Ep 102： The Paradox of Narendra Modi

Before you listen to this episode of The Scene and the Unseen, I have a recommendation for

you.

Do check out Pullia Baazi hosted by Saurabh Chandra and Pranay Kottaswane, two really

good friends of mine, kick-ass podcast in Hindi, it's amazing.

All of us contain multitudes, so it's no surprise that our Prime Minister does this well.

Narendra Modi is a difficult man to pin down.

As a campaigner, he has managed in numerous elections to be multiple contradictory things

to different people, almost like a Rosh Chak ink-plot test.

He has spoken up for Hindutva, he has spoken up for development, he has even spoken up

for Dalits.

He has been Hindu Hriday Samrat and Vikash Porosh and Sudbotki Sarkar all at the same

time and you will find in every family and alumni WhatsApp group, wildly different opinions

of Narendra Modi.

Who is he really?

What is this paradoxical Prime Minister?

Welcome to The Scene and the Unseen, our weekly podcast on economics, politics and behavioral

science.

Please welcome your host, Amit Verma.

Welcome to The Scene and the Unseen.

My guest today is Shashi Tharoor and we are going to be talking about his new book, The

Paradoxical Prime Minister, which focuses on the many contradictions of Narendra Modi.

Now Tharoor is an MP of the Congress party so you would expect him to write an anti-Modi

book but this book isn't simplistic and one sided at all and the facts and arguments in

them speak for themselves.

He was very kind to give me an hour of his time on a very busy day for him, we recorded

late at night over Skype and I overshot the time and couldn't ask him all the questions

I wanted to but he was very forthright in all his answers to what I did ask.

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We don't talk about only Modi in this chat by the way but also address multiple questions

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about the nature of our politics, the idea of India and the paradoxes within the Congress

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party itself.

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But before we go to that conversation, let's take a quick commercial break.

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Mr. Tharoor, welcome to the scene in the Unseen.

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Yes, hi, how are you?

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I mean, good to be with you.

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Thanks so much and I requested this interview really to talk about your wonderful book,

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Paradoxical Prime Minister, which I enjoyed reading a lot.

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But as it happens, we are recording on January 2nd and yesterday Mr. Modi gave a rather paradoxical

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interview as well.

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What did you think of that?

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Well, I have to confess that I was actually doing something else myself and didn't watch

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it but I read the excerpts in the newspapers and I've now got hold of the transcript which

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I haven't fully read.

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I'm a bit taken aback by both his very defensive tone and the fact that he actually didn't

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offer any new compelling reasons why we should, as Indian voters, want to reward him for his

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five years in office.

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I mean, all the achedini promise haven't come for anybody.

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He is defensive about demonetization, which was a disaster for large numbers of our population.

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And some of the vainglorious boasts about the love of crores of people for him make

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me wonder whether he's living in his own bubble and doesn't see the damage he's done in this

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country and that's perceived by the voters of this country.

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One of the things that struck me about your book was the title of the book where you called

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it the paradoxical prime minister and not the hypocritical prime minister, which seems

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to indicate that you sort of gave him the benefit of the doubt to start with and you

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yourself are befuddled by kind of what went wrong.

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So can you tell me a little bit about your journey of how you looked at Narendra Modi

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over time?

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Well, you know, as I've described in the book, I mean, obviously when I was in the States

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when 2002 happened and I shared everybody's anger and shame and revulsion at the horrors

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that were perpetrated in Gujarat in 2002 and therefore the fact that Narendra Modi had

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presided over all of this and in many accounts was seen as culpable for having encouraged

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some of the worst elements.

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All of that made me look at him as scant.

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I therefore didn't ever make any effort to meet him and met him entirely by accident

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sort of backstage at a lunch at the Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas in Chennai in January of 2009

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and was very pleasantly surprised because he was impressive, he was engaging and what

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he had to say was not stuff that I could have expected from the, shall we say, the accounts

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of him that had demonized him.

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I don't know if you want me to recount one of the tales, but I mean, I remember saying

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to him, for example, you know, why did you allow all this to happen?

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And he said, I did everything I could, I called in the army.

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When there was no joy in that, I then went on to, you know, what the situation is today

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for Muslims in Gujarat.

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I said, I believe a sort of ghetto has been created, a sort of mini Pakistan, as people

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call it, and is that healthy for the future Gujarat?

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And he said, they prefer it that way.

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So that conversation wasn't going anywhere else.

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And then I said, well, look, you know, one of the concerns is that you're not doing anything

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for Muslims in Gujarat in the aftermath of all of this.

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And he said, let me tell you a story.

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And he said, you know, this is exactly the charge that was laid on me by a commission

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that had come from Delhi.

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I assume this was a such our commission, but he didn't use the term.

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And he said, these people came and they came to my office and they said, we hear you've

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done nothing for Muslims in Gujarat.

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So he said, sit down and write.

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And he said, they all took out their notebooks and their pens very dutifully.

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And I looked at them and I said, you write, I'm saying this, I have done nothing for Muslims

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in Gujarat.

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And he says, they took out their pens and their notebooks and they started writing furiously

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that I've done nothing for Muslims in Gujarat.

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And he's a very good storyteller.

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So he paused dramatically and then he said, write this also.

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I have done nothing for Hindus in Gujarat.

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And then as they all sort of looked up with surprise, he said, I have only worked for

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Gujaratians.

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Now I must say that was a very effective story.

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It's the kind of message you expect from a secular political leader.

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And I thought that was a, so I went to a feeling there was something here about this guy that

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perhaps the earlier accounts of his conduct in 2002 and so on had not captured.

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And then I saw another side of him, which I couldn't, my lawyers won't allow me to

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be explicit about what it was he said, but when I was minister of state for external

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affairs a few months after this episode, less than a year after this episode, the UAE authorities

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in the country I was visiting asked me to intervene on a unusual problem they were having,

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which was that their company, Dubai Ports World had bought up the British company P&O,

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which is managing a number of Indian ports.

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And therefore all the contracts had to be rewritten to change P&O to Dubai Ports World

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is basically the same people, the same staff and managers, but was merely a legal exercise.

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And whereas in every state that had worked very smoothly in Gujarat, they were having

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a problem.

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And could I do something about it?

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So I taking advantage of this earlier encounter with him in January, I called Narendra Modi

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Chief Minister of Gujarat.

