Glimpses of key events leading to Modi’s rise

Ravi Velloor has written an intriguing account of political events of the decade that led to Narendra Modi's rise to power in his book titled India Rising: Fresh Hope, New Fears. As Singapore Straits Times’ man in India, he was a diligent reporter, meticulously cultivating inside sources, winnowing Indian publications and chasing stories as and when they occurred. The result is a readable account of men and events with mots thrown in to enliven the telling.

To give two examples, the author recounts how Shashi Tharoor charmed his way to seek Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi’s approval to sponsor his name for United Nations secretary-general's post, over the heads of the country’s Foreign Service establishment. It is well known that the veto holders in the UN Security Council favour small countries for the job, which carries much prestige but few powers. Tharoor’s term in the senior UN position he held, was coming to an end and he used his unsuccessful bid for the top job to parachute into the Indian politics by contesting an election to the parliament from Kerala on a Congress ticket.

The second target for the author’s ire is the longest serving defence minister in Manmohan Singh's cabinet, A.K. Antony, whose motto was to keep his hands clean at the cost of modernisation of the country’s defence forces and equipment. Arms procurement has led many politicians and officials to the graveyard. The author suggests that when the Prime Minister went wobbly in his second term, Antony began dreaming of replacing him.

For a foreign correspondent, admittedly of Indian roots, the author gets most things right in the often-intricate games behind the scene to secure personal or political advantage, with Modi's progress felicitated by the death of Pramod Mahajan, the suave BJP politician.

But this account of the Indian political scene is full of ironies. Velloor worked for The Straits Times and is still associated with it. Considerably laudatory about Modi, if Valloor were to write an equally candid account on how Lee Kuan Yew came to power and built his successful state, he would be sitting in Singapore's Changi prison. In Singapore, the newspaper media is controlled by the state.

As someone who was present on the island in the 1960s and often supped with its founding father when he was cultivating the international press, I can vouch for Lee's amoral political view and the kind of limited democracy he ultimately bequeathed his country. Given Lee's success in making the island an entrepot hotspot, the West, led by the United States, rarely complains about its democracy deficit.

With his experience of living in Singapore, the land of Lee Kuan Yew, Velloor is suitably laudatory about Modi. He writes, “But the Modi thrill lies not just in the promise of economic performance and the long due shaking up of the bureaucracy. In him, Indians sense a refreshing absence of humbug.”

He has a rider, which deserves a longer quote: “The earlier, therefore, that he cuts loose from the Hindutva crowd, the higher the chances for Modi to be the political emperor of all Indians, and for a longer perod of time than his current five-year term. Not only will he have to cut loose from the RSS, he may have to cut away from the BJP too”. There lies the rub. Velloor’s suggestion that Modi could form a party of his own is absurd because he is dependent on the RSS leadership and particularly its army of foot soldiers to win the elections. Therefore, it is pointless to suggest that as prime minister his significant failure has been to crack down on the Hindutva crowd that have grown increasingly bold since his rise to power.

As we have seen recently, even his belated attack on cow vigilantism, the shameful dalits’ lynching incident at Gujarat's Una district in particular, raised a storm in the Sangh Parivar. It is doubtful he would want to cut off links with the RSS.

Despite Velloor’s stumble on the logic of Modi’s rise to power, he has got most things about the men and politics in the decade right. As an introduction to significant Indian political developments for the lay reader, it is commended.

The writer is a renowned columnist and journalist