Table Of ContentPRAISE FOR THE DEMOLITION: INDIA AT THE CROSSROADS
“Although centred around the Ayodhya episode, it deals with facts and
controversies not only connected with the story of the disputed structure that was
but also about the birth and rise of Hindu fundamentalism and militancy during
the decade or more thus providing some striking insights into the complicated
nexus between religion and politics.”
– Hindustan Times
“Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay’s book suggests that secularism has been buried by the
forces of Hindutva much to the genuine horror and regret.”
– The Indian Express
“He introduces his subject in a couple of words, constructs a hypothesis, goes in for
evidences in its favour or against it and establishes or rejects it thus giving birth to a
theory, all within the confines of merely two lines of a couplet or four lines of a
quartrain.”
– Hindustan Times
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To Varsha.
For making me believe that I still had it in me.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Childhood Lessons
Disunited Colours of India
A Time of Difference
Riots Unlimited
The Initiation
Changing Gears
Pyrrhic Victories
Janus—The March Begins
Password to Gujarat
Coach S-6, Sabarmati Express
The Modi Kurta
Identity Matters
The Enemy Within
Development Sutra
Here and Beyond
Endnotes
Index
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
However much I wish to keep these “thank you” lines brief and not gush out with
words written or spoken more as a form of PR exercise, there are some which I
must.
I have been enabled by many — maybe countless — people to write this book,
but there are two without whom it simply would not have been possible. Varsha,
my wife, was the first and to secure her support, I had to do nothing, save tell her
that I was finally writing a book. She told me long ago that she had a dream to see
me in a writing of a book. Well, here it is. And thanks for bearing with me while I
was often dysfunctional in almost everything except writing this book, attending to
routine professional duties and of course making tea with the regularity I needed!
She also always was the first to read my chapters and kept advising on a few twirls,
here and there, in the narrative; filling up the odd blanks that got left and correcting
errors which crept in.
This book also would not have been possible without the assistance of the subject
of the book — Narendra Modi. His was a brave gambit to cooperate with an author
who was clear that whatever the biography would finally turn out to be, it surely
would not be a hagiography. But Modi not only provided access but also ensured
assistance to secure information needed for researching on the book. Modi granted
time — in person and over the phone — even after being armed with information
of my meetings and conversations with his critics and political adversaries. He had
his fears — that the book may damage him — and expressed them. But I told him,
I would not malign him — no personal attacks, though the right to disagree and be
critical would remain mine. It was because of Modi’s nod that we secured the image
on the cover from the “fans and followers” who manage Modi’s personal website —
www.narendramodi.in.
On the issue of images, Sanjay Sharma took the trouble to shoot my cover
photograph for the book and I must thank him for having allowed a decades-old
friendship to be exploited. Thanks are also due to Outlook magazine and its Editor-
in-Chief, Krishna Prasad, for providing access to their photo archives. Vital
assistance was provided by R Balashankar, editor of Organiser who was always
available for long interactions, enabling me to look at the picture from the other
side. It was grave risk for him to believe my words — that, I would be critical when
I was convinced, but would not shy from being appreciative of Modi, if I believed
that some facets of his personality or accomplishments needed to be lauded.
Daily conversations at the end of each day with Gyan Varma, enabled me to have
a false sense of still being a reporter and I remained aware of macro-and micro-level
developments within the Sangh Parivar with virtually no effort on my part.
A personal thank you is due to the Chauhan brothers of Ahmedabad’s Jade Blue
for gifting me a made-to-measure “Modi kurta” in the course of opening up on the
sartorial tastes of Modi.
My editor at Westland, Sudha Sadhanand, is possibly one of the most patient
professionals I have interacted with. She enabled me to tide over difficult days, was
always liberal in her appreciation when I was niggled by self-doubts and turned
around some of the most tedious blocks of words into seamless chapters. Never for
a moment was she insistent, only suggestive. I hope Sudha’s enthusiasm for this
book is shared by the readers.
Renuka Chatterjee at Westland needs to be thanked for having reposed trust in
me — for being able to deliver this book in the short period that was on hand.
Lastly, I must thank three little girls who I hope will grow up one day to read this
book, and hopefully many more. Saanvi, Tanisha and Ritisha grumbled only
occasionally because their Naanu (grandfather) had comparatively lesser time for
them than before. The three innocent stress-busters knew that I was writing a book
and the eldest, Saanvi, even knew it was on Narendra Modi Naanu!
