COMMENTARY

For Modi, a nation state was not a secu- ’s Symbolic War lar entity but a spiritual essence, a civili- sational statement. For the RSS, distorted histories created defective politics and Shiv VisVanathan RSS as a plumber and therapist had to rectify it. Its political style sought to One has to ask, what was the arendra Modi achieved one of create a new man, a new persona who logic called Narendra Modi the greatest electoral victories of would refl ect current anxieties and serves and what was the nature of the Nmodern , symbolically end- a projection, a hoarding of possibilities. ing the Nehruvian era. While Delhi In modernising Modi, RSS was modern- campaign? Modi was a semiotic adapts to the new regime, the socio- ising itself. An ascetic image had to yield construct who went on to fi ght logist, as analyst, has to ask what went to an aesthetic style. Colour is central to a symbolic war. The Nehruvian into the making of this campaign. such symbolic grammar. White, for all nation, Delhi, Development were Moments of victory cannot only be its purity is often dull and colourless. moments of celebration but have to be White signals widowhood, renunciation all semiotically reconstructed in moments of analysis and refl ection. One and a dullness. White had to yield to a brilliantly executed campaign. has to ask, what was the logic called specifi c colours, shades, some sense of This article is a preliminary Modi and what was the nature of diversity, some idea of change, and attempt at an ethnography of a the campaign? change, Modi’s designers realised, was a To understand this, one has to realise costume ball, a semiotic presentation. brilliantly executed campaign. Modi was a semiotic construct who went Modi was semiotically reconstructed. on to fi ght a symbolic war. The 2002 Colours mellow the man. Dourness, election while it brought victory in grimness are stern grey or steel white. Gujarat, added little to his image. A One needed a palette of diverse emo- dockside bully enacting Bajrang Dal tions to intensify diversity. One needed cameos does not quite add up to a chief tribal red to convey power, peach and minister with national pretensions. green to signal gentleness. It was a sub- Modi had to be remade. A past had to be tle modernisation where khaki shorts sanitised and a future scenario for the get erased from the mind. It is imitation man had to be constructed. The remak- Nehru for a man about to play the sec- ing of Modi begins with the man and his ond Patel. As colours melt, the body be- Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) comes decisive, even Prussian. It adopts background. a managerial idiom. The language is One has to enter the mind of Modi as a clipped. It marches like a sergeant rather semiotic space. One needs to map it in than a subaltern to history. It is larger terms of its old categories. Modi was than life size. Modi is a pracharak ampli- soaked in a RSS milieu. Modi has a pra- fi ed. A leader; and a leader has to be charak’s sense of law and order where hoarding size, all pervasive, all casual, the the nation state was not only a discipli- immediate cause behind every change nary space, an organic whole but a moral from loans to new facilities. He not only apparatus. Loyalty to the nation state demands change, he triggers change. becomes the defi ning principle of law Change is a gigantic wish list that and order. tomorrow is better, that the new gene- ration will live better, that well-being Travesty of History is more prevalent. Change rehearses For Modi, the Nehruvian nation had through new vocabularies. Change is re- become a travesty of history, an event skilling not unemployment. Change is appropriated by outsiders. Delhi was the culture, the asmita that is a standard extension of colonialism because Delhi refrain through every modifi cation. has distorted history. The offi cial text- Cha nge is difference – felt, perceived, book history of the nation state had analysed and celebrated. Modi has to be ignored stalwarts who defi ned the the difference that made the difference. Shiv Visvanathan ([email protected]) teaches grammar of nationalism – men like He has to be catalytic, provide the col- at O P Jindal University, Sonepat, Haryana. Malaviya, Ambedkar and Vivekananda. lective thesaurus for change.

