• A banner outside the BJP office in Delhi screamed, “Jo Hindu hit ki baat karega, wohi desh par raj karega.” On the freshly printed banner, Narendra Modi gleamed life-size and the party president, Rajnath Singh, was stamp-size. The original poster boy of Hindutva, L K Advani did not find a place at all.
The signals after the results left little room for ambiguity. So while Rajnath Singh told Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi who called at 12.20 pm that “You’ve done it,” and L K Advani heaped praises on “Gujarat’s dynamic and highly popular” leader, the BJP leadership was trying not to over-emphasise Modi’s role in the Gujarat victory. Spokesmen in Ahmedabad and Delhi spoke about a “team effort” with Modi as the man of the match.
“Nobody is bigger than the party,” said Singh. “Modi will remain chief minister of Gujarat and Advaniji will lead the party in the Lok Sabha elections,” said Arun Jaitley, BJP general secretary in-charge of the elections.
But Sunday’s win announced loudly that Narendra Modi has arrived on the national scene. So has Hindutva 2.0. Advani’s original Rath Yatra started from Gujarat and spread the message of Hindu pride and cultural nationalism. Advani tried to link suraj — good governance — to Hindutva in 2004, but failed.
In Modi’s regional version, Hindu and Gujarati pride blend with economic prosperity—Bharat Maata is a mere slogan in the beginning. And unlike Advani, Modi has won.
The core of the pan-Indian Hindutva philosophy of the Sangh Parivar is retained—that a united, Hindu upsurge is the necessary and sufficient condition for material progress. Gujarat was touted as “the laboratory of Hindutva.” Many others may have won individual elections, but Narendra Modi showed it as a sustainable philosophy that even withstands anti-incumbency.
“The BJP has been winning Gujarat since 1990 and this is our fifth victory,” Modi said today. But during the campaign, Modi’s reference point was 2002 when he won the election for the first time. “In the last five years has there been a riot? Curfew? Has any terrorist struck Gujarat? Isn’t your business running well? Isn’t your...
