According to Godwin’s Law, comparisons to Nazism will inevitably conclude a long-enough online discussion. I bet the same would also apply to a long-enough article. Viewpoint writer Bobby Doyle’s recent article, “Why Modi should scare you,” details the rise of Hindu nationalism in India and the expansion of nationalist groups like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been heavily criticized for the apathy he displayed during the 2002 Gujarat Riots, a brutal clash of Hindus against Muslims following the deaths of Hindu pilgrims. Following those riots, Modi was in fact banned from entering the United States due to U.S. religious persecution laws. Although I do agree with Doyle that Modi and his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, are decidedly Hindu and right-wing compared to the socialist Indian National Congress, and I agree Modi’s failure to impede the Gujarat Riots was a critical and unforgivable error, I find Doyle’s portrayal of Modi as a ruthless, power-hungry fascist dictator — as evidenced by Doyle’s numerous references to fascism and his portentous warning that a “nationalistic man leading the Indian state should be very scary to us all” — decidedly exaggerated and unfounded.
Let’s first clear Modi’s name a little bit: despite Doyle’s since-corrected assertion that Modi is a member of the militant organization RSS, Modi is in fact not. He is a former full time member. More than that, Modi left the organization before its rapid modern radicalization. By the time Hindu extremists had destroyed a mosque in Ayodhya, “Modi had transferred to the BJP.” So Modi isn’t “backed by millions of trained patriot-soldiers,” as Doyle claims. In addition to being divorced from the RSS for over 20 years, Modi has actively championed goals in opposition to RSS doctrine and his Hindu ideology, such as advocating public toilets before temples. Modi has effectively “emancipated himself” from the RSS.
And despite Modi’s incompetence in preventing Gujarat’s riots, in most other ways his long tenure as governor of the Indian state has been riotously successful. But, although out of all Indian states only three have a lower level of poverty, Gujarat’s reduction of poverty has been relatively stagnant. On the other hand, Gujarat’s annual GDP growth under Modi’s watch from 2001-2012 averaged almost 10 percent, a faster rate than India as a whole. More than that, under Modi’s watch the electricity supply of Gujarat, once in a deficit, has moved, according to The Economist, “to a surplus, despite the energy demands of a booming economy.” I can’t say whether this economic success offsets the permanent stain of the Gujarat Riots for Modi, but it definitely proves he hasn’t spent all his time rousing Hindus against Muslims and Christians.
We don’t need to fear Modi. As mentioned earlier, Doyle writes about the “scary fact that India is headed by a popular nationalist leader who is backed by millions of trained patriot-soldiers,” but besides being fallacious, that claim is just plainly misleading. After reading Doyle’s article I got the immediate impression that India was posed to invade Europe or annex Pakistan. That is simply not the truth. Modi’s “agenda for governance” has little in it about a Muslim question. Modi may not be able to competently address India’s social ills; he may not be the man to calm religious unrest; he may pander too much to business interests. We might not ever forgive him for his treatment of the Gujarat Riots. Modi may have purchased Gujarat growth at the expense of more income inequality, but he’s definitely not a fascist dictator, ready to force his dogma on the world. In the end, fear of Modi is simply misplaced. There’s been a lot of debate over India’s new prime minister, but that’s not because he might be a warlike, dictatorial leader, it’s just because he might not be the right leader.
Brennan Edel is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at b.edel@cavalierdaily.com.
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