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He was very prompt in taking the call.

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And I said, look, this is what I'm doing.

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I'm on the, in the UAE, an official visit and there seems to be this problem, you know,

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it's a very routine matter.

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Well, what's the issue here?

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I mean, why can't we just sign this and get it done with?

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And he said something, which, as I said, I'm not allowed legally to quote, but which made

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it very clear that he was not going to do so.

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And he explained, he said, if you want UAE to invest in my state by all means, tell them

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to come to the interior and I will give them land and electricity and good roads and drinking

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water and all the connections they want.

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But I will not be giving them a port because I don't want to have Islamic terrorists running

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around my state.

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Now, this kind of thinking, this kind of talk, um, was to my mind, uh, somewhat more revelatory

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of the Narendra Modi who, um, whom I had heard less sort of flattering things about.

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And then of course we had the Narendra Modi of the election campaign a few years later,

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the man who became the prime ministerial candidate to the BJP, uh, having really built up a reputation

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for somewhat incendiary campaigning in Gujarat that was hostile to minorities, that was hostile

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to, uh, that was very overtly, uh, Hindutva oriented.

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And then he starts, uh, particularly in the immediate aftermath of his victory, saying

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the most amazingly liberal things, the Sabkar Saath Sabkar Vikas, for instance, or the assurance

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that I will be a prime minister for all Indians or saying that the constitution is my only

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holy book and the parliament is the temple of democracy, uh, moving away from that aggressively

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Hindutva identity he had earlier cultivated.

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And so, yes, I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt at that time because

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my view was that, um, first of all, one has to respect the electorate, which has put him

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there and they've just put him there.

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We can't act as if we have contempt for their electoral votes, but equally by applauding

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the sentiments that he's expressing, we are now laying very clearly the yardstick by which

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his future action should be judged.

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We are applauding these things that you have said, these liberal pronouncements, and we

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will judge you by your ability to fulfill and live up to these yardsticks, these liberal

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pronouncements.

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That was the spirit in which I welcomed his initial remarks.

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And indeed I, it wasn't very well understood in my own party and I was pilloried and so

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on by many, but within six months of his ascent, I had recanted, I published a book called

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India Shastra reflections on the nation in our time in December, 2014, though I think

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the copyright page for publishers region says January 2015, but in that I wrote in the introduction

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to what was a collection of essays that had been published over the proceeding six or

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seven years in the introduction I wrote that Mr. Moody really represents a contradiction

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because he says all these very liberal things, but he rests for political support and viability

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on the most illiberal elements in Indian society.

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The RSS types, the Hindutva types, the anti-science, the rewriting history elements, all of these

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because they love jihadis and the Gharwapasi types, all of them had emerged from the woodwork

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in those first few months.

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And I said that in this contradiction may lie the seeds of his future failure.

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And this was published in December, 2014.

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So when I wrote the paradoxical prime minister, I was able to begin with the words, I told

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you so.

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And to that degree, my own journey, as you put it, Amit had in a sense been vindicated

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almost as a Mr. Moody spent four years proving me right.

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Which is very gracious of him.

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In your book, you do a beautiful job of documenting, you know, the various paradoxical aspects

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of Moody.

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You know, I noted down nine of them while reading the book.

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But before I ask you about them, I want to ask you some broader questions about broader

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paradoxes to do with politics and India.

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And the first of those is that it has always seemed to me that the imperatives of politics

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make it impossible for anyone who enters politics to actually hold on to whatever principles

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they might have.

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Because once you enter politics, you have to make compromises, you have to cater to

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your interest groups who fund you, you have to cater to different vote banks.

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And you have to, you know, cynically pursue the end over the means.

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And it can even be morally corrosive.

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Now as someone who himself has had a very distinguished career in public life at the

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UN and as a novelist and a writer, and who joined politics rather late, is that something

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you'd have any views on that?

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Is it really what are the tugs in the polls like?

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So what you said is right, that to a great extent, any democratically elected politician

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has to be responsive to voters, to backers, to funders, all of these sources, everything

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you said is true.

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But that doesn't mean you sell your soul, because if you did, then what are you contributing

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to the nation's political values and the political discourse?

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It seems to me that something I realized, even at the UN, was that I had, you had to

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have ideals.

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If you didn't have ideals, you shouldn't be at the UN, because you may as well go off

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and be a banker or a lawyer or an accountant or whatever else, where you can mortgage your

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ideals to the service of your client and merely judge your success by the bottom line in your

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bank account.

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But if you are in an organization like the UN, and the same logic applies to politics,

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you must have ideals, you must have principles, you must have things you seek to pursue, but

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you must have the maturity and the wisdom to realize you can only pursue them within

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the limitations of what is politically possible.

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So the UN, I had to be responsive to 192 member states.

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And the Security Council, they're 15 very powerful countries.

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I can't sit around acting as if I own the world.

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I don't.

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I'm an employee of the United Nations Organization, which is in turn controlled by 192 governments.

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And there is an interplay of interests, beliefs, concerns, policy preferences of these governments,

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in which I will have to make the right judgment as to what compromises to make.

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And the judgments I make are essentially what, where my values and principles are tested.

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Now, you apply that logic to Indian politics.

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What happens is this, there are some things, for example, that I find I cannot say because

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there are variants with the policies adopted by my party.

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Now, if I were completely cynical, I'd swallow my own beliefs and mouth the party line.

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If I say, look, I understand that it's important for the party to take the stand it's taking.

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I'm not going to say what I don't believe.

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I could have a very different approach in which where I speak, I speak of my own conviction

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and where I can't agree with my party, I just choose to stay silent.

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And that's one way of limiting the extent to which you're compromising your convictions.

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Another example would come from when you were talking about responding to voters.

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You listen to your voters.

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That is extremely important.

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And when you find that your voters feel strongly enough about something, you have all the more

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an obligation to listen to them because you are their representative.

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If at the end of the day, they persuade you that their beliefs matter, then you do choose

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to compromise in your position.

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Whereas if you find that they are wrongheaded, you can argue to them and try and educate

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them to see things in your point of view.

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So I found myself both happening.

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That is on Section 377, for example, the vast majority of my voters disagreed with me.

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And I had to, in various occasions, to people from the church, to people of my voters, explain

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my position on 377.

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And of course, I took care to stress this is not about sex, it's about freedom.

