The Gujarat connection

And then, out of the blue, Pothead told me, “Did you know Jinnah was trying to be an actor on the London stage?”

I did not. I seriously don’t know how Pothead comes up with these absolutely random stories from nowhere.

“He was looking forward to playing Romeo”, she chuckled.

“OMG!”

“Seems he didn’t make it in acting, came back, became this hard headed shrewd barrister and later devised his ingenuous plan of breaking up the country.”

I had been reading the Pakistani defence forum pretty much for sometime, so I said, “That is exactly how Pakistanis would NOT describe him. So your rant leaves a lot to be desired.”

“I don’t care,” she yawned. “Heartbroken Romeo breaks heart,” she found it very funny and kept muttering nonsense to that effect.

I was trying to get back to Akki movies, when she broke in again. Apparently whenever her random connections in thoughts yielded an even more random pattern, she had to say it out loud.

“What is it with these Gujrati guys making these hugely populist leaders for this country? Look, here’s Gandhi, Jinnah and now Modi. All of them enjoyed a hold on the nation. The masses just kind of believe in whatever ideology they are selling them. We have lapped it up before, we are lapping it up now. Never mind the reality or fate of those ideologies. And, although all three of them have had significant bitter opposition from a large section of the populace too, they have managed to pretty much hold their own and get their way. “

I had never thought of the Gujrat connection before. Atleast not for Gandhi and Jinnah, both becoming a father figure for two nations. Their visions were riddled with glaring flaws, their arguments, if seen sanely, were more hole ridden than Kolkata roads, yet, and yet, they successfully sold their ideas to tens of millions of people. That made me think how Modi was doing the same thing. We hardly new what exactly was the Gujrat development model. We hardly saw a beautiful Gujarat, lush and green and inductrially robust with healthy citizens. But we kind of hoped it was going the right way. Maybe it wasn’t? Maybe. That same model, whatever it was, applied to the rest of the country would spell disaster! Why then did we vote him to power? Simply because the opposition had Rahul Gandhi. Our beloved Pappu, who had learnt that he had to answer the following for any questions that came his way:

a) Youth empowerment

b) RTI

c) Women empowerment

So, anyone would seem better in comparison. In effect, Modi used a power vacuum to come to power with huge mass support. That seemed very much like how Gandhi rose to become the undisputed leader. Or, how Jinnah became the sole voice for Muslims in the subcontinent. Acute power vacuum.

And then, I grew scared. What if…..history repeated itself?