10 MAY 31, 2014 vol xlIX no 22 EPW Economic & Political Weekly COMMENTARY ‘Development’ RSS and other groups had a more prag- do was erase memories of riots and move The word development was handy. It matic sense of science. They loved tech- on. Many Muslims tired of being captive was the stuff of policy reports, it was nology and were more open to psepho- to the ethnic ghetto were open to this World Bank gobbledygook, it signalled logy and semiotics. They wanted to cap- invitation. Development becomes a spir- direction, purposiveness. Development ture the symbol as science. The social itual machismo to challenge the Congress. was more open-ended unlike planning construction of Modi was a semiotic act The idea of development had also an which was technocratic, Nehruvian and and Modi’s greatest creation was deve- athletic spin to it built around numbers. therefore restrictive. Plan is what Nehru- lopment as a simulacra. A simulacrum is Numbers have more than a symbolic vians did. It was top-down. Develop- not a copy of reality. It begins as a copy value. Initially it suggests that develop- ment was lateral, an invitation to all sec- and then distorts in creative reactions. ment increases a culture of numeracy, a tors of the society, an omnibus term Development began as an empirical civics of numbers and indices, but num- which invited everyone for a ride. Deve- game but development had little to do ber is deceptive. It encourages numbers lopment was aspirational, competitive. with empirics but became more of a as darts to be thrown at other states. Sta- One entered the world of rankings. It game. Modi created development as tistics allows you to collect development was local and global, it was technical simulacra, a game where people approxi- badges like boy scouts. When Modi chal- enough to be scientifi c, mundane enough mated development without achieving lenged other states in this new develop- for general use. It is a unifying word for it. It was like a video game, which be- ment Olympiad, he appealed to the mid- a middle class full of historical anxieties came more obsessive and real than the dle class as a Messiah and a technocrat. ready and waiting for a new history. reality. Development was Modi’s great- The word development was honey for Development is every man’s Camelot. est symbolic creation. Individuals, states new constituencies. The World Bank An India that wants change is ready and collectivities treated it as one of the loved him, he seemed to speak their lan- for development. rituals and expectations of citizenship. guage authoring a book on climate Development was a wonder word. It One sees it in ordinary conversations. change and visiting Davos as the only fi tted any group. It exploded like an epi- When surveys ask individuals what they Indian chief minister to do so. Soon, he demic with personality development, want or expect, no one says rights, or has a chorus of legitimators in corpora- community development, and industrial security. The majority answers develop- tions. Ratan Tata joins with statesmanly development. It could be measured, ran- ment. It has created the new grammar of approval, Anil Ambani echoes the devel- ked, and shuffl ed with. It became the governance. “I develop, therefore I am” opment chutzpah and the Adanis are conceptual game of the decade, a new became the new logic of Modi’s govern- ready to play his adjutants. IIM Ahmeda- hierarchy where lesser development ance and being. bad invites him as CEO for the day. He meant lesser orders of being. It became plays the development artist, creating a the new Snakes and Ladders of the Theology of Change single window of decisions, offering regime that every magazine from India Development as a strategy provided a land to the Tata Nano project in 24 Today to Governance Now, and every theology of change. To be a Vivekananda hours. The middle class, corporations agency from the World Bank to Sasa- for a theory of civilisation would be too and the diaspora now form a powerful kawa Foundation could engage in. It was much to attempt, but a Vivekananda for chorus. Modi has captured a discourse method, it was prophecy, it allowed for a development creates a spiritually virile and orchestrates it to his advantage. Gu- transfer of utopia with Modi promising world, a moral universe for judgment. jarat is the new development paradigm that the Gujarat model of development As Mr Development, Modi could defi ne and Modi its greatest exemplar. Anyone could be replicated all over India. It was Rahul as effete. Development created else who echoed the word, whether a league table, a classifi catory sequence, the high moral ground. It also produced economist or politician, had to play sec- a seeding. It became the new game of a sleight of hand. Development legiti- ond fi ddle. Modi was inventor, exemplar governance, a new literacy which every- mised an abandoning of the past, a dis- and high priest of the development dis- one could play. To want development lodging of ethnicity. An invitation to course. He added mana and potency to was a normal act of citizenship. It would development was an invitation to citi- everything he did. Development was a be unpatriotic to not want development. zens to drop ethnicity, to let go of old new middle class cult like the Art of Modi was Mr Development. He gave memories. Development was the new Living or Swami Narayan movement. development political weight and theo- level playing fi eld. Modi felt citizens Armed with these new charms, Modi logical force. His speeches were sermons should join the development bandwagon. begins to delegitimise Delhi. on development. Development became He asked Muslims to abandon ethnicity the new collective morality. and join the mainstream. Development, Delegitimising Delhi Social scientists do not often associate he claimed, was a form of reskilling Delhi had to be emptied symbolically. science with Modi. Historians often think while all ethnicity could guarantee is Modi created a procrustean Delhi caught of science as a Nehruvian preoccupa- dole. Modi argued that the Congress in a grid of oppositions. Delhi was out- tion. Nehru was interested in science as provided ethnicity, the BJP offered side, a travesty of history, a colonial an intellectual style, an aesthetic but development. All that the ethnic had to remnant located endemically in the

