The 'baniya' is excellent at accumulating capital but not particularly good at giving it away
BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi addresses an election campaign rally in Amritsar. (Photo: PTI)
This week Narendra Modi said something that would have been amazing in another country but passed almost without notice in India.
“God chooses certain people to do the difficult work. I believe god has chosen me for this work. Now I only need your blessings,” Mr Modi said in a 3D address telecast.
This belief that he is the chosen one is with Mr Modi not a political ploy as it perhaps was with George W. Bush, who also felt chosen. There is no religious constituency that Mr Modi is going after, which he already doesn’t have. He genuinely believes that it is his individual excellence that this country of 1.2 billion has been missing, and which will take it to its destiny as a great power.
In the same speech, Mr Modi made a pragmatic concession to those who may not have seen him in messianic terms. He said: “The polls on 232 seats have already decided who is forming the next govern-ment. That the United Progressive Alliance is losing miserably is a foregone conclusion. So, why not vote for a stable government? I urge all of you, especially the fence-sitters, to vote in record numbers.”
It is remarkable to me that there are others who buy into this idea of Mr Modi’s that an individual can correct the course of a hapless nation. In an interview with the Financial Times last weekend, the economist, Jagdish Bhagwati, said that he was “overwhelmed” by Mr Modi.
They had met, once for five hours, and Mr Bhagwati was totally taken by him. In a piece for the Mint newspaper he had written about the Gujarat Model in terms which I thought were quite innocent. Mr Bhagwati wrote:
“I also believe that the Gujarat template is ideal: its people believe in accumulating wealth but they believe also in using it, not for self-indulgence but for social good.
This comes from the Vaishnav and Jain traditions that Gandhiji drew upon as well. The best “foreign” model of this type is exemplified by my most distinguished Colum-bia University colleague, Simon Schama, who wrote about the Dutch burghers who had similar values and lifestyles. It is also a great model for India, I believe.”
What exactly is this Gujarat template? Mr Bhagwati did not say, and I have written about this “model” several times before. The problems with Mr Bhagwati’s assertions are two: First, Mr Bhagwati (who is Gujarati) appears to have the same utopian idea about his state that many Gujarati immigrants have about their homeland.
The reality is different. The baniya is excellent at accumulating capital but not particularly good at giving it away.
There are no great philanthropists in Gujarat. The most obvious, but by no means most uncommon, example is the Ambanis. They built a home worth a billion dollars for them-selves (“not for self-indulgence”?) and fees at the Dhirubhai Ambani International School they built are Indian Rupees (INR) 500,000 a year. A wellness check-up at the Kokilaben Ambani hospital costs INR 5,000. How is any of this “social good”?
It could be argued that this mentality is changing (for instance, the superb philanthropic work of Azim Premji, also a Gujarati). But this is hardly from the Vaishnav and Jain tradi-tion.
The second problem is less easy to resolve, even for the chosen one.
The basis of Gujarat’s economy is its mercantile castes, which are present among its Hindus, Jains and even among Gujarati Muslims.
Bengal, Bihar and Orissa don’t have this asset. There is not a single Bengali, Bihari or Oriya in the Forbes list of Indian billionaires but there are a dozen Gujaratis from four religions.
How does the “Gujarat template” apply to these states?
Again, we don’t know. What we do know is that Mr Modi believes in it, and that he believes God has sent him down to implement it.
This would be funny, if it were not frighteningly real.
Aakar Patel is a writer and columnist
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