Even as the four-and-half year rule of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister is coming to a close and stage is set for the fierce parliamentary polls next year, a new book insists that over the years “practitioners of secular polity” were perhaps mistaken about Modi.
“The truth of the matter – as I found after closer scrutiny – both in 2002 and at a later stage – has been that Modi may not have the traditional qualities of a statesman in the sense it is understood, but he had a ferocious vision,” says the book ‘Godhra – Journey of a Prime Minister’.
In Modi’s own words, say the author Nirendra Dev: Modi has “repeated time and again in informal chats – he could certainly gauge public mood”.
“A leader is after all a creation of his own people,” says the book.
Dev, who covered post-Godhra violence of 2002 for the news agency Press Trust of India, in the book deals in certain details with the circumstances and socio-political situations those resulted in Modi’s metamorphosis into a major national leader.
The Foreword to the book has been penned by an Indian scholar from Germany’s Heidelberg University, Subrata K Mitra.
“The more the ‘secularists’ of India and their foreign backers hit out at Modi as a tainted leader, the more Modi fell back on his identification with the people of Gujarat and his showcasing of Gujarat’s development as the raison d’e^tre of his leadership”, points out Mitra.
“The impressive victory of the BJP under Narendra Modi raises a fundamental question about governance, leadership and the imperative of development and the making of popular will,” says Mitra.
Stating that since 2002, Modi’s journey in national political space has been that of a ‘loner’. “I have attributed this (Modi’s success) to a lethal combination of Hindutva politics, development image of a state and not ignoring Modi’s sheer pragmatism”.
The book says: “The indiscriminate attack on Modi and Hindutva politics for justifying unreasonable appeasement of Muslims and often a free-hand to legitimise the twin menaces of corruption and dynastic politics of the Congress and the discredited secular brigade like Lalu Prasad Yadav, have ultimately helped in the growth of Moditva phenomenon”.
Godhra – Journey of a Prime Minister written by Nirendra Dev
Published by Maya Publishers, New Delhi
Page: 294, Price – Rs 599
Distributors: Pan Macmillan India
(ref links: https://www.amazon.in/Godhra-Journey-Minister-Nirendra-Dev/dp/8187374888
http://www.panmacmillan.co.in/bookdetail/9788187374886/GODHRA—Journey-of-a-Prime-Minister/2866/53
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