Book: Gujarat Under Modi: Laboratory of Today’s India. Christophe Jaffrelot. C. Hurst & Co., 2024. ISBN: 978-1-84904-429-5. pp. 546. Paperback. Rs. 3,600.
The book under review was written back in 2013 and was intended to be released just before the Indian general election of 2014. But because of some legal hurdles, this couldn’t happen. With very modicum editing, the book was released last year and shall remain an important documentation of the evolution of Narendra Modi’s politics and how his way of politics made Gujarat’s model a lab of today’s Hindutva.
Hindu traditional Congress leaders like Sardar Patel, K.M. Munshi, Gulzarilal Nanda, and Morarji Desai played a crucial role in shaping Gujarati Asmita (pride) and setting the tone for Hindutva in the state. Patel, as Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, supported anti-Muslim militias by granting arms licenses to Hindu dealers and admitted in a letter to Nehru that he was aiding such efforts. Munshi’s cultural works, such as Gujarat-no-Nath (The Lord of Gujarat) and Gujarati Asmita, portrayed Muslims as barbaric and laid a cultural foundation for anti-Muslim narratives within the asmita discourse. Munshi further contributed by helping establish the VHP in Bombay, embedding Hindutva into Gujarat’s socio-political fabric.
Unlike Maharashtra’s sub-nationalism, which focused on linguistic and cultural assertion, Gujarati Asmita revolved around a Hindu-majoritarian ethos tied to the state’s mercantile history and Hindutva ideology. This identity marginalized Muslims by portraying them as economic and cultural threats, framing communal polarization as a pathway to unite Hindus and drive Gujarat’s progress.
Leaders like Nanda, with his romanticism of asceticism that led to the formation of the Bharat Sadhu Samaj (BSS), and Desai, whose role in splitting the Congress weakened secular forces, further amplified the Hindutva agenda. Their contributions reinforced an exclusionary vision of Gujarati Asmita, where Hindutva became central to the state’s socio-political identity. Christophe Jaffrelot, in the introduction to Gujarat Under Modi: Laboratory of Today’s India, writes that “the Congress adopted in Gujarat a Hindu traditionalist overtone that prepared the ground for the rise of Hindu nationalism.” (p.12)
This Hindu traditionalism, institutionalized by the Congress leaders, shaped Gujarati Asmita as both a political tool and a framework for exclusionary nationalism, culminating in events like the 2002 riots that solidified the ideology.
Jaffrelot, drawing on Ornit Shani’s analysis, underscores how these riots served as a catalyst for a profound ideological and electoral shift. The violence, which was rooted in anti-Muslim sentiments, facilitated a strategic caste realignment, bringing together upper and lower castes under a unifying Hindu identity. It is this Hindu majoritarianism in the aftermath of the riots that not only provided the BJP with a fertile ground for its rise but also set the stage for a politics steeped in communal polarization and sub-nationalism. It became a cornerstone of Hindutva politics in Gujarat, enabling the BJP to consolidate power by aligning sub-national pride with communal polarization, reshaping Gujarat’s socio-political trajectory. A case study of Abdul Latif in Gujarat politics by the author substantiates this argument.
Christophe Jaffrelot examines the 2002 Gujarat genocide, arguing they were a premeditated act of communal violence tied to Narendra Modi’s RSS background and Hindutva ideology. Before the genocide, Modi was seen as a disciplined administrator lacking charisma, whose rise to Chief Minister in 2001 was orchestrated by the Sangh Parivar to restore their influence after Keshubhai Patel’s decline. The genocide, Jaffrelot argues, were meticulously planned, citing testimonies from survivors, activists, and officials. Police officers reported delays in deploying security forces despite warnings after the Sabarmati Express incident. Sanjiv Bhatt’s account of a meeting at Modi’s residence, where he allegedly instructed police to let Hindus vent their anger, underscores this planning. The anti-Muslim riots marked Modi’s transformation from an RSS pracharak into a decisive political figure, using the violence to consolidate power and build his political persona.
