Modi: A man of ideas

Prof. Aurobindo Mazumdar

(amzghy@gmail.com)

History tells us that there is always room for a man of ideas, and he makes room for many other people. Society is a troop of such geniuses, and the best heads among them take the best places. A feeble man can see the farms that are fenced and tilled and the houses that are built. The strong man sees the possible houses and farms. His eye makes estates as fast as the sun breeds clouds. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, is such a man. Modi, unlike many other leaders of a free India, is a man of ideas and ideals. Modi is the product of the social circumstances in India. Modi’s rise to political power is due to cultural and economic conditions. It is of course true, in a general sense, that every distinguished career is proximately due to circumstances, but in most cases, the reputations acquired by men of superior ability are only modified or coloured by their surroundings.

The history of administration during the nine-year rule of Modi is fascinating, brilliant, dramatic, and epoch-making. Modi has the solidity of reasoning, the force of sagacity, and the wisdom to cope with the complications of difficult circumstances. He has, to a very extraordinary degree, many of the elements of greatness. He is a man of splendid talents, great fluency, great boldness, strong passions, quick sensibility, and vehement enthusiasm, but, not to be surprised, most of his political life has passed through turbulent storms, clashes, and conflicts.

From the market places to offices, from the teachers to administrators, from the grocers to corporate managers, everywhere there is one and only one conversation between Modi and Modi. Investigative reports by prominent media experts, debates in various electronic media channels, debates in public places, and discussions among commuters on railways and buses are flooded with various topics about Modi. With all his shortcomings, he is a leader and the repository of the nation’s hopes.

He has one eminent qualification: a mechanism by which he raises the ebb and flow of popular feeling and turns it into his political fortune. The personality of Modi is so distinct and so aggressive that the events of his administration hang around his individuality. Nothing will escape his notice; his policy decisions in matters of social, economic, and political affairs will bear his stamp, and he will take all risks, come what may. The government of Modi marks itself with greater distinctness than does the government of any other Prime Minister of India. His government is the beginning of a new period in the political history of India.

His opposition has claimed that Modi would divide the nation, but his period has witnessed the fruition of national policies. Modi’s administration has freed the country once and for all from serious meddling by any foreign power. He shows how most of the great questions should arise and how to solve them. Modi has hammered out a series of political principles that have become the foundation of a democracy. There is the same Constitution of India, but with a new principle; the same administrative organisation, but with a new and unheard-of spirit animating it; the same confidence in national honour and resources, but with a more striking assertion of them; the same vigorous social life, but with strange and startling manifestations.

Many intellectuals, journalists, lawyers, and politicians often said that Modi was a man of ‘mediocre talent and that he was not qualified to govern a country like India of many races and many religions; these secularist as well as leftist forces held that the majority of the enlightened classes of India had always opposed Modi. But he has pursued his way without fear or relenting. He has made strong enemies but has won strong friends inside and outside the country. His opposition possessed, to a very high degree, talent but scarcely necessary to a situation; we mean the talent for conducting political controversy.

He has a long succession of crowning events that are so just, so grand, and so grave, and he has converted them into history. Modi’s predecessors wrote their autobiographies and histories, but Modi has not yet written his own political memoirs narrating the ins and outs and the hidden mechanisms by which he runs the government. But he has spoken history, acted history, and lived history. All these things are the subject of constant discussions among a section of intellectuals, writers, and political scientists. His name is a household word among a large section of the rural and urban poor.

Modi’s style of political speech is most appreciated because it best suits the national temperament of the majority people of India. Indians, like many other nations, are highly sensitive, emotional, and excitable beings. He has a great abhorrence for debt, public and private, but he also has a great love for justice and for his country, which are his ruling passions.

Modi’s merit is almost entirely rhetorical. He did not succeed either in exposition or refutation, but his speeches abounded with lively illustrations, striking apotheosis, well-told anecdotes, happy allusions, and passionate appeals. His invective and sarcasm were terrible. It is chiefly through the oratory of a public man that the nation judges his powers. His rhetorical language and sonorous and grandly eloquent phrases mesmerised the audience with great laughter that echoed from one part to the next. He has inexhaustible resources, which open up boundless horizons.

He has the ability to demolish the most reasoned argument with an amusing reply or a telling retort that strikes the imagination. While the opposition parties have sunk into chaos, the scarcity of opposition leaders has led to a vacuum in party spirit that has never been known since independence. So the poet writes:

Modi, the man of life upright, whose guiltless heart is free from all dishonest deeds or thoughts of vanity, enjoys his dear wit and rhetoric.

His Dictionary of Love unfolds the blemishes of his arch-enemy.

The most true, but the boldest man, that ever warlike weapons could take him, and no lawless lust ever overcomes him, neither to melt in pleasures nor in hot desire.

He meets the roughness with toughness in the middle.

He is not fried in heartless hugs and doleful tears; he is Modi.