Calling the bluff: No, Indians did not elect a chaiwala as PM. They elected a very successful CM
Modi won 2014 because he represented ability. In 2019, he is selling tales of adversity.
If the latest round of campaigning for Assembly polls has branded two things into our brains, they are that 'Rahul Gandhi is a Brahmin' and that 'PM Modi is a chaiwala'.
It’s everywhere, the PM’s alleged chaiwala-ness — from the BJP’s own campaigns (the Prime Minister recently asked for a muqabla between one privileged family and a chaiwala), to Opposition leaders’ statements (after Shashi Tharoor, it’s Congress leader Sushilkumar Shinde who said the PM doesn’t give credit to the institutions that allowed a chaiwala to become PM).
It’s time we end this, really.
Narendra Modi did not become Prime Minister because people loved him for his story of adversity.
People elected him because he represented ability.
Modi was the three-term chief minister of one of India’s “most developed” states, he was seen as a decisive, strong leader who had a clear vision, and was not afraid of taking steps to implement this.
There was no sob story here.
What Modi saw before the 2014 polls — and continues to see among large sections — was hero worship and people tired of a creaking, corrupt system, looking at a strongman to give them maximum governance, minimum government.
The 2014 Lok Sabha campaign was about selling hope. The poignant tale of a tea seller who overcame hardships to aspire for the country’s highest chair had less part there than the idea of what a dynamic, in-control leader could bring to our lives.
The BJP knows this well. With its governance track record arguably below expectations now, it is using the 'chaiwala' card to elicit sympathy among voters for a man who is “one of their own”, as opposed to the “elite” and “snooty” Congress.
But here’s the thing — the electorate did not choose Modi so it could sympathise with him. They chose him because he was a doer who wouldn’t need sympathy, who had a 56-inch chest, who, as a child, swam across a lake to reach a temple, despite being attacked by crocodiles.
In fact, between Modi and Rahul Gandhi, it was Gandhi who was at a disadvantage — one was a macho hero, the other, a “laughable Pappu”.
There were reasons for the voters to think so.
Gujarat under Modi had seen private industries flocking to it, its economy and GDP growing. This is the kind of development that the middle class best understands. The claims of those on the margins being left out, poor Human Development Indices, etc., don’t really dim the shine of lots of jobs and amazing industrial growth. The man worked hard, spoke brilliantly, had no taint of corruption against himself — qualities the aspirational middle class worships.
In 2008, when the Tana Nano plant was bedeviled with constant protests in Bengal, Modi rolled out the red carpet for it and the unit was functional almost overnight.
In 2013, during the Uttarakhand disaster, Modi visited the state and got many Gujarati visitors out of danger.
A man of action, not pussyfooting about with environment and labour laws, in crises, knowing which lives to prioritise — of course, a middle class used to a lumbering, inefficient administration loved him. Thus, in perception polls, Modi was regularly voted the best chief minister of India.
At the Centre, there was the perception of policy paralysis. UPA II was drowning under corruption cases each day. Rahul Gandhi had little but dynasty to recommend himself to voters.
The voters, then, made a clear choice — they elected a man who symbolised merit over what appeared to be a family name so steeped in arrogance, they had forgotten how to govern.
Now, five years later, Modi himself is sidelining what was his USP.
More than performance, growth, results, he is talking of vendettas, victimhood, persecution by naamdars.
The campaigns are less about what the BJP has done — and more about what the Congress did not do.
Even the UPA II was fond of blaming its failures on the compulsions of coalition politics, global factors, etc. The voters did not buy that. What’s to say they will buy the BJP’s teary excuses?
While Modi always had the 2002 Gujarat riots as an albatross round his neck, he had managed to dilute that with his performance. He had ensured the discourse would be around his ability to deliver results.
Five years later, all we are left with his Hindutva and chai ki charcha. The BJP needs to realise sob stories have a limited appeal. Its acche din will last only if it starts talking about hard performance again.