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COMMENTARY

may 3, 2014 vol xlIX no 18 EPW Economic & Political Weekly


10
The Resistible Rise of
Narendra Modi
Sumanta Banerjee
Sumanta Banerjee (suman5ban@yahoo.com)
is a long-time contributor to EPW and is best
known for his book In the Wake of Naxalbari:
A History of the Naxalite Movement in India
(1980).
A rereading of Bertolt Brechts
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
(1941) and Sinclair Lewiss
It Cant Happen Here (1935) is
helpful in understanding the
social psyche in India today that
is being moulded by Narendra
Modi and is greasing his and his
partys path to power.
It can happen here.
I
t takes a great deal of optimism to
imagine the next government at the
centre without the disquietingly loom-
ing presence of Narendra Modi. Yet, such
an eventuality could have been prevented,
and its onward rush can still be resisted.
We are paying the price for forgetting a
not too distant past.
The heading of this article is a re-
phrasing of the title of Bertolt Brechts
play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.
B ertolt wrote it in 1941 after escaping
from Germany, and while in exile in Hel-
sinki, waiting for a visa to enter the Unit-
ed States (US). Curiously enough, during
Brechts stay in the US (1941-47), the play
was never staged there. Another work of
ction this time by a famous American
author shared a similar fate of boycott
by the establishment in his country. This
was the novel, It Cant Happen Here,
written by Sinclair Lewis in 1935. Both
the play and the novel were written dur-
ing a period which saw the rise of Nazism
and its consolidation as a ruling power
in Germany.
A rereading of the two may help us
today to understand the social psyche
in India that is being moulded by
Narendra Modi, and which in its turn
is greasing his and his partys path
to power. The rereading should also
awaken us to the need for resisting in
India the repetition of a political experi-
ment that gained currency in Germany
and Italy during 1930-40, but which
ultimately ended up in a global disaster.
Thankfully, the Hindu right has not
yet been able to assume that monstrous
global dimension.
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
To come back to Brechts play, signi-
cantly enough, he chose for his hero an
American gangster. He situated his story
in Chicago of the 1930s, and moulded
the character Arturo Ui on the model of
a typical small-time mobster who takes
over the citys grocery trade, by aligning
with a corrupt local administration and
by ruthlessly destroying all opposition.
We also discover shades of the well-known
contemporary maa don Al Capone. It
was a satirical allegory of Hitlers rise
to power, which was taking place in
Germany at the same time. But the mes-
sage of Brechts play moves beyond the
contemporaneity of his days. We recog-
nise in Arturo Ui the all too familiar local
gangster-cum-politician who gets elected
to todays Indian Parliament. We discern
today the same fears and compulsions
among the common citizens, whom Brecht
portrayed as victims of economic reces-
sion, who were either frightened into
submission to Arturo Ui, or lured by
money to join his gang.
Brecht probes into this mass psychology
that bolsters fascism, by pointing to the
propensity among the underprivileged to
respect and worship the local gangster,
who enjoys power at the micro level
thanks to the support that he gets from
those in power at the macro level. Yet,
Brecht reminds us, the rise of Arturo Ui
(alias Hitler) could not have been possi-
ble without the connivance of the com-
mon people and their local politicians.
All that is necessary for the triumph of
such creatures is that the majority of
people hesitate to oppose them, and
thereby acquiesce in their rise.
But it is not popular opposition alone
that can resist the rise of the types of
Arturo Ui. It is also the responsibility
of states which swear by democracy, to
oppose fascism. When Bertolt Brecht
wrote this play on his way to the US, he
had the American audience in mind,
and expected them to understand what
was happening in Germany. He tried to
present it in terms of the American experi-
ence of mobster politics, so that they could
pressurise their government to resist
Hitler. The US till then had remained a
silent spectator to Hitlers genocide of
Jews within Germany, and increasing
territorial ambitions abroad in the sur-
reptitious hope that Hitler would destroy
its main enemy, the Soviet Union. It was
COMMENTARY
Economic & Political Weekly EPW may 3, 2014 vol xlIX no 18
11
only after the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbour in December 1941 that the US
joined the war. Not surprisingly there-
fore, as mentioned earlier, this play of
Brechts was never staged in the US dur-
ing the 1940s. It cut too close to the
bones of the ruling syndicate of US sena-
tors and the maa.
