anti-social) and the "Sukhvadi Party," which indulged in fun. "(Ram Manohar) Lohia's soul will not be at rest. He would have been pained by the SP's acts."

Poking fun at the power situation in UP, Mr. Modi said "you have reservation in electricity supply as well, only in Netaji's area."

Alleging that Mr. Singh was spreading lies (on Gujarat's development), he said: "Don't criticise Gujarat, first give an account of your work and progress in UP."

Mr. Modi hit out at the alleged Muslim appeasement policy of the SP and compared the number of applicants for the Hajj pilgrimage in UP and Gujarat saying the minority community was better off in his State.

"Despite only having a quota for 4800 persons, Gujarat receives Hajj 38,000 applications. In UP, which is ten times bigger, there are only 35000 applications. If Muslims were in good shape under you, even they would perform the Hajj."

Mr. Modi also targeted the SP's most prominent Muslim face, Urban Development Minister Azam Khan, mocking him on a recent incident when the State police machinery was set into action to retrieve the Rampur MLA's lost buffaloes. Though he attacked Union Ministers Salman Khurshid and Sri Prakash Jaiswal for corruption allegations against them, Mr. Modi avoided mention of AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, who flayed the Gujarat development model in his rally in Kanpur.

With the elections coming up, the BJP's chief strategy in UP is the consolidation of the non-Yadav OBC votes. Mr. Modi did not miss out on raking up his own background as an OBC while contending that the coming decade would belong to the "OBCs, Dalits and the suppressed classes."

Along with senior BJP leaders Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti, and Party president Rajnath Singh, Mr. Modi shared the dias with Dalit leader Udit Raj, former Army chief V.K Singh and former RAW chief Satish Tripathi, all of whom joined the party recently.

Kalyan Singh back in BJP

The BJP also formally inducted the posterboy of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, Kalyan Singh, who, the BJP chief said would be given "some top responsibilities" and not be restricted to the post of a common worker. There are speculations that the BJP chief could be fielded from Lucknow and Mr. Modi could contest from Varanasi.

UK not to engage with Modi

A meeting organised on Wednesday by the U.K. based groups Awaz and the Monitoring Committee resolved to put pressure on the British government not to engage with Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi until justice is done for victims of human rights violations during the 2002 Gujarat riots.

The event was hosted by Labour Party MP for Hayes and Harlington John McDonnell and supported by party MP for Islington North Jeremy Corbyn at the House of Commons.

The meeting resolved that it would seek an Early Day Motion to the House of Commons and take a delegation of MPs to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office asking that there should be no official engagement with Mr. Modi until he has been held legally accountable for his responsibility in the 2002 violence. The meeting also heard that action is underway for an international tribunal on genocide in Gujarat.

The speakers at the meeting included Suresh Grover of the Monitoring Group; Pragna Patel from the women’s group Southall Black Sisters; Chetan Bhatt, director, Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the London School of Economics; and Professor Gautam Appa, professor emeritus from the LSE.

Yusuf Dawood and Imran Dawood, U.K. citizens of Gujarati origin whose close relatives were killed in Gujarat in 2002 were also present.

The sharp polarisation of political opinion within U.K.-based Indian community was on display at the meeting. A group of supporters of Mr. Modi engaged in arguments with the speakers and then staged a noisy walkout towards the end of the meeting, demanding proof of the allegations made against Mr. Modi.

Mr. Modi has considerable cross-party political support in Britain. Even within the Labour Friends of India there have been attempts to get the government to revoke the earlier restrictions that had been placed upon his visiting the U.K.

In fact, this meeting was initially to have been hosted by Virendra Sharma, Labour MP for Ealing and Southall. However, he pulled out of his sponsorship a day before the meeting. While Mr. Sharma said it was because he did not want to associate with the “anti-Hindu” agenda of the meeting, the organisers said that it was because of pressure from his pro-Modi constituency.

Messages of support were read out from the artist and sculptor, Sir Anish Kapoor, Baroness Helena Kennedy, a distinguished barrister and human rights campaigner and Mike Wood, MP for Batley and Spen.

Mr. Kapoor said: “I am deeply grateful you are doing this. We are in a moment of great danger and your call to our sense of justice is much needed.”

AAP KEJRIWAL chance for the outsiders

The ideology which Lutyens’ Delhi today represents is fundamentally at odds with an India which is growing accustomed to the idea of participatory democracy

Had Raj Thackeray been a ‘manoos’ from Lutyens’ Delhi, he would be facing an existential crisis. A strange wind is blowing across the corridors of Lutyens’ Delhi’ high-walled barbed gates, which metaphorically and physically remain out of bounds for 99 per cent of the population.

Ever since the British moved the capital from Calcutta to Delhi, central Delhi has become synonymous with power and prestige. After Edwin Lutyens radically redrew the capital, power was given a shape and symbol. And those who were fortunate enough to find themselves a space in Delhi’s vicinity invariably became the agents of change in independent India.