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It's about the rights of Indian citizens like you and me to be themselves.

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And that argument I did not compromise on, even though had there been a poll taken, the

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vast majority of my voters would have been against my stand on Section 377.

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But they came around in the end.

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And once the Supreme Court took the decision it did, I actually looked good in retrospect

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in many of their eyes.

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Then you take something like Shabari Manna, where the vast majority of my constituents

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disagreed with my initial position.

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And I came around to the realization that I had been wrong in framing the issue merely

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in terms of my familiar categories of principles of equality and constitutionalism.

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And that when you're touching matters of religious faith, you are actually talking about something

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that goes very deep into the heart of people's beliefs and worship.

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And so I came around to becoming an explainer of their concerns, rather than somebody who

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would have stuck to what all my normal liberal constituency expected of me.

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And as a result, of course, I've been denounced by the very people who on most other issues

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I would have seen as my friends.

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Would I have come to that conclusion if I had not been an elected political representative

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in Kerala meeting people every day who were expressing the passion of their views?

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Very clearly no.

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If I had just been a liberal columnist or writer sitting either in New York or in New

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Delhi, I probably would never have changed my mind on Shabari Manna.

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So their politics did bring about a change, and it's part of the compromise that democratic

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representation involves.

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But I don't see myself as having mortgaged my principles.

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If their arguments had not convinced me of their own merit, I would not have changed.

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But the realization that when you frame the issue as one of sanctity, that you're touching

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on profound matters of faith and of religious tractors, that just south of Trivandrum is

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in Kanyakumari, the famous Kumari Amman temple from which Kanyakumari gets its name to the

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virgin form of the goddess, where men are not allowed in the inner sanctum.

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And if for thousands of years men have not been allowed there, if you've applied the

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Supreme Court's gender equality principle, men will be able to go there.

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And the day a man steps into that sanctum sanctorum, the sanctity of that temple for

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millions of women worshipers is completely destroyed.

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And you have to ask yourself as a political representative, what is right?

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The principle of gender equality or the meaning of this temple as a sanctified place to its

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believers and worshipers?

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It becomes a very different debate when you think of it that way.

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Yeah, matter of colliding principles, I completely get that.

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And my sort of, I mean, I don't want to derail this by, you know, focusing on Sabarimala.

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So just moving on from there, my slightly related question there is that, is it then

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entirely fair to judge politicians by how much they implement the promises they might

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have made when the promises could have been fairly high minded?

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But if you consider the incentives once they get to power, they include in general two

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particular kind of incentives, that is, incentives of the interest groups which put them in power

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and which will want them to implement favorable policies.

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And number two, the incentives which come from whichever vote banks they might be cultivating

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and their actions might run inimicable to the general interest because, you know, in

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one case, they'd be working on behalf of interest groups.

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On the other hand, they might have to cater to a certain kind of identity politics that

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has dominated our discourse through the decades.

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And in the case of Modi, you could argue that there's even a sort of a third force, which

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is the RSS, which he's always been part of, which is exerting its own kind of nativist

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pressures.

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And is it even realistic to then assume that all of this high minded liberal talk, as you

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put it, the commitment to pluralism and so on, can actually, you know, play out in action

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and would anyone in his place be able to do something?

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OK, so as a general principle, I would say that most of the promises politicians make

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do not conflict with the interests of the majority of voters or they wouldn't make them.

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So by and large, when a politician says something high minded or otherwise, it's because he

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knows his voters want to hear it.

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And if he therefore is unable to fulfill it, he needs to explain to his voters why he hasn't.

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I've stuck to that policy in my two terms in office.

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I explain everything that I promised to do and how I've tried to do it.

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And if I failed, I explain why I failed and leave it to the voters to judge whether I

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should be blamed or not for that failure.

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And that's, I think, an important part of political accountability.

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But in the case of Mr. Modi, it was a more cynical exercise.

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He actually knew that the core Hindu vote was his anyway.

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That vote wasn't going to go away.

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And so the so-called high minded statements you're referring to were made to attract the

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undecided voters who are not Hindutva oriented, who are possibly even directly negative about

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Hindutva, but who are attracted by the other aspects of his message, particularly the developmental

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message.

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And the cynicism of that is, let me take you to a different political environment to give

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you a parallel.

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In America, it is often critiqued that the Republican Party runs on a campaign involving

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guns, God and gays, the sort of cultural nationalism of the American right, and thereby attracts

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the votes of a lot of working class people, small town people, salary people, and so on.

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And having come to power on that, it then unmasks its real agenda, which is to put more

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money in the pockets of the plutocrats.

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And it essentially devotes its political energy to financial and fiscal policies that benefit

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the tiny mass of their supporters and backers and funders.

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That is, in other words, cultural nationalism becoming the bait.

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And then you switch, it's called bait and switch, you switch to your real agenda, which

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is economics.

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I would suggest that what we've seen with Mr. Modi is also bait and switch, but it's

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the exact reverse of the Republican approach, which is that economics has been the bait.

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He's talked about Vikas, he's talked about Gujarat Inc, he's talked about how much he's

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been able to do and how much he's going to do for India, and people have voted for him.

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And then having come to power, instead of focusing on results in that area, he has merely

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unleashed some of the most retrogressive forces of cultural nationalism across the country.

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And the only conclusion one can inescapably draw is that that must have been his real

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agenda, that the economics was all talk and the real action is in cow vigilantism, is

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in Gharwapasi, is in love jihad, is in communal polarization, is in the murder, even, of Muslims

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for being too Muslim, is in the compulsory ization of Bharat Mata Ki Jai, etc., etc.,

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etc.

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All of that cultural nationalism has been dominant articulation and priority of this

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government, having won votes on the basis of something quite different.

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I couldn't agree with you more.

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And I think, you know, many of the people who might have been taken in by his promises

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of development should now listen to his words and say that, you know, you fool me once,

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shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

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But my question was really more about a broader sort of question about politics in general.

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The next paradox I want to ask you about is a paradox of the idea of India.

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You know, Mr. Tagore's phrase and something that, you know, you bring up in your book.

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And you know, the objection that, you know, at length you quote Deendayal Upadhyay talking

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about the constitution and railing against it.

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And I think there is a question there that must be addressed by liberal elites such as

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you and me.

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And it was, in fact, liberal elites who framed the constitution and you could make a criticism

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that look, the constitution didn't actually reflect the soul of the people.

