Pankaj Mishra on Narendra Modi and the new face of India

With the rise of Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi culminating in this week’s election, Pankaj Mishra asks if the world’s largest democracy is entering its most sinister period since independence: The Guardian

Narendra Modi shows his inked finger after casting his vote in Ahmedabad. Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters

In A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth writes with affection of a placid India’s first general election in 1951, and the egalitarian spirit it momentarily bestowed on an electorate deeply riven by class and caste: “the great washed and unwashed public, sceptical and gullible”, but all “endowed with universal adult suffrage”. India’s 16th general election this month, held against a background of economic jolts and titanic corruption scandals, and tainted by the nastiest campaign yet, announces a new turbulent phase for the country – arguably, the most sinister since its independence from British rule in 1947. Back then, it would have been inconceivable that a figure such as Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist chief minister of Gujarat accused, along with his closest aides, of complicity in crimes ranging froman anti-Muslim pogrom in his state in 2002 to extrajudicial killings, and barred from entering the US, may occupy India’s highest political office.

Continue reading →

Tabish Khair to Narendra Modi: My trust reposed in a sort of decency, in Sainikji

Like you, Modiji, my Sanskrit and Hindi tutor was a member of the RSS. He would put on his khaki shorts and go for lathi practice. He would also turn up, unfailingly, for Id dinners at our place, pointing out that he only ate at the houses of old Muslim families as they knew the value of cleanliness and hospitality. He would add that he could hardly eat with most Hindu families either, because “people have forgotten the old ways and only picked up the worst of the new ones”.

Continue reading →

Intellectuals from around India flock to Varanasi to join campaign against Modi

However, they aren’t certain which candidate to support: Scroll.in

Arjun was unhappy. He had just agreed vehemently with the people marching past him down Varanasi’s Sant Kabir Road, around the corner from the poet-saint’s shrine. He had grabbed a copy of a pamphlet with anti-communal propaganda that was being handed out and promptly nodded along when the marchers sang the Leftist anthem, Tu Zinda Hai. Arjun even added his voice to the chants of “fasiwadi murdabad” (down with the fascists). But his question to the crowd went unanswered.

Continue reading →

Work that is life’s poem: The poignant poetry of Narendra Modi

The surprising poignancy of Narendra Modi’s poetry: Chandrahas Choudhury in Caravan

One of the book’s most repeated tropes is that of what we might call the “superior man’s loneliness,” which stems from his own sense of a higher calling, or from the world’s inability to empathise with his dilemma, or—we see a fascinating dialectical tension beginning to operate here—from his own inherent lack of trust in the world because of its perceived fickleness.

Continue reading →

India: Amitav Ghosh joins Amartya Sen, says Modi ‘deeply destablishing’

Padma Shri awardee author Amitav Ghosh said that he will not vote for Gujarat Chief Minister and BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. Speaking to a new channel, the author said that for him Modi was someone culpable for the Gujarat riots of 2002.

The acclaimed author said that it was horrifying for him to see the way Hindu nationalism was being merged with politics.

Continue reading →

Modi effect: One publisher quits, other spikes

Ravi Singh of Aleph ‘quits’ over decision to put Doniger on hold, publish Modi verse.

Ravi Singh, co-publisher of Aleph Book Company, has quit apparently in protest against the manner in which Aleph seemed to have yielded to those calling for a ban on Wendy Doniger’s On Hinduism. Sources said he also questioned the decision by Rupa — Aleph’s publishing partner — to publish a translation of BJP’s PM candidate Narendra Modi’s poetry during the election campaign.

Continue reading →

Salman Rushdie, Anish Kapoor lead anti-Modi charge in UK media

Leading Indian-origin writers, artists and lawyers have warned against BJP’s Narendra Modi as India’s next Prime Minister, saying […]

Review: The Fiction of Fact-Finding –Modi and Godhra by Manoj Mitta

Indians know it’s the rare inquiry commission or SIT that ends up saying or finding something that brings justice. This book drives home that tragic point, mercilessly: Siddharth Varadarajan in The Outlook

The very fact that our governments and courts regularly set up commissions of inquiry, task forces and special investigation teams itself testifies to the breakdown of governance on an almost routine basis. The fact that these commissions and investigation teams invariably fail to indict the guilty or even tell us the truth suggests something even more disturbing: that more often than not, the violence and lawlessness being probed are the product of players and processes deeply embedded in the system. Those in charge of the ‘fact-finding’ exercise know they cannot be exposed or sanctioned without jeopardising the edifice of a State that rests on pillars of impunity.

Continue reading →

Book Extract: The Fiction of Fact Finding: Modi & Godhra by Manoj Mitta

When Narendra Modi visited the office of the SIT (Special Investigation Team) in Gandhinagar on March 27, 2010, it was exactly 11 months after the Supreme Court had directed it to “look into” a criminal complaint. Modi’s visit in response to an SIT summons was a milestone in accountability—at least in potential. It was the first time any chief minister was being questioned by an investigating agency for his alleged complicity in communal violence. The summons were on the complaint by Zakia Jafri, the widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, who had been killed in the first of the post-Godhra massacres in 2002.

Continue reading →

‘Crucial evidence has fallen through the cracks’: Manoj Mitta on Modi and Godhra

The co-author of When a Tree Shook Delhi: The 1984 Carnage and its Aftermath on his upcoming book The Fiction of Fact-finding: Modi and Godhra: An interview in The Outlook

Manoj Mitta’s first book When a Tree Shook Delhi: The 1984 Carnage and its Aftermath, co-authored with H.S. Phoolka, received critical acclaim when it was published seven years ago. Now, The Times of India senior editor who specialises in legal, human rights and public policy issues, has returned with The Fiction of Fact-finding: Modi and Godhra, a searing critique of the 2002 violence in Gujarat under Narendra Modi’s watch. His close, thorough examination of the voluminous material generated due to the Supreme Court’s monitoring of the probe reveals the gap between the findings that have been handed out as the SIT’s closure report filed in 2012 and what the evidence suggests. Indeed, as he forcefully argues, the anomalies of the SIT’s closure report point to far more than the relativism of the truth; they mock India’s commitment to its national motto: Satyameva Jayate (truth alone triumphs). Excerpts from an interview with Sundeep Dougal:

First, why another book on 2002 or Modi?

Continue reading →