One+One=A Bigger One

Now with Shah in the party headquarters and Modi in South Block, there is harmony between the organisation and the Government

Much has been built on the legend of how Amit Shah’s Sancho Panza made the picaresque of Narendra Modi’s Don Quixote an event to remember in the political life of India. The pair, prior to the May verdict, was a subject of constant scrutiny by moral harrumphers and the secular militia that prowled the shadow lanes of our opinion bazaar. In the demonology sustained by their constituency, the two Gujaratis were far from being adventurers playing out the romance of storming Lutyens’ fortress; they were creatures with horns and fangs, or they were such chilly soul suckers as JK Rowling’s Dementors. In their book of scares, all the waters of the Sabarmati could not have washed away the blood on their hands; they were the darkest artists of realpolitik, and their secrets carried within them the sorrows and horrors of Indian democracy. Modi and his squire did not have an easy passage to the mind of India. Everything changed on 16 May, except the alchemy of their relationship.

On Election Day, Modi became a byword for vindication— and validation. As a ten-year campaign for India, scripted and choreographed by one man’s will to win, came to a close, the new iconography of power was a celebration of singularity. Still, we did not miss the squire, a figure of quiet solidity, looming over the battlefield. The way Shah won Uttar Pradesh was a piece of first-rate political strategy, very modern and methodical in its execution. There was a professional flair to it. He is perhaps India’s most evolved political strategist, and that air of inscrutability adds to the aura of the man—and to the caricature. I got a glimpse of his mind when I met him for the first time on the eve of the last assembly election Modi won in Gujarat. It was late in the evening in Ahmedabad, and Shah, who can make an argument with such forceful logic, was less than bitter even as he recounted his own suffering through a bizarre trial and incarceration. He was not a quitter; he was enjoying the freedom of being the fighter once again. Journalists love numbers, and politicians exaggerate them— or underestimate them. But Shah was bang on; his mathematics matched the result. Every situation in politics for him was a war, to be won by the mind. And his was the one most trusted by the master.

Now that Shah is where he ought to be, we are in for a break from, among other things, the twin-tower theory in politics. So far, BJP has had three varieties of presidents. There was the president as mass leader who could run a chariot through Hindu nationalist resentment via the vandalised sites of civilisation and flea markets of mythology; LK Advani walked the most for the cause, and unfortunately, he kept walking even as the ground beneath his feet vanished. Then there was the president as apparatchik, lesser than the party, and neither its face nor voice; one such veteran employed many alliterative soundbites with little effect. The third variety was an improvement on the second, but he was far from being a face that could launch a pan-Indian campaign. The heartland warhorse was incompatible with the ideas and attitudes of the 21st century India. While in wilderness for ten years, BJP didn’t have a leader—until Modi happened. After a very long time, we have a Prime Minister who is also the prime mover of Indian politics. The leader of the Government is the leader of the nation as well. With Shah as the party boss, a rare symmetry has been achieved between the party and the Government.

This makes a lot of difference—for the better. In BJP’s first phase of power, the diarchy was more than a matter of perception; the hardcore Hindu nationalist, in spite of having struggled the most to make BJP a party of governance, was condemned to live as an eternal number two to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the nationalist with a human face, the Dubçek of Hindu nationalism, who did not have to try so hard—or talk without a pause—to be on top. The twin towers did not make BJP a better party—or a cohesive one either. Even in UPA, the party and the government were like the church and the state, and it was the former (10 Janpath) that reigned supreme. In the end, the Government killed the party. Travel back further and you will find how the power of the party defines—or shapes—leadership. Indira Gandhi had to outwit the wily old men of the Syndicate to declare her political adulthood. Of course, the party, the leader, and the ruler would all merge into one oversized cult in Congress. Now with Shah in the party headquarters and Modi in South Block, there is harmony between the organisation and the Government. The Modi imperium is all about the power of one, and it is the sum of two men with a shared passion.

Amit ShahNarendra Modipolitical strategist