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It was these westernized liberal elites.

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In a sense, Nehru and gang were really British liberals in a sense, you know, where their

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thinking came from.

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And I mean that in a good way.

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But one, there is that paradox that forcing a liberal way of life on an illiberal country

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isn't that act itself illiberal, you know, and that's one paradox.

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And the other paradox that then is that if now, and I'm not saying this is necessarily

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the case, but if now the country is to assert its illiberalism and want the constitution

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to reflect that, on what grounds are we to stand in the way?

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Well, that's a very interesting question.

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I have to say that it's something which, which one doesn't have easy answers for, because

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I actually accept the critique that the constitution, as Dean De Alupati put it, is full of imported

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western ideas written by Anglophile lawyers in English, which is not, from his point of

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view, an authentic Indian language.

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And in these circumstances, you're really looking at a question that says, I'm prepared

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to say, so what?

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If these ideas are good, if these ideas are actually ideas that in many, many ways would

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improve the lives of Indians, why shouldn't we adopt them even if they've come from abroad?

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Is any culture truly pristine?

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Hasn't India been open to external influences since time immemorial?

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Didn't we welcome these outsiders when they came, where there was the Jews fleeing the

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destruction of their temple by the Babylonians and then by the Romans, where there was Islam

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coming to the south of India as a message, as it were, during the lifetime of the prophet,

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whether it was Zoroastrianism, the Parsi's coming as refugees fleeing Muslim persecution

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in Persia in the seventh century.

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All of these examples suggest to me that you actually have a society which has had a lot

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of openness to various influences and which, as Swami Vivekananda argued, has always found

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the secret of its survival in the acceptance of difference, the acceptance that other people

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of other ways were doing things.

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It may be, in your view, a somewhat illiberal society, and if you look at caste relations

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and so on, it certainly does seem illiberal, but it has also been a society which, by the

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practice of acceptance, and I stress the word acceptance rather than merely tolerance, has

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actually allowed multiple forms of worship to exist and flourish on Indian soil, and

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the strength of that is what I think makes India ripe for a liberal constitution.

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It is not a liberal imposition on illiberal country.

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It is a liberal overlay on a system which, because of its respect for difference and

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its acceptance for difference, permits, if you like, modern constitutional principles

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to be addressed in this older society.

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One of the interesting distinctions that this causes is the following.

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In Western democracies, the individual citizen is the only one who has rights.

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In India, we have the individual rights that have come to us through Western democracy,

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but we also have community and group rights.

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We recognise things like personal laws of different religious communities, for which

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there is no equivalent in the United States or in most Western democracies.

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Now, what does this mean?

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This means that you have got an overlay, but that overlay is not incompatible with the

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idea of rights that already pre-existed in that society, in our society.

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So I don't consider it illiberal, and I'll take you back to the beginning of your initial

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comment.

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I would argue that the liberalism that you say might have been an imposition on this

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society is actually what has made a lot of the evolution of this society possible.

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That without the constitution of 1950, a Mayawati, a Dalit woman, who for 3,000 years, it would

1703

have been unthinkable to see a Dalit woman ruling the land of Aryavrata, this Dalit woman

1709

has been elected three times as chief minister of UP, thanks to that liberal constitution.

1714

A man of very humble origins who sold tea on a railway station platform has become prime

1719

minister of India because of the liberal constitution and the institutions that were created and

1724

nurtured under it.

1726

So I would argue that in fact, our society needs this constitution, needs these liberal

1731

values and is what it is because these values have shaped us for 71 years.

1737

I take your point, though I'm a little sceptical about how individual rights and group rights

1742

can coexist because it seems to me that there is a dissonance there which eventually leads

1746

to conflict.

1747

But my other question there is that...

1749

Let me answer that before you move on from it, which is to my mind, I've actually written

1754

an article in the Northern Journal of International Law about 30 years ago, making this point

1759

that they coexist only in a context in which the individual has the right to opt out.

1764

In other words, culture means that yes, you can have Muslim personal law, but it can't

1770

be coercion.

1771

Culture should not be coercion.

1773

If a Muslim woman chooses to marry a non-Muslim or marry a Muslim under civil law, she has

1778

the right to do so under our constitution.

1781

And that's essentially the argument that says for those who wish to abide by it, group rights

1787

exist.

1788

For those who wish to opt out, the constitution protects their individual rights.

1792

And to my mind, that gives you the way in which the two can coexist.

1796

Fair enough.

1797

And if we accept that, let's say that to begin with, we have a relatively liberal constitution,

1802

I still feel it's illiberal in many ways and that it doesn't protect free speech enough

1806

and the right to property is not a fundamental right and so on.

1809

But leaving that aside, if we accept that the constitution is more liberal than society

1813

is even today, then the question that brings me to is how a society becomes liberal.

1822

Is it a top down process as you're saying it can be that a constitution can play a part

1826

in that?

1827

Or should it necessarily be a bottom up process like, for example, you're in the political

1832

marketplace, you're part of the supply end of the political marketplace and there is

1835

a demand and you're catering to.

1838

And it's always seemed to me that you have to change the demand and first that the battle

1842

is first a cultural battle and then a political battle.

1846

And if you don't change the demand end and if the demand end is largely illiberal, then

1850

you're never going to get really liberal policies from the supply end because politicians will

1855

reflect society.

1856

Yes and no.

1857

I mean, you're broadly right and I can't claim that the preponderance of evidence would be

1862

against your argument.

1863

Your argument is actually right.

1865

In fact, I have noticed particularly in the context of 377 that the judiciary has far

1870

more courage than politicians because politicians don't think beyond the prejudices of their

1875

electorate.

1876

Whereas the judiciary has no such fetters and is free to advocate certain principles

1881

and values that it holds dear.

1883

But you know, again, my counter argument involves precisely that, that the liberal constitution

1889

we have created has also created these different institutions.

1893

It's not as if the only change in our society is a change that can be voted for by a majority

1898

of members of parliament.

1900

There are changes that are coming through the judicial route.

1903

Many would argue that there's a flurry of Supreme Court judgments over the last 15,

1908

20 years have expanded the notion of women's rights in India way beyond anything that our

1913

society has known in the past or that perhaps a government would have dared to introduce

1917

or a parliament would have voted for.

