iModi

The huge anti-Congress mood in the country is now apparent to even the most sycophantic party worker. In any case, after two consecutive terms of poor governance and rampant corruption, anti-incumbency is to be expected. The general populace is aching for a change – the sentiment almost is – anything but the Congress will do! And this wonderful negative sentiment that surrounds all things Congress is the advantage that the BJP has, but is choosing to squander.

Purists would argue that the BJP should be focusing on attracting and concentrating all anti-Congress forces into a giant, magnetic mass first – and worry later about who will actually lead the government, become PM, etc… They are anyway the biggest opposition party and the PM candidate is always theirs to pick.

Instead, by drawing the “Modi for PM” card, they’ve played their ace too early. They should have and could have waited for the endgame to do that. India is hardly a US style Presidential Election that requires you to name your PM candidate ahead of the elections. Traditional Indian politics always fight elections along party lines – and then the party decides who becomes PM. Everybody knows who the ‘first among equals’ is, but the illusion of party and alliance democracy is maintained, the party gets to boast of bench strength, the chosen one gets to play the humble, loyal soldier of the party – and then, AFTER VICTORY, ascend the throne!

The BJP knows this as well as everyone else. It’s no rocket science and even in their past electoral battles, they’ve never announced a PM candidate beforehand. That Vajpayee would be PM was a foregone conclusion but that was still a decision left for later.

So why has the BJP put the proverbial cart before the horse?

This is Mr. Modi’s doing, coming from what he perceives as genuine fears. His concerns are valid – that the BJP and its allies fight a long, hard battle to 2014, win, and then, in order to find an acceptable compromise candidate, one of his ‘lesser’ colleagues gets the top job! To ensure such a situation does not emerge, he has psyched his party into imagining a doomsday scenario – that if they don’t nominate him for PM, their chances of victory are dismal at best + he may not even want to contribute to the long battle ahead. He has also convinced his party that personalizing the fight forces the Congress hand into putting Rahul Gandhi forward – after which Modi can simply chew him up and spit him out. The cons to these pros – an anti-Muslim sentiment + dwindling ‘secularist’ allies + an obvious inability of the BJP to get to the magic number on their own – are swept aside in the hyped rhetoric of Moditava – perceived by external world as an iron-fist of radical hindutva in the velvet glove of progress and good governance.

Mr. Modi does the right thing. He has little choice. The BJP is no honest, innocent babe in the woods. Numerous senior party leaders are compromised like their Congress counterparts. Their state governance track records, with the exception of Gujarat, have little to boast about. With passing of the Vajpayee-Advani era, there are no real stalwarts or statesmen left in the BJP, just a motley crew of pygmies at best. Plus, Mr. Modi isn’t getting younger. If he doesn’t get the job now, there may not be another chance. The planets and stars seem aligned, destiny beckons…the time is ripe for victory, personal and party!

Yes, Mr. Modi does the right thing; for himself, and I’d argue for his party as well. Yes, the more he personalizes, the more he tends to polarize, the harder it becomes to find partners. But he stands out, stands apart, a beacon of hope – in the hope that he is able to galvanize public opinion in his favour. Helped by his shrieking, crazy-eyed brigades, they seek victory on their own, they believe they can get it – and have hypnotized their entire party into believing it. They now hope to hypnotize the nation as well.

In a recent article, Pritish Nandy likens Modi to a lone wolf and posits that he needs a wave to sweep him into power because the poll arithmetics just don’t add up. He says that Modi offers India a new Camelot like how Rajiv Gandhi did and if the nation buys into that vision, a wave could do it for him.

A wave, especially the kind the Mr. Modi will need, is more like a tsunami. It is a nationwide outburst of irrational exuberance about a particular person, party and promise! Rajiv Gandhi’s wave was part Camelot, part grief over his assassinated mother. It was the potent combination of the promise of fresh-faced, uncorrupted youth in the face of great tragedy, the passing and acceptance of the torch, tears streaming down his face, in a poignant, unforgettable image!

Important as they are, Mr. Modi is going to need something more than just the promise of good governance and zero corruption. He is going to need some magic potion to conjure up a groundswell of mass, irrational exuberance about himself to win 2014!

Since a death in the family and fresh-faced youthfulness are both out of the question, what he needs (and has) are marketing wizards with lots of small, super bright ideas to create and feed the illusion of HIM being the only hope! In the next 9-12 months Mr. Modi is going to be everywhere, omnipresent, taking a stand, solving problems, providing solace, promising change. He will take every opportunity and use every technology, small or big, to re-position the competition even as he uniquely and distinctively positions himself. He will reach out and touch and feel as many of us as he can, meeting, greeting, and pressing the flesh if you will. He will make himself larger than life and have us believe that he is the saviour.

The Congress meanwhile will do what they do best – divide and rule, cobble together disgruntled splinter groups, make new friends easily, dole out largesse, play the minority vote banks, tempt the fence-sitters, share the spoils, – you know, same old, same old, but tried and tested and proven without doubt!

It promises to be a battle between new-age professional marketing versus good, old fashioned traditional politics. India Shining bombed, will iModi work?