By Sheela Bhatt,
It's a mandate of young India, for young India, by young
India, says Sheela Bhatt,
India has sent Narendra Modi to New Delhi.
It is an uncomplicated and absolutely one-sided
verdict.
India wants Modi.
India has severely punished the Congress, its
ruling dynasty and its arrogant ministers.
A heady mix of Hindutva, development, caste votes
and youth power has brought Modi to 7, Race Course Road. The mandate says
Narendrabhai, please deliver.
Modi gets full marks and unqualified compliments
for achieving what was impossible in India which is secular. Modi's rise
clearly means that India wants a firm leader who can deliver. Modi fits the
bill.
Modi made gigantic efforts to convince voters that
'I am the alternative'. He displayed money
power of a kind unknown to Indian campaign managers, but everything will be
overlooked if he delivers. Kudos Narendrabhai, said the youth voices of
India.
The middle class has thrown up its own prime
minister. On the shoulders of Narendra Damodardas Modi, to begin with, rests
the Himalayan expectations of building more than 50,000 kilometres of roads,
providing some 10 million-plus jobs immediately, making arrangements to supply
tap water in more than 200 million homes, and providing thousands of miles of
irrigation canals to the parched fields of India. India needs about 19 million
low-cost homes which will need an investment of a billion rupees.
The impossible-looking victory has now brought up
impossible-to-fulfill expectations.
Those who worked behind the scenes for Modi and the
BJP were many organisations, many forces, ideas and ideologies. The most
important force was the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh to which Modi's loyalty
belongs. To which Modi's heart belongs.
The RSS had an interest in making Modi PM but their
deeper, intense and collective interest was to see that Modi, once their star pracharak,
becomes prime minister by ensuring that he demolishes minority politics, the
permanent reality of Indian politics.
For the first time in India, after 1947, a
contender for the post of PM has declared in unambiguous terms that he was not
a prisoner of minority vote bank politics. He refused to wear a skull cap and
stuck to his stand.
The minority vote bank, which was considered
strategic to rule India, has been made ineffective. Modi, from a position of
strength, is sending out the message to one and all to rewrite the Indian
success story by setting new parameters to fight elections. Only time will
judge the measure of Modi's sincerity.
This is the most important election after the one
in 1977. If that post-Emergency election strengthened the resolve of the poor,
middle class and rich people of India to live and prosper under the framework
of democracy, the election of 2014 is the final call by the people to the
politicians to give them roti, kapda, makaan, and education,
or face our wrath.
The rebel against vote-bank politics has become the
prime minister. A man who was born poor, was brought up in middle class society
and was groomed by Hindutva ideas, has produced a thunderous political
phenomenon.
He has a non-elite attitude, but is quite arrogant.
He is not Brahminical, so to say, but knows his star value. A divided India
debated him endlessly, but voters have taken an unconfused stand in electing
him.
It is a mandate for drastic change. It is a mandate
of young India, for young India, by young India. India has changed. Indian
voters through EVMs have changed the history of the nation. By electing
Narendra Modi, they have done something unimaginable since 1947.
A party that identifies more with Hindus and a
leader who became famous, the first time, because of his majoritarian, partisan
politics soon after the riots of 2002 in Gujarat, have won the mandate.
"Hum laaye hain toofan se kashti nikaalkar
(we have navigated our boat safely from the storm)," his one-time ally
told Rediff.com today, remembering the
onslaught against Modi after the 2002 riots.
The pundits of New Delhi and media in general made
the biggest error in thinking that Gujarat is not India. In fact India follows
Gujarat today.
Modi saw the biggest opportunity for himself when
many media reports implied that Gujarat is more communal and Indians are
largely secular. Of course, Gujarat is largely secular like India is. Modi
thrived on this error of judgment by many pundits, television reports and
political forces. He grabbed the moment post-2002 riots, provoked regional
identity, and remained in power after thwarting anti-incumbency.
Modi's 14 years in power in Gandhinagar is a case
study. He made use of state power to build up national ambition.
Today, his flight from Gandhinagar to New Delhi is
paid for by Indian voters.
Narendrabhai, welcome to New Delhi. Please
deliver what you have promised.
Looking at his days as pracharak, his
arrival in New Delhi as general secretary, his appointment as chief minister,
his role in the 2002 riots, the secular forces' aggressive politics to tear him
to pieces, his countermoves by raising regional identity through talk of
Gujaratiasmita, and his furious involvement in development politics and
then planning a never-before-seen kind of multimedia campaign to challenge the
Congress and go for nothing less than the prime minister's chair, is the stuff
legends are made of.
Seeing his journey, any Gujarati would say,
'Narendrabhai, paisa vasool!'
It can really be so only if Narendra Modi delivers
as much as the voters have delivered in his kitty today.
By the kind courtesy of Rediff.com
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