It Cant Happen Here
The next work of ction that I am taking
up was written by the American author
Sinclair Lewis who won the Nobel Prize in
1930. Five years later in 1935 he wrote
this semi-satirical novel, against the back-
drop of the rise of fascism in the interna-
tional arena, and the simultaneous con-
solidation of the maa-politician nexus
within the US. It is signicant that the
l ocale chosen by both Bertolt Brecht and
Sinclair Lewis for the operations of their
respective heroes/villains is the US.
Sinclair Lewiss novel describes the rise
of Berzelius Windrip (popularly known
as Buzz), a ctional US senator who
during his election speeches promises
drastic economic and social reforms,
while promoting a return to chauvinist
patriotism and traditional conservative
values (anticipatory echoes of Narendra
Modi?). Once he gets elected as the pres-
ident, Windrip takes complete control of
the administration, and imposes totali-
tarian rule with the help of a ruthless
paramilitary force. Although ctional, the
character of Windrip was based on a real
life politician Huey Long, who was pre-
paring to run for president at the time
when Lewis was writing the novel.
The title of the novel reected the
mood of complacency of the American
liberal-minded voters at that time, who
felt that such authoritarianism could
never be possible in a democracy like the
US. While it did not indeed happen then,
a little over a decade later, Lewiss night-
mare turned out to be true, when under
the rule of a president that they had
elected Harry Truman Americans had
a taste of authoritarianism. In 1947,
Truman introduced a number of meas-
ures that destroyed civil liberties, lead-
ing up to the virtual control of the
administration by the House Committee
on Un-American Activities which inaugu-
rated the notorious McCarthy era of the
1950s (named after the Republican sena-
tor who unleashed a ruthless campaign
against communists and liberals, and
persecuted eminent writers like Lillian
Hellman and lm personalities like
Charles Chaplin).
Sinclair Lewis, when writing his novel
in 1935, had a premonition of the things
that were coming. Observing from close
quarters his contemporary American
middle classes, he could discern their
smug self-contentedness and indifference
in the face of the growth of corruption and
gangsterism among their own politicians
tendencies that were to fertilise the
seeds of the McCarthy type fascist order
that emerged in the US in the 1950s.
These two literary works, in their
respective ways, reawaken us to our
responsibilities today in resisting the rise
of a new ruling dispensation in India
that threatens the secular fabric of our
Constitution and the pluralistic culture
of our society. We can go on quibbling
over the question whether fascism is
the appropriate term to describe it an
exercise which certain intellectuals are
fond of indulging in. But the stark reality
is that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
leaders by their announcements, and
their cadres by their acts, demonstrate
the same personality-based political
strategy of combining populist rhetoric
from public platforms at the macro level,
and intimidation and terrorisation of the
citizens at the micro level that Hitler and
Mussolini followed in the 1930s.
Neo-Hindutva in the Era
of Neo-liberalism
Narendra Modi, who has been chosen by
the Sangh parivar as the prime ministe-
rial candidate, has turned out to be the
best exponent of this strategy. Following
in the footsteps of those two notorious
global personalities, he has managed to
project himself as the man for all sea-
sons and all classes. He uses the ha-
rangue of Hindutva when wooing voters
in the cow-belt (where he berates against
the enemies of go-mata), the rhetoric of
economic development (a la the Gujarat
model) when addressing the corporate
sector, the discourse of governance to
assure the middle-class voters of ef-
ciency in administration, the militarist
bombast of defending the nation to draw
support from the armed forces and their
top brass, and invokes his childhood
memories as a chai-wala to solicit votes
from the poor. Like his German and
Italian predecessors, he also uses his foot
soldiers the Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh (RSS)- Bajrang Dal goons to bull-
doze into submission those who o ppose
him. He eminently ts the standards
laid down in an ancient Sanskrit proverb:
Manasya-anyad, bachasya-anyat, kar-
manya-anyad, duratma-nam (A villains
thoughts, utterances and actions differ
from each other).
But there is a method in this contra-
diction in Modis strategy and tactics, by
which he had built up an image that has
elevated him from a villain (of the 2002
Gujarat genocide) to a hero (of economic
development) in the popular psyche.
The mainstream media, bankrolled by
the corporate sector, are fostering his
electoral potentialities, picking upon only
those aspects of his partys agenda that
suit them (like promises of industrial
growth) while ignoring the other con-
troversial aspects (like his promise to
build a temple on the disputed site of
Babri masjid, abrogate Article 370, and
impose a uniform civil code). The media
hype around Modi is reminiscent of
the role of the European press in the
1930s, when it continued to depict
Hitler and Mussolini as amiable guys
who were expected to defeat the com-
munists, till the Axis powers reached
right on the doorstep of the Western
capitalist states.