1919

So let's accept that in a democracy, there are many institutions of democracy.

1925

The judiciary is one of them and it sometimes thinks beyond what parliament is capable of

1930

doing.

1931

But then the fourth is the media to which you belong is also an extremely important

1935

institution of democracy and it can help promote change by what it depicts of cultural practices

1943

and social values.

1945

Certainly the India in which I grew up and which I left at the age of 19 to go to graduate

1950

school in the West and the India to which I returned at the age of 51 were very different

1955

Indias when it comes to things like, for example, sexual mores, when it comes to conspicuous

1961

consumption, when it comes to the overt public display of affluence, all sorts of things.

1967

A cultural change had occurred and I think it was a change that was enabled by mass media,

1973

by media showing examples of all of these, by media showing that this was what is practiced

1978

elsewhere in the world, by media showing that the world was moving on and India should perhaps

1983

catch up or some sections of India found it attractive to catch up with the rest of the

1987

world.

1988

So change comes in all sorts of ways, not just through politicians.

1992

Politicians in some cases can only reflect what their voters are prepared to tolerate.

1997

In some cases, they will have the courage of their convictions and to take things forward.

2001

And in some cases, the politicians are operating in domains in which the public themselves

2008

don't know really any better or any worse.

2011

And so there is an educated role and Manoj Singh stood up in parliament in 1991 and said

2016

as finance minister, paraphrasing Victor Hugo, that no power on earth can stop an idea whose

2022

time has come.

2023

What was he saying?

2024

He was basically saying at that point that the economic underpinnings of your normal

2029

life in India that you've always known are suddenly going to change.

2034

Now you can't say that a lot of voters would have asked for it because they didn't know

2038

they could ask for it, as it were.

2040

Most voters in India were living within the protected and somewhat overregulated economy

2046

that we had up till then.

2047

But suddenly when everything became possible, when foreign goods could come in, when restrictions

2051

were lifted, when companies could expand, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, the same

2055

people, the same voters embraced these things.

2058

So it's only when it comes to matters that people are sensitive about, which are usually

2062

social, religious, cultural matters, that politicians are a bit more constrained.

2067

When it comes to things like economic policy, when it comes to things like most of the foreign

2072

policy issues in our country and so on, the voters do give politicians the freedom to

2077

pursue their convictions and their beliefs.

2080

Fair enough.

2081

Before I move on to talking about your book, per se, just one final general question.

2085

As your anecdote at the start about Modi indicated, where he said that I do nothing for the Muslims

2090

of Gujarat, I do nothing for the Hindus of Gujarat, I focus on the Gujaratis, which is

2094

a remarkable rhetorical term, and he is a master of rhetoric.

2098

And it's often been said about him that he focuses on purely on optics, that he's great

2103

at campaigning and not so much governing.

2107

And one always assumed that this is going to come back and bite him at some point, maybe

2110

2019.

2112

But my counterpoint to that is that maybe he sees something we don't, which is that

2116

maybe only the optics matters in the sense that what has happened over the last few years

2121

exacerbated to some extent by social media, but not entirely, is that, you know, the journalist

2127

Walter Lippmann in the early 1900s wrote a book called Public Opinion, where the first

2131

chapter was titled The World Out There and The World Inside Our Heads, where he pointed

2135

out that people construct a world inside their heads and then whether or not it corresponds

2140

to the real world outside, they stick to that world.

2143

And it seems to me that social media makes it possible to meet like-minded people, even

2148

if they are fellow bigots or mythologists or whatever, who might validate those worst impulses

2153

and, you know, strengthen your belief in them.

2156

And it's very easy to form echo chambers and then be imprisoned in those narratives, which

2161

cannot be touched by reality.

2163

So once you believe that narrative, for example, if you believe in narrative that Hindu civilization

2167

is under threat and everything was glorious once and blah, blah, blah, then what is happening

2172

outside doesn't really matter so much, like after demonetization, which I thought was

2177

a disaster and the biggest assault on property rights in human history, I was sure they would

2181

lose in UP.

2182

But they won by a landslide.

2184

And it seemed to me that what had actually happened, the suffering that people had gone

2187

through didn't affect the way they voted because it already made up a narrative inside the

2191

heads.

2193

And if that is the case, maybe Mr. Modi is smarter than we think because he knows then

2197

that only the narrative matters and the reality of things doesn't matter.

2201

So to hell with governance.

2202

I mean, that's a very depressing thought.

2203

It is because I think the narrative worked for Mr. Modi in UP because it was very soon

2208

after the elections, very soon after the demonetization of the elections took place.

2213

And there was still time for a very, very clever narrative to seize the imaginations

2218

of people, one of which, by the way, was oddly enough, the politics of class resentment is

2223

basically saying, yeah, you've suffered.

2225

You know, the rich have suffered much more.

2227

The rich are the guys that really got hit because of this.

2229

So we did this for you.

2231

And the poor said, wow, yeah, you're right.

2232

You know, those rich guys have suffered.

2234

Let's reward Modi.

2236

But with time, that argument, that narrative doesn't hold because the poor are able to

2240

see that they're the ones who lost jobs.

2242

They're the ones who lost their savings.

2244

They're the ones who suffered, whereas the rich are back to being rich again and are

2249

carrying on oblivious.

2250

And they realize that that that old narrative that Modi had sold them in the UP election

2255

doesn't work.

2256

And on top of that, that they've elected a deeply unsatisfactory government, which

2260

has let them down really in all sorts of ways and which has created an environment in which

2265

the BJP's unpopularity is now being widely talked about in the regime of Yogi Adityanath.

2273

And for these reasons, I think that you may be right about the whole management of narrative

2279

as an answer in the short term.

2281

I don't believe it works indefinitely in the long term.

2285

And I do think that we're going to find in the elections of 2019, Modi is going to find

2292

it very difficult to spin the same yarn twice.

2295

How does a young man in Kanpur who voted for Mr. Modi in 2014, because Modi painted this

2302

brilliant portrait of jobs sort of tumbling out of the woodwork for him because he's going

2306

to attract all this investment and create so much business and he's going to get rid

2310

of all the sclerotic practices of the old regime and jobs are going to be there and

2313

this young man will have a job and five years later, the same guy doesn't have a job, none

2318

of the fantasies that were depicted for him have come true, why would he vote for Modi

2322

again?

