2014: The Election that Changed India
Author: Rajdeep Sardesai
Publisher: Penguin, Rs599
While Rajdeep Sardesai’s book is largely about the successes and failures of principal protagonists Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi, it also deftly manages to provide an overview of the bigger national political picture, says RAJESH SINGH
It was the March 2013 Bharatiya Janata Party’s national council meeting which, in the words of journalist-author Rajdeep Sardesai, became “an event that showcased the emerging star power of (Narendra) Modi”. At the two-day function, Sardesai writes, “Modi became a Pied Piper.” He further notes, “The groundswell of support to anoint him as the party’s leader for the 2014 elections was rising.” A few months after the March event, Modi became the party’s election campaign committee chairman and finally its official Prime Ministerial candidate.
So, the writing had been on the wall for some time. The author admits that he grasped the full import of it — the fact that here was a man who was on his way to rewrite the country’s electoral history — only in July 2013 when surveys commissioned by a television news channel with whom he was then associated, began demonstrating clear and overwhelming trends in Modi’s favour. That is when Sardesai began to take notes for the book he planned to write.
In the end, 2014: The Election That Changed India came to be created almost as painstakingly though clinically as the BJP’s lok Sabha win under Modi’s leadership. Given that Modi’s phenomenal rise in the run-up to the election was the catalyst for Sardesai to craft his very readable book, it is not surprising that the Prime Minister remains the key element in the narrative. But, the book is not only about the rise of Modi, but also about what the author believes have been his negative features. It is about the well-intentioned but failed Rahul Gandhi too. Sardesai deals with his two subjects as stand-alones and as rivals pitted against each other. Whatever his personal slants may be on the two leaders, the author is honest in his appraisal. Soon after the Congress won the 2009 lok Sabha election, CNN-IBN (with which Sardesai was then associated) announced Rahul Gandhi’s name as the channel’s Indian of the Year, “for galvanising the Congress cadres, for reaching out to young India and enthusing millions of Indians to vote for the Congress…” looking back, it must be embarrassing to the jury. The author admits, “In hindsight, we were wrong… The real credit for the Congress’s strong performance should have gone to the Prime Minister.”
Sardesai observes in the book that Rahul Gandhi came a cropper in every aspect of leadership skills. “Rahul has miserably failed to build a political team of substance.” At another place in the book, after the Congress lost the Uttar Pradesh and Bihar Assembly Elections, the author remarks, “He had promised to travel extensively through UP and rejuvenate the cadres. He did no such thing. At a time when the Congress was looking for leadership, the leader went missing.” And, as we have seen thereafter, Rahul Gandhi went missing on more such occasions.
While Sardesai acknowledges that Modi galvanised his party’s cadre, seized the imagination of the voters and conducted a more robust and well-oiled campaign as compared to Rahul Gandhi’s insipid style, he firmly maintains his sights on what he considers are problems with Modi the leader, especially as Gujarat Chief Minister during the 2002 violence. He writes, “In my view, Modi needed to provide closure through justice and empathy. He did not provide Gujarat riot victims with either.” In the same vein, he says, “Honest police officials who testified against the Government were hounded. lawyers who appeared for the victims, like the late Mukul Sinha, were ostracised.” And, as if to somehow dilute the fact that Gujarat hasn’t seen a communal riot since 2002, Sardesai quotes an unnamed ‘Ahmedabad-based political activist as saying, “Bhaisaab, after the big riots of 2002, why do you need a small riotIJ Muslims in Modi’s Gujarat have been shown their place.”
Biased as all this may sound, Sardesai has every right to stick to his position, one of which is that Modi’s alleged complicity in the 2002 tragedy remains a talking point, and that the then Chief Minister cannot stand absolved as of now. To be fair to the author, he has not allowed these thoughts to cloud his analysis of Modi’s ascent to power in New Delhi. The only problem I have here is that Sardesai refers to Modi-hater Teesta Setalvad as an “indomitable activist”. Her questionable credentials are not a secret, and the author should have at least referred to them in all fairness and not given her the due she does not deserve.
While the book is largely about the strengths and weaknesses, and successes and failures, of the two principal protagonists Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi, it also deftly manages to provide an overview of the bigger national political picture with bit players like Arvind Kejriwal thrown in; the internecine happenings in both the BJP and the Congress vis-à-vis their leaders; and the changing political alignments which played a significant role in the end result. Sardesai is fair in recognising Arvind Kejriwal’s rise as an important player in the arena, and most so in Delhi. He rightly points out that at one point Kejriwal had taken over the space which Rahul Gandhi could have occupied during the campaigning. He remarks, “Rahul looked like a copycat. If Rahul had wanted to seriously interrogate Modi’s Gujarat model, then he should have done it much earlier. The 2012 Gujarat Assembly Elections would have perhaps been a good time.” Well, ‘perhaps’, and perhaps not — because by then Modi had surged ahead and Rahul Gandhi was hamstrung by the Congress’s sliding credibility as the dominant partner in the scam-tainted UPA regime and his own wayward leadership.
Towards the end of his book, Sardesai could not resist the temptation of throwing one last punch: “The (Amit) Shah model of fighting elections has also thrown up real concerns of a worrying revival of communally divisive politics.” Accept it or reject this and more, but read the book. It helps you understand the country’s politics a little better.