Two books on Narendra Modi establish why it is silly to hope that the bigot will ever be any less bigoted

From: Open Magazine - 27 April 2013

The Man Who is Afraid of a Skullcap

Two books on Narendra Modi establish why it is silly to hope that the bigot will ever be any less bigoted

* Narendra Modi: The Man. The Times | Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay | Tranquebar | 409 pages | Rs 495 |
* The NaMo Story: A Political Life | Kingshuk Nag | Roli Books | 188 pages | Rs 295


BY Hartosh Singh Bal

Towards the end of his book on Narendra Modi, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay relates the story of a shrine in Pirana, on the outskirts of Kutch. It was founded 500 years ago by Imam Shah (whom Mukhopadhyay describes as a deviant from Islam—I gather the implied sense is of deviation from orthodoxy), who established the order of Satyapanthis, drawing his disciples from Patels in the Kutch. Imam Shah ‘ran his religious order on democratic lines with a governing council taking all key [decisions]. The council consisted of ten people—seven Patels and three Syeds and the successors of Imam Shah (called Kaka) were selected by mutual consultation over the past five centuries’.

In the Gujarat of the 1980s, Mukhopadhyay writes, the identity of Satyapanthis, distinct from Hindus and Muslims, started undergoing a transformation. The dargah came frequently to be referred to as a temple to Shri Nishkalanki Narayan Bhagwan, the tombs around the shrine became adorned with Hindu motifs, and rituals at the main shrine, the tomb of Imam Shah, acquired Hindu characteristics. But in 1997, on a visit to the shrine, he still found the Syeds among the regular devotees.

When he returned in 2012, ‘the main gate of the dargah had been shut—which was a typical medieval structure and had a distinct influence of Islamic architecture. The entry to the shrine was now through a huge ornate gate, typical of temples with ample resources’. A building adjacent to the old shrine had become the main temple, and the Syeds had disappeared. In the same year, Modi’s Sadhbhavana mission (the text has a 2002 date, a proofreading error) got derailed when he refused to accept a skullcap from a man the media identified as a Sufi leader, Syed Imam Shahi. Mukhopadhyay notes, ‘He was actually one of the deposed members of the governing council of Satyapanthis. Due to this deposition, Syed now speaks more like a Muslim and less like a believer of a rebel-sect.’

This tragic tale sums up the recent transformation of Gujarat—from the 1980s shift of Patels towards the BJP and their adoption of a more aggressive Hindutva identity in response to Madhavsinh Solanki’s initiative to win the OBC vote for the Congress to the breakdown of any interaction between Hindus and Muslims outside the sphere of dhanda. It also sums up the failure of Modi’s attempts at self-transformation. It is when we are forced to act on instinct that our prejudices surface, and Modi’s discomfort undid the Sadhbhavana mission.

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http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/books/the-man-who-is-afraid-of-a-skullcap