Post-2002, he emerged as a centralized authority by saffronizing the judiciary and police at the national level. Policemen who were involved in and fueled the violence were rewarded, and cops who did their duty unbiasedly were punished. An apt example of this is the Ahmedabad police commissioner P.C. Pandey. “Pandey was promoted by BJP leaders, including L.K. Advani, who was Home Minister.” (p.101) Also, M.K. Tandon, who was Joint Commissioner of Ahmedabad in 2002, where the Gulbarg Society was situated, was promoted to IGP and later as ADGP. On the contrary, “Rahul Sharma (SP) in Bhavnagar district was transferred three days after having protected a mosque from a mob on the verge of destroying it…” (p.102)
Likewise, the author attempts to explain the communalisation of the judiciary with reference to the interim report on the Sabarmati Express train coach, submitted by the Nanavati Commission, which rejected the ‘accidental rather than premeditated’ report submitted earlier by a commission headed by U.C. Banerjee, appointed by Lalu Prasad Yadav, and gave a clean chit to the mass murderer Narendra Modi. Also, the Gujarat state government appointed VHP and RSS leaders as public prosecutors, resulting in the acquittal of perpetrators. “Chetan Shah, a VHP lawyer, had procured bail for hundreds of Hindu arsonists and rioters, and till 2003 he was defending all 35 accused in the Gulbarg Society case.” (p.124) Tushar Mehta, who has defended Amit Shah in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case, was promoted to Solicitor General of India in 2018. On the other hand, there was a total absence of Muslim public prosecutors.
When Narendra Modi became Chief Minister, he had a firm belief that the private sector should be prioritized, which led to what the author notes as a ‘corpo-state’. This opportunity he seized to create business-friendly politics and again related it to his personality, where he presented himself as a vikas purush (Developmental Man), “what he called Gujarat Model found expression in growth without development and in a new form of crony capitalism.” (p.176) This also got replicated at the national level when in 2015, “in his first national budget, Modi lowered corporate tax: for existing companies, it was reduced from 30% to 22%…the biggest reduction in 28 years.” (p.199) This kind of inegalitarian growth led to the widening urban-rural gap.
Modi has rallied Hindutva around himself rather than vice versa. He intertwined the relationship between Hindu nationalism and a direct relationship with people in a national populist style. Jaffrelot calls it Moditva. This personalization of Hindu nationalism has left a dent in the culture of collegiality, which has been shifted to political consultation companies and government machinery from the Sangh Parivar. Modi even fielded rival candidates among BJP in local elections. He refused a ticket to Hiren Pandya, who was backed by RSS for the Ellis Bridge constituency which he represented for 15 years. “Three months later, on 26 March 2003, the day after Pandya received a fax from the party president instructing him to move to Delhi, he was murdered in Ahmedabad.” (p.230) The tussle between Modi and other RSS leaders also became more transparent when several of Modi’s policies alienated the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, an offshoot of the RSS.
To establish a direct relationship with people, which reflects his characteristics as a populist leader, on his 62nd birthday he launched the Sadbhavana Mission to promote social unity above all caste divisions. “Indeed, Unanimism – the idea that the people are one and that they and their leader share the same consciousness and collective emotions – is an important aspect of populism.” (p.264) Another populist tactic he mastered is the discourse of victimization against elites, where he presented himself and Hindus as victims of the Nehru-Gandhi family and Mughal rule.
With the help of lucid data, Jaffrelot shows that with the middle class, now Modi can attract the votes of poor people as well, a group which was earlier Congress voters. The dataset based on which the author differentiated the upper class from the middle class and poor section has not mentioned income capping or any other criteria for their qualification to a particular class. This is important because the author notes that the political culture of class politics in Gujarat kind of diluted the caste identities.
This book has very closely analysed Gujarat politics by considering the impact of other factors such as culture and identity, caste equations, industrialization, and more importantly its political history and its role in breeding Hindutva politics in the state, which later proved to be a laboratory of today’s India under the aegis of current Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi.
This book will be helpful to scholars of Indian state and politics, developmental politics, political history, and communalism. This timely intervention work will also be of great importance to the informed and concerned citizens of India and shall remain an important documentation of difficult times.
Mohd Alfaz Ali is a Doctoral Fellow with the Centre for the Study of Social Inclusion at Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi. He can be contacted at [email protected].
