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The man who would be PM - FT.com
A decade after riots left thousands dead in Gujarat, Narendra Modi, the chief minister once reviled for the slaughter on his watch, is being tipped as Indias next leader
The performance last month in the small Gujarati town of Dakor lasts barely 10 minutes, but it is exactly what the cheerful audience lining the rooftops and filling the main square have been waiting for in the midday heat: Modi, the orator with the common touch, boasting of his achievements in charge of Gujarat and mocking the corrupt, effete ways of the Congress party politicians who run the Indian central government.
You must have heard about rupees being stolen, he shouts. Yes! roars the crowd. And gold being stolen? Again the crowd agrees. And diamonds and pearls. But have you heard of coal being stolen? Modi gleefully refers to the so-called Coalgate scandal, in which the countrys official auditor has accused the government of losing more than $33bn (£21bn) in potential revenues by awarding coal mining concessions for next to nothing. Should they be forgiven? asks Modi. No! shout the voters of Dakor.
Modis enemies, Hindu, Muslim and secular, reject the idea of him leading the country as offensive, even preposterous. One Indian commentator who admires his lack of corruption privately describes him as an autocrat with the mind of a Hindu mullah. Yet there are Indians including Muslims who once hated him and foreigners who ostracised him who say that elevating Modi to lead the 1.2 billion inhabitants of the worlds largest democracy is not only possible but also essential for Indias future.
What does Modi himself think of all this? Fortunately, Adeel Halim, a photographer working for the FT, has had the presence of mind in Dakor to sidestep the black-uniformed armed guards provided by the government, knock on the glass door of the coach and gesture to Modi for us to be invited aboard.
Modi obliges and ushers us in, and as the expedition continues past the villages, canals and rice fields of western India, he explains in English what he believes he has achieved in his 11 years as chief minister of Gujarat: environment-friendly development, water projects, law and order, the best education system, best healthcare, peace, harmony, confidence, political stability, skilled labour, no strikes and efficient governance.
Modi, sitting comfortably barefoot in the front of the coach next to the driver, has just been handed a printout of a surprise announcement made moments earlier by the British government that it is renewing official ties with Gujarat.
Zafar Sareshwala, whose family has been in local business for more than a century and saw its assets destroyed in 2002 and in previous riots, owns an expanding BMW luxury-car dealership. (He says that they sold 530 BMWs last year, a tenth of them to Muslims.)
He adds that he is totally against the whole *holocaust business, that we live on our miseries all our lives. Sareshwala suggests that Indian Muslims depend too much on special privileges for minorities which he calls lollipops and should make the most of Modis commitment to efficiency and economic development. Even his enemies dont call him corrupt, he says.
Asifa Khan, a party worker who left the Congress party to join the largely Hindu BJP the day before I meet her, is another Muslim who has switched sides. So recent is her move, in fact, that the receptionists at the BJP office in Ahmedabad assume I have come to the wrong place.
In the supposedly secular Congress party, she says, Muslims are kept at a safe distance, while Modi has recently encouraged them to stand for the BJP in local elections and focused on the economy. Hes an able administrator, she adds. Hes getting popularity not only in India but also abroad.
Ford is investing $1bn (£630m) in a car plant in Gujarat.
Narendra Modi runs the state like the CEO of a multinational firm, says one international financier of Gujarati origin. One of the reasons he could make an effective prime minister is that you need a different attitude, a different style to control the civil servants, to break the logjam in Delhi. He doesnt eat [a lot], doesnt drink, doesnt have a family. He has no attachment to anything and therefore is almost yogi-like in that sense. As for the British decision to renew official ties: To ignore the fastest-growing state in the worlds largest democracy when we are bending over backwards to do business with China [with] its questionable human rights record is incongruous at the least.
A decade after riots left thousands dead in Gujarat, Narendra Modi, the chief minister once reviled for the slaughter on his watch, is being tipped as Indias next leader
The performance last month in the small Gujarati town of Dakor lasts barely 10 minutes, but it is exactly what the cheerful audience lining the rooftops and filling the main square have been waiting for in the midday heat: Modi, the orator with the common touch, boasting of his achievements in charge of Gujarat and mocking the corrupt, effete ways of the Congress party politicians who run the Indian central government.
You must have heard about rupees being stolen, he shouts. Yes! roars the crowd. And gold being stolen? Again the crowd agrees. And diamonds and pearls. But have you heard of coal being stolen? Modi gleefully refers to the so-called Coalgate scandal, in which the countrys official auditor has accused the government of losing more than $33bn (£21bn) in potential revenues by awarding coal mining concessions for next to nothing. Should they be forgiven? asks Modi. No! shout the voters of Dakor.
Modis enemies, Hindu, Muslim and secular, reject the idea of him leading the country as offensive, even preposterous. One Indian commentator who admires his lack of corruption privately describes him as an autocrat with the mind of a Hindu mullah. Yet there are Indians including Muslims who once hated him and foreigners who ostracised him who say that elevating Modi to lead the 1.2 billion inhabitants of the worlds largest democracy is not only possible but also essential for Indias future.
What does Modi himself think of all this? Fortunately, Adeel Halim, a photographer working for the FT, has had the presence of mind in Dakor to sidestep the black-uniformed armed guards provided by the government, knock on the glass door of the coach and gesture to Modi for us to be invited aboard.
Modi obliges and ushers us in, and as the expedition continues past the villages, canals and rice fields of western India, he explains in English what he believes he has achieved in his 11 years as chief minister of Gujarat: environment-friendly development, water projects, law and order, the best education system, best healthcare, peace, harmony, confidence, political stability, skilled labour, no strikes and efficient governance.
Modi, sitting comfortably barefoot in the front of the coach next to the driver, has just been handed a printout of a surprise announcement made moments earlier by the British government that it is renewing official ties with Gujarat.
Zafar Sareshwala, whose family has been in local business for more than a century and saw its assets destroyed in 2002 and in previous riots, owns an expanding BMW luxury-car dealership. (He says that they sold 530 BMWs last year, a tenth of them to Muslims.)
He adds that he is totally against the whole *holocaust business, that we live on our miseries all our lives. Sareshwala suggests that Indian Muslims depend too much on special privileges for minorities which he calls lollipops and should make the most of Modis commitment to efficiency and economic development. Even his enemies dont call him corrupt, he says.
Asifa Khan, a party worker who left the Congress party to join the largely Hindu BJP the day before I meet her, is another Muslim who has switched sides. So recent is her move, in fact, that the receptionists at the BJP office in Ahmedabad assume I have come to the wrong place.
In the supposedly secular Congress party, she says, Muslims are kept at a safe distance, while Modi has recently encouraged them to stand for the BJP in local elections and focused on the economy. Hes an able administrator, she adds. Hes getting popularity not only in India but also abroad.
Ford is investing $1bn (£630m) in a car plant in Gujarat.
Narendra Modi runs the state like the CEO of a multinational firm, says one international financier of Gujarati origin. One of the reasons he could make an effective prime minister is that you need a different attitude, a different style to control the civil servants, to break the logjam in Delhi. He doesnt eat [a lot], doesnt drink, doesnt have a family. He has no attachment to anything and therefore is almost yogi-like in that sense. As for the British decision to renew official ties: To ignore the fastest-growing state in the worlds largest democracy when we are bending over backwards to do business with China [with] its questionable human rights record is incongruous at the least.