Economic & Political Weekly EPW MAY 31, 2014 vol xlIX no 22 11 COMMENTARY dynasty. It was white, colonial and Eng- Governance was an attractive word. It Critiquing Rahul Gandhi lish-speaking. It had no sense of locality. smacked of the nuances of competence, Modi’s handling of Rahul was sheer gen- An effete geography produces impotent of the vigour of youth. It conveyed a ma- ius. He realised here that his future op- politicians. The emptying of Delhi was ture and masculine competence. Where ponent was hesitant about the future. one of the most systematic assaults ever Congress failed was in governance and He sensed here was a man who was an conceptualised. it was a failure of three kinds exempted iconic contrast to him. Rahul was soaked Modi sought to empty the current by three persons – Sonia, Manmohan in entitlements, while Modi struggled as model of Delhi of any signifi cance. Once and Rahul. a chaiwala. Rahul was ascription per- again, the contrast with Gujarat is sig- The Modi scenario reduced these three sonifi ed, Modi was aspirational struggle. nifi cant. Gujarat is one of India’s most characters to dramas of puppetry. Sonia Rahul was legacy, Modi was hard work. urbanised states, with 57 places claiming was an Italian reciting Hindi. As power, One spoke the language of entitlements the status of towns. Gujarat was the most she was a backstage player controlling arguing the nation was hypothecated to urbanised part of India challenging government. It was a tragicomic act of a his family. The other spoke the dialects Delhi’s urban literacy. dummy controlling two puppets. But in of democracy arguing family and party For Modi, Delhi was not a city located the split between party and government, had to be kept apart. Deep down, Modi in history. Delhi was outside history there is a tragic fl aw, a fi ssure that de- sensed the sociological folklore of mod- located only in an elite mindset. Delhi stroys the whole sense of responsibility. ernisation, the opposition between aspi- was empty space, silly table manners The Congress is portrayed as a party run ration and inheritance, the sense that a representing a hollow elite. To return by an external force, which, in turn, cre- new generation of youth was seeking op- Delhi to real history had to be an act of ates government as puppetry. Modi is portunity while Rahul was soaked in it. politics. Modi’s politics sought to return brilliant with concepts. Government is a If Sonia was a distant Mary, Rahul was Delhi to politics and history. behemoth, inert, passive. It needs the everyone’s Pinocchio. It was not his nose Simultaneously, he had to destroy adrenalin of passion, of vision to energise that grew but his reputation for immatu- Congress as a party of the nationalist it as governance. Governance is galvanic rity. A Nehruvian who appeared dim imagination. The symbolic displacement government and Congress is govern- and diffi dent, and did not even sound was fascinating to watch. He claimed ment by puppetry. Once Modi puts his Nehruvian. The Nehrus were now a the Congress lacked an understanding hand on that fl aw the cascade begins. squandering of a legacy. In fact, if one of its own role and the history of the Manmohan, for all his adulation in looks at the range of Modi attacks on nation. As a parochial history, it had United Progressive Alliance I, is now a Congress, the whole script looks like a ignored the work of stalwart nationalists limited man with a limited goodness. He set of kathas, discourses combining epic, like Malaviya, Patel and Savarkar. A is a ventriloquist’s dummy, an interim fable and morality famous throughout Congress indifferent to Sardar Patel was player standing in till the prince grows Gujarat and India. The Modi katha cap- a travesty. Modi’s statue of Patel was up. He is an academic as retainer. One of tured the epic decline of the Congress. psychologically a response to Congress the ruthless acts of history and Modi The demon called the Congress had to indifference. As the Congress shrunk was to destroy his dignity, his status. be killed. The cleansing in a democracy Patel’s giant contributions, Gujarat had Singh’s lapses into hurt silence did not comes from the people. The battle was to construct Patel as a monument, as a add to dignity. They conveyed a sense of set for elections. The symbolic battles great statue, larger than life size as a gift craven submission. He appeared like a that Modi fought were brilliant. They of gratitude, as an act of justice. The footnote to a Sonia text. Even some of were what one would call modernisation monumentalisation of Patel was Guja- the other footnotes in the cabinet ap- dramas articulated both at the manage- rat’s answer to Delhi’s silence about Patel. peared bigger than him. As the scams rial and the folklore levels. In the latter, It modernised Patel. He was not merely appeared like parts of a serial soap Modi echoed a Murari Bapu, creating a an amplifi ed Advani as earlier projections opera, all Singh offered was silence. His Congress katha constructed in folk terms. claimed, but the fi rst saint of govern- was a government where corruption op- Only his audience was now a nation. ance. Patel’s governance, Modi hinted, erated by tacit consent. As coal yielded By 2012, the jigsaw had fallen in place. would have saved the Congress and to 2G and 3G to the Commonwealth, Modi was a new contender, the cosmetic India. With Patel as patron saint of govern- India found a continuous Watergate ance, Modi attacked Delhi as the travesty where a cabinet would not confess to its of governance. Delhi was indifferent to crimes. Sonia played distant and Singh federalism, to security. Governance was absorbed all the pollution. All Modi did available at to Gujarat, what government was to Delhi was to thunder like an Old Testament Oxford Bookstore-Mumbai and as Modi’s later hoarding at election prophet. The Congress was an illustra- Apeejay House time promised, he would guarantee maxi- tion that governance had to be a mora- 3, Dinshaw Vacha Road mum governance and minimum govern- lity play. Corruption, as any child knew, Mumbai 400 020 ment. The delegitimisation of Delhi was was the cancer of governance and the Ph: 66364477 both blatant and subtle. Congress had cancer.