INTRODUCTION
I have met Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and both Bushes. At close range,
Modi beats them all in charisma.
– Robert D Kaplan, The Atlantic, April 2009
Without a doubt, it was probably the most important interview in almost three
decades of my career. It was important because the interview was not the end to an
assignment, rather it was to be among the first steps of a long haul. I had gathered
that the in-time of my entry into the residence of the chief minister of Gujarat,
Narendra Modi, had been set, but he had given no out-time to his staff. For a man
who had been for more than a decade, probably the most reviled political leader of
India, this information was a tad surprising. After all, I had never been an insider
and most of my writings on post-2002 riots in Gujarat, had been extremely critical
of Modi. Was he signalling that he was open for cross-examination on issues that he
has avoided talking about? Or was he indicating that he wanted to utilize the time
to convey his viewpoint?
After weighing various possibilities, I concluded that it was more likely he wished
to use the opportunity to talk without being provoked: he was not looking to get
into the headlines with the interview. Through the night and in the morning before
the interview, I repeatedly went over the script I had prepared in my mind — what
to ask and what not to; what I wanted this interview to yield and what it should not
end up in. In a country where cinema influences life, politics and may be much
more, I took the support of Shah Rukh Khan without being much of an admirer.
I replayed his sattar minute (seventy minutes) dialogue from the 2007 Hindi film,
Chak De! India. Playing the role of the coach of the Indian women’s hockey team,
in this scene Khan gives a pep talk to his wards before the climactic match. It is
probably among the most evocative of dialogues that the actor has delivered in his
career. I knew that there would be more than seventy minutes at my disposal. But I
recalled those motivating lines to psyche myself up. By the time I stepped into
Modi’s residence on the fourth Saturday in May 2012, I was clear about what I
wanted. It was not a story that I was in search of — something that would get
published one day and later get cast away in the lot of raddi (waste paper) or remain
tucked away as an URL on the internet. Instead, I wanted to understand Modi, the
man and get an insight into his mind. I also wanted to correlate his evolution from
a small town boy from a lower middle class family with the times that he lived in. I
wanted to understand how he changed over the years as Indian politics evolved and
transformed in the years since his birth.
But I was full of apprehensions. Before I embarked on writing this book, I had
not even spoken to Modi in more than a decade after he became chief minister. My
professional path had not put me in any situation since the middle of 2001 where I
could have met him. He had agreed to grant me time but I was not sure about how
he would react to me, to my questions.
Several weeks before this Saturday, I first threw up the idea of wanting to do a
biography of Modi, over the morning cup of tea. Varsha, my wife had raised her
eyebrows. But I wasn’t sure what crossed her mind as I continued. Would Modi
meet me? I had self-doubts: would he even remember me? Eleven years is a long
time in a person’s life — more so when these eleven have been as situation-
transforming as the last decade in Modi’s life. Varsha allowed me to speak.
I said I knew that writing a biography of someone living had its own pitfalls
specially when it was not an authorized hagiography. If one did not get access to the
person, then the chances of the end product just scratching at the surface of the
persona is fairly high. Gaining an opportunity to interact and quiz the subject —
either in an unhindered manner or in restricted doses — however did not guarantee
the success of the endeavour. But it surely makes the exercise more credible and
insightful. The pitfalls multiply when the biography is of someone active in public
life, who keeps adding several pages to her or his life every day; someone who plays
out a different game every other day and someone who remains an evolving
personality — in terms of personal choices, constantly shifting short-and long-term
goals, evolving social outlook, political beliefs and strategy.
The hazards of attempting a biography of a political leader like Narendra Modi
who has consistently been dogged by controversy and evokes intense emotions —
both hate and affection — gets further accentuated because of the knowledge that a
middle path in the scrutiny of the leader is nonexistent. Despite the best attempts at
remaining neutral, it would leave both camps dissatisfied: professional baiters would
find the effort too sympathetic while camp followers would label it as another effort
in the hate campaign. Common logic also suggested that the chances of the
biographer getting access to the leader also recedes if the writer has been known to
have been critical of the leader’s persona or his (or her) politics. None of the
previously mentioned observations are path breaking and basic understanding
would guide anyone — especially a potential biographer — to these conclusions.