From there began an incestuous cycle of power where residents of the ‘chosen land’ dominated the country affairs, either directly or through proxy. Barring the inconsequential tenure of H.D. Deve Gowda, almost all Prime Ministers nourished their national political careers in one of the red sandstone buildings of the capital. For a large part of the last century and until recently, if one did not shape his or her public life under this dome-shaped edifice, he or she would be seen as lacking national appeal.

But now there is a discernible shift in the national mood. India is going for an election where its main political protagonists do not portray the look and feel of the conventional ‘Delhi-based leader.’ On the contrary, a common thread underlying the three key candidates — Narendra Modi, Arvind Kejriwal and Rahul Gandhi — to Delhi’s throne is their sequestered relationship to capital politics.

Emergence of the exceptions

Mr. Modi pitches his candidature as the ‘external redeemer’ who will clean the mess in Lutyens’ Delhi. The last time Mr. Modi lived in the capital was in the late 1990’s when he worked in the party’s headquarters. Though he did play a crucial behind-the-scene role in the party, it is the time he served in Gujarat which has significantly added to his credentials as a suitable leader for the top job. Expectedly, his campaign and aides are not restricted to Delhi, which represents a point of departure for the party’s electoral strategy.

Mr. Gandhi, of late, has been trying his best to rub off the ‘elite stains’ of being a Lutyens’ resident. He projects himself as a mere observer and not actor to all that has unfolded in South block in the last 10 years. Such is the national rage against all those who inhabit the grandiose building of the capital that Mr. Gandhi is making every attempt to break away from this image. His remark — that he would tear up the controversial ordinance that aimed at protecting convicted law makers — was viewed as such an attempt.

Mr. Kejriwal casts himself as the ‘eternal outsider.’ A resident of Ghaziabad, he chooses Lutyens’ Delhi as his preferred choice for protest. Considering the ideology of his politics, given a chance, he may even demolish the lofty monuments built by Edwin Lutyens and replace them with more aam aadmi-like structures.

Delhi: the hub of power

For more than half a century, Lutyens’ Delhi was venerated with both respect and fear. If one wanted to build a career in national politics, it was ‘the place’ to network and mingle. Other than a few exceptions, in the Congress scheme of things, it was the ‘Delhi-based observers’ who would anoint Chief Minsters for States from places as far-flung from Delhi as Kerala and Nagaland.

In our flawed federal structure, it was deemed impossible for one to make the logical and sequential transition from sarpanch to Member of the Legislative Assembly to Member of Parliament and then to Prime Minster. The concentration of power in Lutyens’ Delhi perpetuated a potent cocktail of nepotism and malfeasance. Today, for many, Lutyens’ Delhi symbolises a closed system which defies meritocracy and capability. It is a construct reserved exclusively for the bureaucratic or political elite. For many, it is this concentration of power which is the root cause of India’s corruption problems.

The ideology which Lutyens’ Delhi today represents is fundamentally at odds with an India which is growing accustomed to the idea of participatory democracy. This is not an idea propagated exclusively by the Aam Aadmi Party but is being increasingly adopted by all political parties. Mr. Modi too, through his maxim ‘minimum government, maximum governance,’ is calling for greater involvement of citizens in politics. Even Mr. Gandhi is making an attempt to write his party’s manifesto outside Delhi — a first of its kind for the Congress.

As a pluralistic and regionally assertive India progresses toward modernity, it is becoming clear that the country needs not one single solution but a gamut of localised solutions to problems in the country. An active citizenry, which demands closer physical access to power, is changing the definition of ‘national politics.’ This is evident from a closer analysis of election turnouts.

Between 1989 and 2009, the turnout for the Lok Sabha elections has remained constant at around 60 per cent. Interestingly, the turnout for State elections continues to surge, even while incumbents are voted back to power. The States that went to polls last December saw an average increase of six percentage points in voter turnout compared to the 2008 Assembly elections. This trend could be emblematic of the fact that voters believe they have a larger role to play in affairs to which they have closer physical access.

If this divergence in voter turnout continues, India could produce many more Narendra Modis in the coming years as it will become much easier for a Shivraj Singh Chouhan or a Jayalalithaa to prove their national credentials by performing in their State, rather than trying to emerge from Delhi’s rat race.

The emergence of any of the above three leaders this summer could mark a paradigm shift in Indian polity — AAP making an impressive national debut, Mr. Gandhi rejuvenating the Congress in his new avatar or Mr. Modi becoming Prime Minster. It would make the dream for many to occupy Lutyens’ Delhi seem less distant; the road to the capital can now pass through Gandhinagar, Gangtok or Goa.

(Siddharth Mazumdar is founder of Citizens for Accountable Governance.)