(Narendra) Modi’s basic approach is a pragmatic one in resolving problems, despite his own schooling in the myths of Hinduism he presumably still believes in. Perhaps his Gujarati pedigree has helped.

Gujaratis, as my four years of schooling in the state showed me, are proficient not only in the art of making money but also in finding practical solutions to problems untrammelled for the most part in getting too involved in ideologies. The teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, the tallest Gujarati, often reduced complex political problems to aphorisms and simple messages.

Perhaps it is in the Gujarati gene to put across a message effectively. (There is some merit in the Congress party’s complaint that some of the programmes announced by Modi are Congress programmes in a new garb.) In this sense, means are as important as ends.

Modi’s pragmatism, it must be noted, is often in conflict with his killer instinct.

Hard-hitting electoral campaigning in state elections as prime minister did not faze him. And even as he has learnt to seek the cooperation of the opposition on such issues as the constitutional amendment bill to give effect to the exchange of enclaves with Bangladesh, his land acquisition bill had been tangled in controversies because he was initially inflexible and wanted to have his way, forgetting that he does not have a majority in the Rajya Sabha. His goal was, of course, to open more widely the door to foreign investment and development of agriculture.

In seeking to promote his agenda, he did not give sufficient weight to the fact that land is a very sensitive subject and nearly half of the country’s population subsists on land. Apart from irrigated areas in some half of farming land, the farmer relies on rains, which traditionally prove erratic. Indian agriculture requires a massive overhaul. There are too many people living on too little land following traditional methods that yield low productivity.

In the end, Modi realised that he had scored an own goal and has been back-pedalling in the face of a combined opposition onslaught. His image among farmers has been dented and as a first sop to them, his government announced the start of a television channel, DD Kisan, dedicated to farmers and their problems. Finally, he had to accept defeat and withdrew the bill to amend the land acquisition law by desisting from issuing ordinances to keep it alive.

It is nonetheless ironical that a man steeped in the RSS ethos should have graduated so quickly to become a practitioner of the art of realpolitik. He has many inner conflicts to resolve. Embarrassed by the howls of derision provoked by his Mumbai speech on the veracity of head transplants in ancient India, he chose not to reiterate his belief.

His problem is whether he can let reason and rationality drive out the myths he had learned as true history during the days of his RSS schooling.

A relevant question to be asked right now is – can the Hindu-centric idea of India that Modi learned to believe in negate the idea of India that has been nurtured by the independence generation for more than six decades? The RSS has declared that it wants to change this idea of India.

For one thing, it is seeking to promote its own ideas through Smriti Irani and the ministry of human resource development that she heads. Second, the homilies of Bhagwat and his colleagues on overhauling education to rid it of its colonial heritage and introduce Sanskrit at school level are recipes for disaster. A foretaste is offered by Gujarat prescribing school textbooks by Dinanath Batra, a retired school teacher and RSS ideologue. He is convenor of the Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti (Save Education Movement). In polite language, Batra’s efforts are directed at presenting myths as history.

The fashion is to lump together the embarrassing loud thinking of the Sangh Parivar as fringe elements. The truth is that they do not belong to a fringe but are an important stream of thought in the RSS and its affiliates. They have not kept pace with modern development and technology and are obsessed with the greatness of Hindu culture and civilisation, the universality and wisdom of the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata and the sayings of the Gita that Modi is fond of presenting to foreign heads of state.

An example of Modi’s beliefs was his address on the opening of a new wing to a Mumbai hospital. He said: “We worship Lord Ganesha. There must have been some plastic surgeon at that time who got an elephant’s head on the body of a human being and began the practice of plastic surgery.”

While much of Modi’s speech was devoted to improving healthcare facilities in modern India, he also dwelled on ancient India’s “capabilities” in several fields at length:

There must be many areas in which our ancestors made big contributions. Some of these are well recognized. Our ancestors had, at some point, displayed great strengths in space science. What people like Aryabhata had said centuries ago is being recognized by science today. What I mean to say is that we are a country which had these capabilities. We need to regain these.


We can feel proud of what our country achieved in medical science at one point of time. We all read about Karna in the Mahabharata. If we think a little more, we realise that the Mahabharata says Karna was not born from his mother’s womb. This means that genetic science was present at that time. That is why Karna could be born outside his mother’s womb.



Modi has publicly articulated such ideas for the first time as prime minister. Earlier, he had written the foreword to a book for school students in Gujarat which maintained that the Hindu God Rama flew the first aeroplane and that stem cell technology was known in ancient India.

The mystery remains. How has such a culture produced a man like Modi?

Excerpted with permission from The Modi Myth: S Nihal Singh, published by Authors Upfront/Paranjoy.