An open letter
to the Honorable Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi
Adarniya
Shri Modi ji
This
election result has touched a raw nerve in many people of India. It will affect
millions in a way it hasn’t done for us as people for a long time. This letter
is to share a few things that you can understand as the feelings of the common
man who voted for you.
Almost
five years back the people of India chose you to be the Prime Minister. They
chose you because they saw you as a leader who could be an aggressive leader
and a protector for their faith, something the people of India have lacked in
their history as far as memory goes. You were seen as someone who could give
them a new identity and bring healing to a wounded civilization coping with loss
of self respect. Building bridges and highways or bullet trains, bringing in development
and a better life is important but not more than healing a fractured national esteem.
While they felt you were the best person to do so, they felt hope in you of a
kind they hadn’t felt for a long time.
Yes,
the desire for the Hindu to protect himself was never as great as it was five
years ago and as it is Now. The Hindu fears annihilation of his religion, his
identity like he never did before in the past. I find that in almost every conversation.
The biggest underlying threat for a Hindu today is his fragile collective identity
and which he wants to protect from those who drive him out of his home, kill him
as part of ethnic cleansing, who attack his plurality and say that his resources
are not his and missionaries who try to convert him.
Honestly,
the Hindu had never had it so bad as far his survival goes as he had it five
years ago and has worsened many folds since then. Call it providence or destiny
that it was his survival that he associated you with that and it is survival that
you remain most powerfully associated with even today, maybe a hundred times
more than five years ago.
I
worked in Gujarat from 2002 onwards to provide trauma counseling and support to
the survivors of the violence. It was supported by National human rights
commission. As part of a team of psychologists, our work was to provide support
to all communities. I will not write here about others because a lot has been written
already but what I heard from the Hindus. They were as terrified as anyone
could be contrary to what the media said about them, even more than the Muslims
at places. And the reason for the terror of Hindus was the image that the Godhra
carnage created for them. They could never imagine how thousands of people could
congregate and burn members of the Hindu community alive and be a spectator. The
fear of the average Hindu was palpable, raw and visceral.
It
was then that the average Hindu in Gujarat saw in you a protector. While they
saw how the media projected you as a villain, the man on the street believed as
long as you were at the helm, a terror attack like Godhra where thousands
torched a coupe of a train and murdered sixty hapless Hindus would never repeat
itself. That was the beginning of faith in you that no one has been able to
shake so far. Everyone I spoke to said it was a shame that no leader, including
those of your party condemned it enough or supported you and they saw you as a hero.
This was the fear that alienated the Hindu that still remains today. The Hindu
at that time felt a compulsion that he will be all alone if he doesn’t choose
you and needs a leader who could protect him as a community. He identified that
leader as you.
Then
you gave the slogan ‘sabka saath sabka vikas’, many cried out in anguish. The Indians
are inclusive by nature. What was the need for such a slogan? For whom? For the
minorities? Some of the minorities in our country consider themselves as the descendants
of the rulers, carry an air of superiority that never leaves them. They rarely acknowledge
that the Hindu takes care to see that they are not excluded from the mainstream.
That is in his very nature. In our history we have had enough of Hindu kings
and rulers who tried to accommodate and appease others, trying to include everyone.
What has been the result? Need we talk about it?
I
am a social entrepreneur. Sometime ago, in a meeting hundreds of us had gathered
for a seminar. There was a talk about inclusion and someone jocularly copied you
saying ‘sabka saath sabka vikas’. The laughter soon turned into a riot full of
derision and vulgar comments. It was difficult to sit through so I walked away.
The
Hindu has lived in fear for hundreds of years and his fear has reached a point
of no return. This fear is palpable and perceptible today. As a social
scientist I feel it in the air and find it troubling as I watch this increase
in leaps and bounds due to conversions, threats of terrorism and change in our
demography. We know what happens when a community feels terrorized and cornered.
Millions
believe You are the man of destiny. You are a great administrator and your
integrity is talked of as a rarity. Reports say you work seventeen hours a day
and remain calm despite grave provocations. Millions believe that there won’t
be another one like you for a long time. They say they haven’t had a leader who
was rooted in the very soil of India and talked in language that touched hearts
like you do. You were not an aristocrat. You didn’t profess to be secular like
the previous Prime Ministers. You didn’t profess to belong to any coterie. You
were all alone, both figuratively and symbolically. For the first time the
country had an individual who couldn’t be bracketed with others before you. There
lies your appeal. Your predecessors, going backwards were rooted in everything
from sycophancy and narcissism to trying to prove they were half British. You
have a persona that has broken away from that.
Your
predecessor left the country in a moral vacuum that hasn’t filled up yet. For
many Indians the period from 2004 - 2014 felt similar to the period before
1947, except more invisible and demeaning in ways they couldn’t explain.
You
brought a difference in the midst of that gloom surrounding the nation. There lay
your charisma. Don’t dilute it by trying to be a world leader. Maybe you won’t
become one but do you really need to? You already live in the hearts of too
many people than anyone else. The destiny of one billion people is something
you are responsible for one that may not be in the hands of any other leader
for a long time to come in the history of India. I ask that you listen to that
voice.
Today,
the Hindu needs a healing touch after centuries of persecution. It looks up to
you to deliver that and I believe you can. You do not need to be a paean for
development but need to be known as a man of destiny who came to lift a race
out of a morass of humiliation and slavery to give them a new identity, a new
life. Your words, your speeches need to reflect that so that they can go inside
the mind of each Indian and make one feel that he did the right thing by selecting
you. If he feels this promise is not being kept, in desperation he may vote
against you. That is not to say because he didn’t notice your work but to
remind you of your promise. Only there may not be a next time. I hope this
voice is heard.
Yours
sincerely
An
ordinary Indian