2323

I mean, how long can a narrative be a substitute for the reality experienced by the human person?

2329

On that hopeful note, we'll take a quick commercial break.

2332

Hello, everybody, welcome to another awesome week on the IBM Podcast Network.

2336

If you're not following us on social media, please make sure that you do.

2339

We're IBM Podcasts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

2342

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2345

and we had some really interesting interactions with our audience on based on that.

2348

So if you'd like to get in touch with us, do check us out.

2350

On Cyrus's, Cyrus is joined by the Habit Coach, Ashton Doctor, who talks about the importance

2354

of healthy habits, simple tricks to meditate and his new podcast, The Habit Coach.

2358

Speaking of The Habit Coach, in a three part series, Ashton shares his golden secrets to

2361

achieving new year resolutions.

2363

On the Prakriti Podcast, Pawan is joined by Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan.

2366

They discuss India's success and failures as a republic and a democracy.

2369

On Talle Harate, legal expert Alok Prasanna Kumar discusses the Supreme Court judgment

2373

on Aadhaar and its implication on citizens.

2375

On Geek Fruit, Tejas, Jishnu and Dinkar do a recap of their favorite films from 2018.

2379

And on IBM Likes, Janan Surbhi and Abbas give out some cool pop culture recommendations

2382

and discuss the new Netflix horror movie Bird Box starring Sandra Bullock.

2386

And with that, let's get you back to your show.

2390

Welcome back to The Scene in the Unseen.

2391

I'm chatting with Shashi Tharoor about his brilliant book on Narendra Modi called The

2394

Paradoxical Prime Minister.

2396

Mr. Tharoor, you outline a number of ways in which Modi is paradoxical in your book.

2402

And the first one, which strikes me as very interesting and which I think gave some hope

2406

to a lot of liberal people who voted for Modi in 2014, was you spoke about how in Gujarat,

2414

like it's actually a triple paradox.

2416

He began as an RSS person, but when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat, he actually marginalized

2421

a lot of the extreme Hindu elements like the VHP and so on.

2424

He fought with Togadia, he kicked out Gurdwana Duffadia from his cabinet, though he's back

2429

in his good books again.

2431

And a lot of people assume that he might do the same when he is in power at the center

2435

and that we won't go in this very Hindutva Bharat Mata ki Jai direction.

2440

And instead he will live up to his promises on development and be Vikash Purush instead

2445

of Hindu Rede Samrat.

2447

This I mean, did this take you by surprise?

2449

Yeah, I actually did think, as you said, that that's what he he he might do, because first

2456

of all, Vikash Purush is was what he tried to depict himself as for the bulk of his time

2463

in Gujarat.

2464

And therefore that became his calling card for the nation.

2466

But second, I thought that it's also a better thing to run for reelection on because, you

2473

know, the temporary satisfaction you get from beating people of other religions on the head

2477

is unlikely to be a sustainable asset, whereas improving people's livelihoods and making

2483

them feel good about themselves will obviously be new votes against.

2486

I was very much thinking that he would focus on that.

2490

But as I realized, as I said, within six months of his coming to power, it couldn't work for

2495

him that way because his support base, the very people who needed to go out and knock

2499

on those doors and windows campaigns for him, actually happened to be people for whom the

2504

only thing that mattered was the Hindu Hriday Samrat's work.

2510

And it is very, very sad in some ways that our own political and constitutional system

2516

kind of reinforced that because we have elections somewhere or the other every six months, thanks

2521

to the vagaries of the parliamentary system, some state of the others going to the polls

2526

and Modi in his desire to consolidate power became the nation's campaigner in chief, the

2531

Pradhan Pracharak, quite literally in the sense of campaigning rather than the Pradhan

2536

Sevak that he claimed to be.

2538

He was not doing Deshka Seva, he was doing Bhajapaka Prachar.

2542

And in that process, what you saw throughout the country was a Modi who had to pander to

2547

the instincts of his followers, his campaigners, the guys who are going out knocking on doors

2552

and sticking up posters and banners were the Hindutva elements, the RSS elements, the

2556

VHP and the Bajrang Dal.

2558

These were the characters who were there to support Mr. Modi so he could win state election

2562

after state election.

2564

And therefore his message became tailored entirely to them.

2567

And he was also handicapped in his ability to say something when they got out of hand

2573

and actually murdered people or flogged them on YouTube or stabbed them to death in a very

2577

disgracefully public manner.

2579

Then instead of disavowing them, as one would expect any decent prime minister to do in

2584

terms of exercising the moral leadership of the nation, Mr. Modi went mysteriously silent.

2590

But the reason was he couldn't afford to antagonize the very people without whose efforts he couldn't

2593

win all these states.

2595

So the whole thing became circular, you see, in this way.

2598

And just as an aside, it's probably unfair to ask you this because you may not know him

2601

well enough, but do you think he has any core beliefs of his own or is he sort of the quintessential

2607

sociopath who'll do whatever it takes to further his immediate self-interest?

2613

Look, that's a difficult question for me to answer because it's easy enough for an opposition

2618

MP to say the latter.

2621

But there's something there in this man that makes me hesitate to just dismiss the possibility

2627

of the former.

2628

All I can say is his core beliefs seem to me to be much more to do with Hindutva rather

2635

than with the plus part.

2636

And I've talked about moditva as Hindutva plus, but the plus part includes the vikaspurush

2644

message, somehow seem to be more tactical than core beliefs.

2650

Another of your paradoxes actually feeds on from this and is probably, you know, a natural

2654

consequence of this, which is that he makes these pluralist statements once in a while

2659

and you think, ah, I mean, that's a fairly liberal thing to say, but that is counterbalanced

2663

by his very polarizing campaign rhetoric, you know, which can be very communal and ugly.

2668

And at the same time when he is in power as a prime minister and all of these things happen,

2672

lynchings happen and so on, there is a silence that almost seems tacit and all of these kind

2678

of contradict each other.

2679

But you know, as you said, this, the pulls and pressures you just described explain this

2682

as well.

2683

Yeah, I mean, the pulls and pressures do explain this to quite right.

2688

And yeah, and they also explain another paradox where he talks of the constitution as a holy

2693

book, but the RSS is, you know, holds a Manusmriti as a holy book.

2697

So again, it's a, that paradox is also kind of explained by this.

2702

But it's not just that, you know, he actually says that Dindayal Upadhyaya is his hero and

2706

mentor.