But while recalling the past and iden-
tifying the similarities, we should take a
more astute view of the Hindu right in
India today. It is not an exact replica of
the fascist forces of the past. As its most
powerful representative, Narendra Modi
is refashioning the strategy and tactics
of a populist chauvinist nationalism (the
ideology that was followed by the Axis
powers in their respective states in the
1930-40 period and by the Hindu right
in India) within the present order of
globalisation. He has developed a concept
of neo-Hindutva to suit the demands of
the neo-liberal economy. While remaining
loyal to the Sangh parivars basic strategy
of establishing a Hindu theocratic state
COMMENTARY
may 3, 2014 vol xlIX no 18 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
12
of Ram rajya (a parallel to the contem-
porary Islamic project of creating a shar-
ia-based political order), Modi is coming
up with tactics to accommodate foreign
multinationals and the indigenous cor-
porate sector. Under his leadership, the
Hindu right is thus attempting a mix
b et ween Reliance and Ram Janmabhoomi.
It is adopting the neo-liberal order in
economy, while retaining its core ideo-
logy of Hindutva to establish its hege-
mony in the socio cultural scene. By
occupying a leading position in the insti-
tutions of power, it plans to reinforce its
values and norms all over society.
It Can Happen Here
To take the cue from Sinclair Lewiss
novel, if a Narendra Modi-led BJP comes
to power, we can be sure that the follow-
ing things can happen here (i) the
imposition of a Hindutva-based curricu-
lum in educational institutions (signs of
which were evident during the National
Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime);
(ii) clamping down on cultural works
that may be deemed offensive to the
Sangh parivars ideology of Hindutva
(like banning of books, vandalising of
art exhibitions, suppression of historical
research policies and practices fol-
lowed by the BJP in states which it rules,
and by its foot soldiers in other states);
(iii) iniction of patriarchal diktats on
all expressions of female self-assertion,
and deprecation of womens rights (re-
member Modis infamous statement that
women in Gujarat were malnourished
because they chose to be slim!); and
(iv) most dangerously the intimidation
of the minority communities into total
subjugation (the notorious example be-
ing the nal solution type experiment
carried out against Muslims in Narendra
Modi-ruled Gujarat in 2002, which by
threatening them has compelled their
leaders to accept Modi as their protector).
Despite this horrendous record of the
BJP, and Narendra Modi in particular,
certain sections of the Indian intellectual
milieu are veering towards Modi some
openly joining his party, and some
through specious arguments in news-
paper columns. One such argument is
that once Modi comes to power, he will
be chastened by the rules of the Indian
Constitution by which he will have to
operate within a democratic structure.
These commentators suffer from a self-
induced amnesia by conveniently forget-
ting that Modi and his party had always
got away by violating the rules of the
Constitution whether by demolishing
the Babri masjid, or by presiding over
the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat.
The delusion (or opportunism?) of
these liberal sections reminds us of the
same American middle-class compla-
cency that Sinclair Lewis exposed in his
novel. In India today, given the tottering
and corruptible base of the institutions
that prop up the democratic structure
the legislature, the bureaucracy and
the judiciary would it not be a cake
walk for Narendra Modi, if he comes to
power, to bend them to serve both his
mega lomaniac ambitions and his partys
ideological goals?
Past Misdeeds and
Future Responsibilities
In fact, the rise of the BJP and the legiti-
misation of its ideology of Hindutva
and politics of violence in the 1980-90
period, were made possible by a series of
misdeeds of a professedly secular Congress
government at the centre, beginning
from the opening of the doors of the
Babri masjid to the Hindu religionists. It
then allowed the BJP-RSS-VHP axis to
drum up Hindu sentiments over the
Ram Janmabhoomi issue under their
p ilot L K Advani, whose ratha-yatra
left a bloody trail of communal riots in
its wake. Even after having witnessed
the murderous consequences of such
public demonstration by the forces of
Hindutva, the Congress government in
New Delhi accepted at face value
their assurances of peaceful behaviour,
and allowed their leaders and goons
to assemble in Ayodhya, demolish the
Babri masjid, and reopen the wounds of
Indian historys most shameful chapter
of bloody Hindu-Muslim conict in
colours of mass violence not seen since
the days of the 1947 Partition. The left
and other democratic forces also failed
to mount a counter-offensive against this
march of the Sangh parivars juggernaut
that was taking place under the bene-
volent auspices of the Congress regimes
policy of soft- Hindutva.