When I began considering the idea of writing Narendra Modi’s biography —
some days before that chat with Varsha, I was acutely aware of each of these
contentions. For some reason that I have not been able to fathom, when I broached
the idea she was absolutely certain that Modi would not only remember me, but
also grant me time even though we were definite that it would be an unauthorized
biography. I finally made up my mind to write the biography a couple of weeks
after the Indian weekly newsmagazine, Outlook, asked me to write an opinion piece
for their issue dated 5 March 2002 that put the 10th anniversary of the 2002
Gujarat riots on the cover page. I had begun writing that piece fairly late in the
night and by the time I finished writing, there was stillness all around. Everybody in
the house was fast asleep and the stray dogs in the colony had also wound up their
nightly duty. In that lonesome moment I was embarrassed as tears flowed while I
played out the words of John Lennon’s “Imagine” — in my mind — the last lines
of my article, and I shut my door lest anyone got to see me in that state. And seeing
me for being such a sentimental fool — not that anyone in the family had any
doubts about that. The next morning, I took another look at the article and mailed
it. ‘Super piece, is the verdict of a colleague,’ wrote back Krishna Prasad, the Editor-
in-Chief of Outlook.
When I decided to write this book I was aware that this unnamed “colleague”
whose verdict was relayed to me and whose opinion greatly buoyed my spirits at
that time was surely on the list of countless people labelled frequently as pseudo-
secular ever since Lal Krishna Advani popularized the word in early 1990s. It was
hardly the quarter from which a certificate would enable me to secure an audience
with Modi. I was also aware that as far as the Sangh Parivar’s assessment went, the
article in Outlook was in total opposition to their viewpoint. I got a confirmation of
this — not that it was really needed — when I spoke to R Balashankar, the editor of
the official organ of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Organiser, and an old
friend with whom I had rubbed shoulders while being on the Sangh Parivar beat as
a reporter.
He was frank in his opinion and said without mincing words that the views in
the article were linear and did not reflect the broader opinion — that I had not
looked at the issue from the other side — meaning the side of Hindus in Gujarat.
There was no rancour in his voice — it was a simple statement that simultaneously
underscored a beauty of Indian democracy: two differently thinking people could
engage in a rational discussion on a topic despite disagreeing with one another.
What was not said was evident: that I had not looked at the last decade in the life of
Gujarat from Modi’s perspective, that I had painted him in a single hue. In one
stroke I had argued that he had become a peddler of growth and development
because Modi wanted to present a “growth-promoting dictatorship as a better
option than a messy democracy which affects quality of governance and social
stability.”
This was not the first time that I had written something which criticized Modi
for the events in February-March 2002. Even after making up my mind that I
would write his biography irrespective of whether Modi granted me time or not, I
was sure that the article in Outlook would not be the last one to take a critical look
at the events in Gujarat in 2002. I was determined that I would continue to write
against the idea of communalism — as I understood the word. I was clear that I
would remain an unequivocal critic of the propagation of religion as the main basis
of social identity. But I hoped that Modi would agree to meet me because of the
time in the 1990s when I interacted with him on a fairly regular basis. At that time,
he was a national office bearer of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). But that was a
different political era — both in the life of Modi and in the political and social
history of Gujarat. From the time when he was one of the many party apparatchiks
in New Delhi, to the summer of 2012 when he was chief minister was not just a
period of more than a decade, it was also a huge political distance that had been
traversed by Modi.
***
The best way of approaching any political leader for an interview — if one has not
been in regular contact in recent times — is through intermediaries whose
credentials as well-wishers of both parties is undisputed. So that was the way the
efforts for an interview with Modi began on a certain Sunday afternoon. It took a
few weeks before the connections clicked — the delay mainly because of the
scorching pace of Modi’s programmes and travels in Gujarat and outside. But once
I got the signal that he was agreeable to the biography, it was a matter of speaking
to him formally and seek an interview. Coincidentally, it was again a Sunday when I
called the official residence of the Gujarat chief minister and left my name and
number with the person who picked up the phone. I was politely told that Modi
was out and the moment he returned, he would be intimated that I had called.
Within an hour someone telephoned from his residence and I was informed that
Modi was on the line.