2707

When, when he came, became prime minister, he insisted that every single ministry hold

2711

a seminar on the thoughts of Dindayal Upadhyaya and he put Dindayal Upadhyaya logos on all

2716

the ministry letterheads and so on.

2718

Now the fact of the matter is Dindayal Upadhyaya may have been a very interesting and inspiring

2722

figure, but the one thing he was absolutely clear about was that he despised the constitution

2727

and wished to tear it up and discard it.

2729

So you cannot on hand say that the constitution is your holy book and on the other hand say

2735

that you worship Dindayal Upadhyaya, the two thoughts are fundamentally incompatible.

2739

Now one of these is insincere and I believe that it was the reference to the constitution

2743

that was insincere.

2745

I think that Modi is indeed schooled in the Dindayal Upadhyaya kind of approach.

2751

And ideally he and, and his acolytes in the BJP do want to change the constitution.

2756

But until they have the numbers in both houses, as well as in the state assemblies to amend

2761

the constitution, they can't do it and therefore for the moment, tactically, it's useful to

2766

swear by the very constitution that they're busy destroying the spiritual.

2770

But when he speaks of the constitution as a holy book, who is he really speaking to?

2774

I mean, is it the case that he is secretly, he really wants the affection of the Lutyens

2779

elite who he disparages so much?

2781

Yeah, I think he wants the affection of the establishment, the media, the thinking classes

2786

and so on in this country, or he wanted it at some point.

2789

I think he, my own view is that the gloves are going to come off in April of 2019 and

2794

we'll no longer see that kind of talk.

2796

But certainly I think he did want the affection of everybody, but more important, he wanted

2802

to disarm them.

2803

You know, he couldn't necessarily win over a lot of these people in terms of affection,

2808

but he had to at least convey the impression that he was no threat to the fundamental consensus

2813

that had built this country.

2815

And that's the only way with the Vikas message and so on, that he could build up the support

2820

base around the country that would enable him then to amend the constitution.

2825

Don't forget that he succeeded to the tune of 20 state governments.

2828

He's now lost three, but he had 20 state governments in the BJP kitty as recently as the last month

2835

of 2018.

2837

And that means that he was well on his way to fulfilling his dream.

2839

He had with the NDA, 333 seats in the looks of her.

2844

And thanks to the state assemblies, you know, controlled, he was gradually creeping up to

2848

a convincing majority in the Raja Sabha with all of this in say three, four, five years

2854

time, he would have been in a position to write the Hindutva constitution of his dreams.

2861

Now the fact is that it looks like the nation is going to stop him before he gets there

2865

or that even if he inevitably becomes the dominant party in the Raja Sabha, that he's

2870

going to be stopped in the looks of her in the 2019 general election.

2874

So then my fears will again be dialed down.

2878

But certainly I have no doubt having looked at the convictions of the BJP and the Hindutva

2883

Brigade and the followers of Mr. Modi, that had he been able to retain this majority in

2889

the looks of her and add to it in a few years, a majority in the Raja Sabha, that we would

2894

have seen him openly and nakedly saying, we need to strike certain words in the constitution.

2899

We need to make India Hindu Rashtra with the Hindu faith as the official faith of the country

2905

and so on and so forth.

2906

All of these are things that he and his followers have long believed and they would finally

2910

have been in a position to do it.

2912

But the other talk was a means, it seems to me, to put themselves in a position to do

2917

it.

2918

And you know, another paradox that is a big paradox, and I imagine both you and I would

2923

be upset that it's a paradox at all, is that he said all these beautiful things before

2927

the elections about minimum government, maximum governance.

2930

And as you point out, it's just the opposite.

2932

We've had maximum government and minimum governance where, you know, you talk about the ideal

2937

size of the cabinet and you say that, you know, one sort of rule of thumb was that it

2941

should be around 10% of the Lok Sabha or about 55 or whatever.

2945

And you even outline in great detail what you think the ideal number should be and why,

2949

which is about 40-45, which, you know, the argument seemed very convincing to me.

2955

And you have a telling anecdote about his early days, about why he was drawn to the

2959

RSS, because, you know, it seemed to him that here was a group where everybody listened

2964

to one leader, which shows how his thinking from a very early stage is sort of a top-down

2970

thinking.

2971

Now, you know, your expression of disappointment at him not living up to the slogan of minimum

2976

government, maximum governance also leads me to another larger paradox, which is that

2981

we have always been a nation of top-down thinkers and large governments.

2985

I mean, Modi might have around 80 ministers right now, as you pointed out, but Manmohan

2989

Singh at 78 before this, as you mentioned in your book yourself.

2993

Correct.

2994

And it's also true that we're the only country which has actually had to create a guideline

2998

saying no more than 15% of the strength of the two houses, because otherwise governments

3002

would have gone on and on appointing ministers and deputy ministers and parliamentary secretaries,

3007

because ultimately the big flaw in the parliamentary system, one which I've decried in a different

3013

book, India Shastra, is the fact that you are electing a legislator in order to form

3018

the executive, which is a fundamental, to my mind, a flaw in the entire British system,

3024

which we have taken on to ourselves.

3026

And so what's happening is that once you get elected as part of the ruling party, what

3031

you want to do is become a monthly or at least hold some other position the government can

3036

give you.

3037

Now, the fact is that thanks to the official guideline of 15%, they can't do that.

3042

But even then, it's very striking that we have this incredibly centralized situation

3049

where what Mr. Modi has realized is you hand out these various portfolios as stops to people,

3056

but you keep all real power to yourself.

3058

So you have your 18 ministers in the Modi government, but of that only one, and that's

3063

Mr. Modi himself, actually has any power to decide anything.

3067

Every other minister, first of all, has a secretary or a senior civil service that bypasses

3072

him and goes and reports to the prime minister's office under Mr. Modi.

3076

And second, the decisions are made with Mr. Modi's stamp and not that of the minister

3081

himself or herself with the result that ultimately it almost doesn't matter when you speak of

3086

minimum government and maximum governance.

3090

What you're seeing is maximum centralized government in the shape of the PMO, which

3096

is certainly the most top down, most centralized PMO we've seen since Indira Gandhi's emergency.

3102

And you have at the same time, inefficient governance, which is actually not maximum

3106

governance and minimum governance, because a lot of decisions keep pending since the

3112

people in the PMO are human beings and there's a limit to how many files they can process.