It is an uphill task now to make
amends for the wrongs and failures of
the past, and reverse the process of dis-
tortion of the Indian polity by a class of
criminals who have risen to positions of
atrocious eminence whether from the
BJP, the Congress, the Samajwadi Party,
or the various regional formations. To
suit their interests, and bereft of any
ideological commitment, they tend to
join any national formation the United
Progressive Alliance (UPA), the NDA or
irt with other national alternatives like
the third front, or the newly oated
idea of a federal front. The next Lok
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COMMENTARY
Economic & Political Weekly EPW may 3, 2014 vol xlIX no 18
13
Fallibility of Opinion Polls
in India
Praveen Rai
There are many challenges in
conducting election surveys
that measure voter preferences
correctly and when the results of
these surveys are used to make
seat predictions the margin of
error can be large. As the record
of pre-poll opinion surveys in
the 2004 and 2009 Lok Sabha
elections shows, the opinion
polls have many weaknesses
while attempting to make
forecasts in a complex situation.
In such a setting, the polls can
be used as covert instruments
by political parties to make seat
predictions and thereby inuence
the electorate.
T
he very mention of the word
opinion poll
1
immediately brings
to the mind of people election
surveys, exit polls
2
and seat pre dictions
that appear in the mass media every time
an election takes place in the country.
Psephology, the study of elections,
began as an academic exercise at the
Centre for the Study of Developing
S ocieties (CSDS), Delhi in the 1960s for
the purpose of studying the voting
b ehaviour and attitudes of the voters.
Psephology is now equated with pre-
poll surveys and exit polls which are
done by almost all media houses to
predict the winners of elections. It has
now been reduced to a media gimmick
with allegations that it is used as a
c ommunication tool by a conglomerate
of political parties, media and business
houses with vested interests to inu-
ence voters. Media houses and televi-
sion anchors in India have become
modern-day Nostradamuses using
opinion poll ndings to forecast elec-
tion results before the actual votes are
cast, forecasts which have gone wrong
on many occasions.
The accuracy of sample surveys de-
pends on the following factors. One, the
sample should be large enough to yield
the desired level of precision. The size of
the required sample for any survey can
be statistically determined. Those who
do not have the experience can use
statistical tables that provide various
sample sizes based on the population
size of the universe. However in some
cases, the sample size depends upon
the level of disaggregation for which
the data is required. Two, everyone in
the population should have an equal
chance of being selected in the sample.
Prob ability sampling based on random
method is the best way for ensuring
that everyone in the universe stands
an equal chance of getting selected.
Three, survey questions should be
asked of the sampled respondents in a
standardised manner. (Standardisation
ensures that questions are asked in the
same manner to all the sampled respond-
ents as that will enable the r espondents
to r espond accurately.) Four, there
should not be any predetermined arbi-
trariness in interviewing the sampled
respondents.
An accurate survey should follow
some basic norms:
Every member of the targeted popu-
lation should have an equal chance of
being selected for the survey. Prob ability
sampling ensures everyone a fair and
equal chance of getting selected which
results in avoiding coverage error.
The size of the sample to be selected
should be adequate enough to achieve
the required level of precision. The
a ttempt should be to minimise sam-
pling error.
The questions to be asked should
be simple and clearly worded so that
the res pondents can understand and
answer them easily. The question to be
asked should be worded in such a man-
ner that it stimulates the respondents to
a nswer it correctly. This reduces the
measurement error though it cannot be
totally avoided.
The sampled respondents who are
contacted and interviewed during the
survey should have similar traits
as those who could not be interviewed.
Everyone in the sample who responds
to the survey should have correspond-
ing characteristics with those who
This is a slightly modied version of the article,
Status of Opinion Bills, which was published
in the Web Exclusives section of EPW last week.
Praveen Rai (praveenrai@csds.in) is a political
analyst at the Centre for the Study of
Developing Societies, Delhi.
Sabha thus may become a choice terrain
for intrigues among these abominable ef-
uvia of self-serving, criminal and cor-
rupt politicians which will ow from the
ongoing polls.
The handful of honest and courageous
individuals who may get elected to the
Lok Sabha, will stick out as sore thumbs
from the midst of this cesspool. But they
can make a difference if they are sincere
in their commitment to the secular and
democratic values embedded in our
Constitution. They will have to combine
their debating skills on the oors of the
legislature with their ability to mobilise
the masses in the streets, in order to re-
sist the domination and criminalisation
of society by religio-political groups like
the Sangh parivar, as well as the corrup-
tion of our political system by the corpo-
rate boss-politician-bureaucrat nexus.

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