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Appealing to India’s Hindu heart.

Considering the Indian election strategy of Hindu champion and hot favourite Narendra Modi.

Sensing victory:
Narendra Modi is on the cusp of presidential power.
Photo: Reuters

The Sydney Morning Herald | Jason Koutsoukis | April 6, 2014:: In a dusty fairground adjacent to a Doric-style retail emporium on the far outskirts of Delhi, a saffron-coloured crowd of 50,000 roars for its new Hindu champion, Narendra Modi. He is the 63-year-old former chaiwala (tea seller) who is the hot favourite to become India’s next prime minister, and he has just been flown by helicopter to yet another rally in a marathon seduction of the country’s 814 million voters.

Many in this crowd have come down from the high-rise apartment towers that surround the venue. They are the lucky ones counted among India’s 300-million-strong middle class and are Modi’s core constituency.

Many more, who cannot yet afford to live in this neighbourhood, have been bussed in by organisers from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or Indian People’s Party, and are proudly daubed in an array of Modi-for-PM paraphernalia that includes hats, scarves, face masks, T-shirts, flags and garlands.

Fed up with the Indian National Congress that has governed India for a decade – the mega-scams, the bloated welfare schemes and the famously dynastic Gandhi family that has ruled the party for most of the past 70 years – Modi’s supporters believe their country has seen better days.

The growth rate has halved, the budget deficit has doubled, the rupee has fallen to undignified lows – and people are hankering for someone capable enough to push the faltering economy back on track and lift living standards.

”Bharat Mata ki Jai,” booms Modi from a dais festooned with floral bunting: Hail Mother India. The massive crowd that has been waiting for hours in the heat is at fever pitch.

Since 2001 the pro-business Modi has been chief minister of the north-western coastal province of Gujarat, an industrial powerhouse that has enjoyed strong growth rates and above-average living standards.

A teetotal vegetarian who rises daily at 5am to do yoga and meditate, Modi openly projects a proud brand of Hinduism, a fact underlined by his decision to run for Parliament not in his home state of Gujarat but in Varanasi, the holiest of Hindu sites on the banks of the Ganges River.

Modi’s ‘Gujarat miracle’ of growth has inspired supporters like Sandeep Mudgal.

Modi has also never quite shaken off charges that in 2002 he allowed Hindu rioters to attack Muslim neighbourhoods in Gujarat, resulting in the deaths of more than 1000 Muslims. The riots were triggered by a fire aboard a train in the eastern Gujarat district of Godhra that killed 59 Hindu pilgrims and that police blamed on local Muslims.

Modi has consistently refused international demands he apologise for the riots, and insists he did all that he could to stop the violence. And instead of ignoring Congress accusations that he will split the country along sectarian lines if he becomes prime minister, he throws the charges right back at the party and its leadership.

”Madam Sonia [Gandhi] has already divided people on the lines of religion, and attempted to divide those who give their life for mother India,” growled Modi from the dais.

”Congress wants to hear communal words from Modi, so, that they can claim themselves secular.”

In the flesh, Modi projects an easy assurance before the crowd. He mixes humour and Sanskrit aphorisms with an inspiring rhetoric that fuels the crowd’s aspirations for a better future.
Unlike his 43-year-old Congress opponent Rahul Gandhi, the great-grandson of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the grandson of India’s first female prime minister Indira Gandhi, Modi’s campaign relentlessly reminds voters he is one of them.

Narendra Modi: The Real Hindu Heart-throb
in this election.

He is the son of a tea-stall owner born into a low-caste family, and his personal story emphasises a connection with the common man and a deep commitment to traditional Hindu philosophy.

His basic political vision was shaped through his teenage involvement with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which means National Volunteer Organisation and is commonly referred to as the RSS, a hardline Hindu nationalist movement.

Typical of the Modi supporters in the crowd is 32-year-old Sandeep Mudgal, a mathematics graduate who left his job as a software developer seven years ago to work full-time for the BJP. His focus in this election campaign has been on the 2.3 million registered voters in the local Ghaziabad electorate, where the BJP candidate is former army chief and possible new defence minister V.K. Singh.

”One of the things we’re doing is advertising a toll-free number asking people to call if they want to become campaign volunteers. When people call the number, they get an SMS that directs them to an online registration process. We’ve had 90,000 calls in this [electorate],” Mudgal says.

He explains Modi’s momentum by pointing to his record as chief minister in Gujarat, what he calls the ”Gujarat miracle”.

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