3116

And so this government has the worst record in the filling of vacancies in the history

3121

of democratic India, because every blessed vacancy has to be filled with the approval

3125

of the PMO and lots and lots and lots of vacancies and everything from administrative tribunals

3130

to the information commission to various other governmental bodies penned and penned for

3135

weeks and months on end, because there just isn't time for the staff of the PMO who are

3140

making 2000 other decisions at the same time to also deal with this.

3144

Now, when it came to your opposition to 377 or your equally principled opposition to the

3149

death penalty, you were sort of like a lone voice in the political landscape.

3153

Is that also the case on the issue of minimum government or, you know, is there a chance

3158

that we'll actually see a much smaller ministry if the Congress does come to power?

3162

No, sir, I'm afraid you won't, because I think the logic of the Congress party would

3167

be that especially since it's going to be almost certainly a coalition government and

3172

especially if it is a coalition government, that portfolios have to be sufficiently numerous

3179

in order to keep various constituent elements happy.

3182

And therefore, I don't think my ideas will go very far with with a coalition government.

3186

My most radical idea, in which I am truly alone, but which I'm convinced would be beneficial

3191

for this country, is to strap the parliamentary system all together and go for clear separation

3196

of powers between the legislature and the executive, elect an executive president in

3201

the center and an executive chief minister or governor in the states, who and an elected,

3206

by the way, mayor in the towns as well, who would actually be invulnerable to the whims

3211

of a legislative majority, but would be able to have a free hand plus the free budgetary

3216

authority to actually do whatever they promise in their campaigns to do and be held accountable

3222

four or five years later.

3224

Still they would be challenged by a legislature.

3228

The legislature would reflect all the diverse interests in India today.

3232

And so you'd have more or less the same kind of parliament you have, except that parliament

3235

would not be constituting the executive.

3237

In fact, it would be completely separate from the executive, would be questioning the executive

3241

and holding it accountable on a day-to-day basis.

3244

And it would actually be a far, far better system for the diversity of our country.

3249

And at the same time, a more efficient system because the president could get on, get work

3253

done instead of spending all his or her time in staying in power, which is what Mr. Modi

3258

has been doing with his five years in office.

3260

And do you think something like that will ever be possible?

3264

You know, I'm afraid, you know, major constitutional change of that nature requires a world-class

3269

crisis to come about.

3271

I don't see, I don't see it happening quite so easily, but you know, if there ever were

3276

a national cataclysm, a nuclear war or something, God forbid, I don't want one to ever happen.

3281

But if it did, and we literally had to build up the pieces from rubble, this option should

3286

present itself to any sensible re-thinker at that point.

3290

And so I'm happy to lay it out there for posterity.

3293

I know we're running short of time and you have to get somewhere.

3296

So we'll quickly run through the rest of the paradoxes of Mr. Modi that you point out.

3301

Paradox to federalism, that there was a time where he claimed to be a believer in federalism,

3305

especially when he was the chief minister of Gujarat, of course, but he's acted in

3309

quite contrary ways once he's actually come to power at the centre.

3312

Precisely.

3313

And you know, as chief minister of Gujarat, he opposed anything that he could see as an

3317

encroachment on states' rights, whether it was the counter-terrorism centre, whether

3322

it was the Aadhaar implementation, whether it was GST, which he said took away the states'

3326

rights to tax on the punished producer states, as he called them, and so on.

3331

The moment he becomes prime minister, somehow everything changes, and as I joked, where

3337

you stand depends on where you sit.

3339

He's sitting in Delhi in the prime minister's office and his stand has completely changed.

3344

That's really well said.

3346

Another Modi paradox is his desire to portray himself as a modern, tech-friendly prime minister,

3351

but at the same time, this constant harking back to a glorious past, which is of course

3356

kind of mythical, and these two sort of collide in very awkward, uncomfortable ways, like

3360

his mention of how we did the first plastic surgery, which was Ganesha and so on.

3365

My broader question really here is, beyond this obvious contradiction, is why is it that

3372

glorious past is such a key part of these kind of populist narratives, not just in India

3377

but elsewhere as well?

3378

Well, in India, there is a complete worldview which Modi has internalised and which is fundamental

3384

to his thinking about the nature of the country, which is that India was this glorious golden

3390

bird that got despoiled when the evil Muslims and then the evil Christians came in and blocked

3397

its wings and despoiled it, and that now a Hindu hridaya samaraj has come back to restore

3403

this forgotten glory.

3405

Now, if that is your narrative and that's your basic view of the history of India, which

3410

I'm afraid it is, because when I wrote my book, A New Era of Darkness Attacking British

3413

Colonialism, Modi, while hailing it, was making speeches about 1200 years of foreign rule,

3418

which I don't agree with, because to my mind, the Mughals and the other Muslim rulers before

3424

them came to this country, settled here, and even if they did exploit or loot, they spent

3429

the products of their exploitation and loot in India, and they created some of the most

3433

beautiful buildings, architecture, monuments and cultural legacies of which we are all

3437

the inheritors today.

3438

So to my mind, they're not foreigners, whereas the British as imperialists did drain our

3443

resources to build their country, and they didn't work in the interests of this country

3448

but rather of their own.

3449

So there is a difference.

3450

Now, having said all of that, if Mr. Modi's view of Indian history is what it is as I've

3454

summarized to you, then a whole sort of corollaries follow from it.

3460

Number one, that you've got to glorify that past because it was so great.

3465

So everything about it is made to look fantastic in order to diminish what followed.

3470

Second, you have to demonize the successors of those whom you despise for having done

3476

terrible things to your country, and therefore you demonize Muslims and Christians.

3481

And third, you present yourself as the one who is restoring a gloried, fabled past.

3488

So you are not merely sort of advocating something new.

3492

You are coming back to ancient glories, but you are doing so using all the technologies

3497

available to you in the 21st century because India is not going to be second to anybody

3502

when it comes to technology.

3504

So as I joked in the book, the image he has sought to portray is of a leader who is comfortable

3511

clicking a mouse with one hand while brandishing a trishul with the other.

3516

That's a brilliant image.

3517

I'll quickly run through three of the other paradoxes I noted and then I can get to some

3521

Ep 102： The Paradox of Narendra Modi | The Seen and the Unseen