12 MAY 31, 2014 vol xlIX no 22 EPW Economic & Political Weekly COMMENTARY alterations were complete. A new voca- on the planet. It was a cosmos of its own, acclaim thrusting the family into the bulary of development and govern- precious to Hinduism. Modi was not dustbin of history. ance was ready. The battle lines were merely touching a cosmic pulse, he was drawn. The juggernaut was ready to creating a vibrant Hinduism as metaphor. Creating History move to Delhi. He had shifted the battle to the cities and Narendra Modi’s symbolic war led to a was treating each city as one chapter in historic victory. But in creating history, Amplifi ed Symbol of Varanasi his fi nal conquest of Delhi. He had to he destroyed history replacing the The assault on Delhi required an ampli- show that he was not replicating Gujarat Nehruvian world and its effete epigone fi ed symbol. Modi decided to stand both but opening up the Indian imagination with an alternative muscular and spirit- from Varanasi and Vadodara. It was a to a new modernity. Varanasi was the ual vision created around Malaviya, symbolic masterpiece to choose Benaras. beginning of a new Modi-esque civics, Vivekananda, Patel and Ambedkar. He Modi knew that this was not a mere party beginning with the cosmic moving from invoked a notion of historical justice so strategy to capture UP electorally. He spirituality to governance. One sensed that India could enter a post-Nehruvian needed a new space which went beyond Modi had a better sense of Glimpses of future. It was a rhetorical battle fought Gujarat, a Vivekananda-like script which History than any Nehru. He had cap- with a new language, a glossary of let him speak of cosmos, constitution, tured the book like he captured Patel refurbished concepts, a new mnemonics, civic and community simultaneously. from the Congress. His speech on UP a numbers game called development The choice of Varanasi was a fi nal act of was a speech on the cities. Each city, he making creative use of symbols blend- genius. Kejriwal added to the electoral claimed, was home of a great craft tradi- ing modernity and folklore. In winning drama but could not control the symbolic tion. A revival of the city was a revival of this semiotic war, he had created a dif- discourse. He was contender but Modi craft traditions. The politics of modernity ferent anthropology of modernity as a was the master of the text. had found a new space. Even a Dante morality play. This essay is a prelimi- Modi was soaking himself in civilisa- could not have created a greater vision nary effort to chart the ethnography of tion. Varanasi was the oldest living city of cosmic politics. India responded with this amazing exercise.

Whereas RIL and the former petrole- How Reliance’s Options on um minister M Veerappa Moily did try very hard to push for the implementa- Natural Gas Price Hike Narrowed tion of the June 2013 decision of the cabinet that would have almost doubled the price of gas from 1 April 2014 for a Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Jyotirmoy Chaudhuri period of fi ve years – a decision that was stayed by the Election Commission of A clutch of public interest hy did India on 24 March – the company’s actions petitions and legal entanglements Limited (RIL) issue a notice of on the eve of the results being declared between Reliance Industries and Warbitration to the government were clearly infl uenced and determined seeking an early decision to increase the by the realisation that the new govern- the Ministry of Petroleum and administered price of natural gas? The ment (and not the outgoing one) would Natural Gas on the pricing of company, India’s largest in the private have to take a call on the contentious natural gas and other issues are sector, claimed on 10 May that it had “no issue of hiking the offi cially adminis- now before the Supreme Court. other option but to pursue this course of tered price of natural gas extracted from action” since RIL – together with its part- the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin. A record and discussion of the ners, British Petroleum and Niko Re- many legal cases in a battle that is sources of Canada – was “unable to sanc- Public Interest Litigation going to be a protracted one. tion planned investments of close to $4 It is evident that the legal entanglements billion” during this year. It can, however, involving RIL and the petroleum minis- be argued that RIL chose this option be- try over various issues, including the cause it did not foresee an early resolu- price of gas, may take a while to get re- tion to a set of legal disputes pending solved since a new bench of the Supreme before the Supreme Court. Nor did it Court will have to be constituted – in the foresee an expeditious conclusion to the fi rst week of July this year, at the earliest Paranjoy Guha Thakurta (paranjoy@gmail. arbitration proceedings on the imposi- – to hear two public interest litigation com) and Jyotirmoy Chaudhuri are among the tion of penalties of $1.8 billion on the (PIL) petitions which were heard only co-authors of : Crony Capitalism and company by the Ministry of Petroleum partially. The PIL petitions allege, among the Ambanis. and Natural Gas two years ago. other things, that the government and

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