The scorpion on the Shivalinga

by Guest Thu Mar 08, 2012 2:25 am

Lately, however, the law has become a bigger problem for Modi: his opponents in Gujarat have filed a series of petitions to force him to accept the appointment of a Lokayukta empowered to investigate corruption within the government—a position that Modi has deliberately kept vacant for the past eight years. The opposition believes that the Lokayukta could scrutinize the sizable concessions and tax sops Modi has offered to lure companies to Gujarat, whose details have been closely guarded. Modi’s cosy relations with the corporate chiefs who sing his praises have long been one of his strongest assets, and he does not want to risk letting his pro-business tilt turn into an electoral liability. Indeed, according to the BJP insider, Modi secretly fears that he might suffer the fate of former Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu, a darling of CEOs and the business press who lost to the Congress in 2004 after 10 consecutive years in office, and never managed a comeback.

“Modi only thinks of winning—and winning all the time,” a former chief minister of Gujarat told me. “Other politicians can imagine that they will someday lose, and plan accordingly. But this attitude may get him into trouble, because in the future he can only be at one of the extremes: either he will be prime minister or he will go to jail. If I live long enough, I would be surprised to see him anywhere else—it has to be one or the other.”

Shortly before I left Gujarat, one RSS leader described his own feelings in a bitter sigh: “Shivling mein bichhu baitha hai. Na usko haath se utaar sakte ho, na usko joota maar sakte ho.” A scorpion is sitting on Shivling, the holy phallus of Lord Shiva. It can neither be removed by hand nor slapped with a shoe.

http://www.caravanmagazine.in/Story.aspx?StoryID=1315&Page=7

by Guest Thu Mar 08, 2012 2:32 am

AT THE TIME OF THE 2002 RIOTS, Gordhan Zadaphia was Gujarat’s minister of state for home affairs—junior to Modi, who also held the home portfolio—and like Modi, he stands accused of complicity in the violence. A VHP leader in Gujarat for 15 years, Zadaphia joined the BJP in the early 1990s. “The RSS told me to work in the BJP, and I became a general secretary for the party in Gujarat,” Zadaphia explained.

He is also one of three prominent leaders in the Gujarat BJP—all of them with impeccable Sangh credentials—who spoke out against Modi’s autocratic style within the party. The first, Haren Pandya, who had served as Modi’s revenue minister, was murdered in mysterious circumstances in 2003. The second, Sanjay Joshi, who had become a general secretary in the national BJP, was forced to resign when a CD containing pictures of him with naked women—later determined to be fake—was anonymously circulated to top BJP leaders. And Zadaphia, the third, was pushed out of the cabinet by the end of 2002, and subsequently ejected from the party.

“Modi understands only one alphabet, and that is capital I,” Zadaphia told me. “I was threatened with death by Modi himself.”

“It was in February 2005,” Zadaphia continued. “I noticed an intelligence man from the state police following me, and when I confronted him, he told me he was instructed by the home minister’s office to shadow me.” A few days later, Zadaphia said, there was a meeting of BJP legislators with the chief minister. “I asked Modi in the meeting, ‘Narendrabhai, what kind of spy activities are you doing against your own party legislators?’ I asked, why is an intelligence man following me? Then Vajubhai Vala, a senior minister, took the microphone and said ‘Okay Gordhanbhai, cool down. We will look into it, but this is not a question to be asked now.’ Modi didn’t speak at all, but I got a note from his secretary that said ‘Please meet the CM.’”

“I met him at his chamber after the meeting. [Deputy home minister] Amit Shah was sitting there. Modi asked me, ‘Why are you asking these kinds of questions in public?’ I said, ‘What shall I do? It is not a private matter.’ Then he looked sternly into my eyes and said, ‘Khatam ho jaoge Govardhanbhai…’—You’re going to get finished.’”

“I asked him, what kind of finishing? Physically or politically?”

“He said, ‘You complained against me to LK Advani and Om Mathur in Delhi.’”

“I said, of course. There’s no option for me other than to complain to the people in Delhi. But if you’re saying you will finish me off, let me tell you, I’ll die when my time comes. Don’t try to threaten me again.”

Zadaphia moves around with a police escort and a dozen armed security men; as a former deputy home minister—and a controversial one at that—he was offered protection by the government after the riots. Pandya, however, did not have security guards. “Haren was bold,” Zadaphia said. “He thought nothing would happen to him. That was a mistake.”

A tall and handsome Brahmin with a fine RSS pedigree and excellent connections in the media, Pandya was a formidable political rival for Modi within the state BJP. The two clashed publicly for the first time in 2001, when Modi was in search of a safe assembly seat to contest after his appointment as CM. He wanted to run from Pandya’s constituency, Ellisbridge in Ahmedabad—a very safe seat for the BJP. But Pandya refused to yield to Modi’s wishes. As a state BJP functionary recalled, “Haren said, ‘Ask me to vacate my seat for a young man in the BJP—I’ll do it. But not for that fellow.’”

http://www.caravanmagazine.in/Story.aspx?StoryID=1315&Page=7[/quote]

by Guest Thu Mar 08, 2012 10:01 am

http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/mihir-s-sharma-modi-mythsman/466510/

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The scorpion on the Shivalinga

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