After the traditional exchange of greetings and pleasantries in the course of which
he was warm and effusive, it was all business. I placed my request — for the
biography I wanted a long interview with him to start off; then maybe additional
sessions as the research progressed. On my first visit to Gujarat in more than a
decade — I told him — I also intended to travel through some parts of the state
though I made it evident to Modi that “riot-tourism” was not on my mind. I did
not tell Modi that in my assessment, visits to any of the areas badly affected by the
riots of 2002 and meeting families who had undergone trauma would not yield
anything new that had not been already documented by my peers in the profession
and by several commissions of inquiry. Instead, I decided to use the opportunity to
travel beneath the skin of Gujarat and gauge the change in the social fabric since my
last visit in 1997-98. Back then, I had spent almost two months in various regions
of the state while studying multiculturalism in Gujarat. Modi acquiesced to my
proposal including the places where I wanted to travel. I informed him because, I
was certain, he would in any case come to know about my travels and who I would
meet. He was particularly pleased that I wished to visit Kutch because this was the
district that in a way led to his deputation to Gujarat as chief minister in the first
place. I requested that he depute someone from his office to coordinate with me
regarding dates of my interview. The phone call ended on his promise that someone
will contact me.
That call came within minutes. It was a senior officer of the Gujarat government
— an officer of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) holding charge as the
Information Commissioner of the state government. The conversation was polite
— he informed that he had been asked by the chief minister to coordinate my
interview and visit. He heard out my request for research material related to policies
of the state government during Modi’s tenure and asked me to mail him the list of
material that I required. When I wanted to discuss the dates for my proposed visit
— and interview, he said that matters related to Modi’s appointments were handled
by one of the Officers on Special Duty or OSD attached to the Chief Minister’s
Office (called CMO in the state — just like the Prime Minister’s Office or PMO in
New Delhi). The commissioner said that he would speak with the concerned
Officer on Special Duty (at that point I did not know there were several of them) to
contact me.
That call also came within minutes. The OSD by then knew the entire
background and asked me when I wished to interview Modi. I suggested a
particular Saturday in May 2012 and also mentioned that the duration of the
interview would be long. The OSD said that the suggested date would not be a
problem as Modi did not have any engagements that day. He however said that the
exact time of the interview would be communicated to me later. Therefore on that
Sunday, the date for my travel to Ahmedabad was agreed and the OSD gave me the
go ahead to draw up my plans. We also agreed that on the day after the interview,
when Modi travelled to Surat to attend a couple of official functions and address
one public rally, I would also travel to the city of diamonds to see at close quarters
how Modi worked his charm and magic with the people.
The appointment with Modi was fixed for just a day after the BJP’s National
Executive meeting in Mumbai was to end in May 2012 — the same meeting that
grabbed headlines later for Modi’s triumphant attendance after the exit of his bête
noire, Sanjay Joshi, from the elite decision-making body of the party. The
promptness and the manner in which my interview with Modi was fixed suggested
two things: his openness to the biography albeit from someone known for strong
views against the political ideology of his fraternity and the efficiency of his
administrative set up.
While preparing for the interview, I first and foremost re-jigged the files
pertaining to Modi in my mind and on my computer. I was aware that though the
entire biography would not hinge on the interview — or on possible subsequent
meetings or telephonic conversations with him — a productive interview would
give the right impetus — so essential while working on a tight deadline. In the days
that I had on my hand, I poured through my old clippings and files in which I had
made a mention of Modi. I zeroed in on three articles written over a span of
thirteen years with Modi as the centrepiece. The first was in Sunday, the now-
defunct weekly magazine of the Ananda Bazar Patrika Group. It was written in
1999 when the BJP was in the midst of the electoral campaign after the thirteen-
month-long government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee had been felled by a
solitary vote in Lok Sabha. This article was a profile of Modi and was written
because he had just been elevated as the “main spokesman to explain away the
internal contradictions within the RSS fold”. The second article that I dug up was
written for The Pioneer when Chandan Mitra, its promoter-editor was yet to
formally join the BJP. This article was written in April 2002 in the wake of the
events precipitated by the Godhra carnage. The third article that I decided to use as
a marker in the evolution of Modi’s political life, was the one referred to earlier —
the one published in Outlook. The three articles were chosen because of the
