CM Modi: Pre-Godhra

The only way to draw a rough sketch of what Narendra Modi is likely to deliver as PM is to understand what he has delivered as Gujarat Chief Minister and, more importantly, what methods he has used and is using. Of course his approach, policies, programmes and priorities have changed over the last 12 years and are still changing and surely as PM he would have to reshuffle his ways and means yet again. Important is the fact that Gujarat is not a small state. It accounts for over five per cent of India’s population and its overall demographic profile isn’t very different from that of the country as a whole. The only major difference is that Gujarat has always been among the relatively prosperous states and has had a culture of peace on the labour front which, perhaps, has been a direct fall out of the relatively higher income levels besides, of course, its undaunted resolve to stick to prohibition.

It needs to be understood that the very efficiency and no-nonsense approach that Modi is now so well known for was the reason why Vajpayee chose to appoint him as the Gujarat CM, ignoring senior contenders like Kashiram Rana. The state seemed to be slipping from the hands of the BJP and Vajpayee knew that Modi was the only one who could restore Gujarat’s confidence in the party quickly and effectively.

“Had Godhra not happened, where would Narendra Modi be today?” The common refrain of most analysts and observers is that had Godhra not happened, elections in Gujarat would have been held in early 2003, BJP would have lost and Modi would have gone back to being a backroom boy.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. The real break Modi got was not Godhra but the earthquake. As BBC (Profile: Narendra Modi, December 30, 2002) put it, “Mr Modi got his big break in the public arena when his predecessor in the state, Keshubhai Patel, was forced to step down in the fall-out from the earthquake in January 2001 that killed nearly 13,800 people.”

Modi had in fact satisfied the central leadership of the BJP by the end of January 2002 that Gujarat was firmly back to its fold.

In October 2001 the situation in Gujarat was quite dicey. A great deal of work had been done for providing relief to the quake-hit and yet an equally long and tortuous distance was yet to be covered. The destruction caused by Mother Earth had been so debilitating that there was no way one could have improved performance beyond certain limits and there were no limits to the needs of those who had suffered. The damage extended to a very large number of thinly populated villages spread over a very large area of land. Too many men and machines were required at too many places at the same time.

Partly, the situation was difficult. Partly, the government machinery was working at a speed slower than what it could have. Partly, expectations were unrealistic. Besides the havoc caused by the quake, the economy wasn’t doing too well. Gujarat had faced near drought like situations in the preceding two to three years or so. A million problems needed to be solved in myriad different ways. The media had been extremely critical of Keshubhai government’s handling of the post-quake situation. People’s expectations needed to be met with severely limited physical resources within unrealistic time limits. Narendra Modi was sent to Gujarat to handle an almost impossible situation in a short span of 17 months.

After Modi arrived at Ahmedabad on the morning of 3 October 2001, he drove straight to the RSS office, which had been his ‘home’ until 1995. From there he went to meet his mother Hiraba in Sabarmati area of Ahmedabad, where she lived in a small flat with his brother. He told her of the responsibility he had been asked to shoulder by his party and sought her blessings.

His mother had always looked at her son as an ideologue who never aspired for any executive position. She had never really thought of a day when her son would occupy a visibly powerful position. The party post Modi was holding at the time, General Secretary (Organization), was by no means a small office; he was only the fourth person to hold that post in BJP’s entire history. However, for a common man, party posts do not mean much because party functionaries mostly work behind-the-scenes, never mind if they often wield enough real power to nudge chief ministers. The office of a chief minister, on the other hand, is generally perceived as an office with awesome power attached to it.

The mother and the son were both emotional, and both were holding back their feelings. The atmosphere was more heavy than jubilant because the situation was quite unexpected. Narendra Modi’s name had been in the air for several weeks but now the moment had actually arrived. It must have been difficult for the two of them to come to terms with the new reality – i.e. the thinker and the strategist had suddenly been put in an unimaginably powerful executive position.

She didn’t know what to tell her son on that momentous occasion. Modi touched her feet to seek her blessings the traditional Indian way. She put her hand on her son’s head and blurted out something quite unexpected. She said: “Dikra, laanch leto nahin.”

“My son, do not take bribes” was the instruction the mother gave her son. Modi failed to hold back tears in his eyes and later kept on repeating the words of his mother as he drove from her residence to circuit house in state capital Gandhinagar.

Gujarat chief secretary Subbarao met him later in the evening to discuss the composition of the new CMO (Chief Minister’s Office). Modi told him that he had no specific preferences. He wanted three IAS officers, all of whom should be IT savvy and, if possible, they should all be younger than him in age. Subbarao put forth three names, all of whom were instantly accepted by Modi. The trio worked in CMO for several years.

On Sunday, October 7, he was sworn-in as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Besides L. K. Advani, other central leaders who attended the ceremony included Arun Jaitley, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, Ved Prakash Goyal, George Fernandes, Ram Vilas Paswan, Suresh Prabhu, Kalraj Mishra and the Haryana strongman Om Prakash Chautala.

Modi was clear that he had only about 17 months before the state was due to elect its next government. Modi knew the importance of time and after arriving in Gujarat, his first major statement to the media was, “I am in a hurry to accelerate the pace of work. It is like playing a one-day cricket match where each ball and every minute counts, instead of a five day test match where the batsman has all the time.”

Modi was amazed to note that daily newspapers were not made available to him until 7.00 a.m. The man had counted the time available to him (until the next elections) in hours. Accustomed to starting his day early in the morning, he didn’t have a minute to waste. Arrangements were immediately made to ensure that he got newspapers at 6.00 a.m. from the very next morning onwards. In addition, arrangements were made to download and print news reports from websites of newspapers. “Sleepless Modi leaves officials bleary-eyed” was the title of a story in Times of India on 8 October 2001.

After swearing-in on 7 October 2001 Modi started work on relief and rehabilitation for the quake affected persons at a pace that made the bureaucracy gasp for breath. Affected areas were divided into 40 talukas (counties) and each was allotted to a senior bureaucrat. He told each officer to act like the chief minister of his/her allotted taluka and take spot decisions for meeting demands of the situation.

The atmosphere got electrified. Things started rolling. After being there and talking to the people themselves, bureaucrats started coming out with suggestions for changes in government rules and procedures. All officers were told to work seven days a week for a couple of months. They were asked to visit their allotted talukas on Saturdays and Sundays and report to the CM on Monday. He appealed to all ministers and MLAs not to celebrate Diwali as a homage to those who had lost their lives because of the quake.

On 10 October 2001, three days after taking over as CM, he delivered his first message to the people,  assuring them a neat and clean administration with accountability and eradication of corruption being the top priority. He listed drinking water, power for the farm sector, construction work of Narmada dam, more efficient use of natural resources as well as science and technology, education and health as his priorities.

It was exactly a month after assuming office, on Thursday, 8 November, that Modi “told his ministers to start mobilizing rural masses” and come up with meaningful feedback for gearing up the administration. He urged his ministers to come up with specific suggestions. “Don’t complain about bureaucrats not cooperating. You cannot be guided by them. You have to guide them.”

His emphasis was on speeding up work on projects which were already ongoing and ensuring that the citizens received more of what was being spent by the government. He worked until late into the night and his personal staff went along cheerfully, though after a few weeks he realised that except him, most had family responsibilities. So he reorganized his schedule in a manner that kept his own output at the same level but allowed his staff to live more normal lives.

He started changing the way the Gujarat government worked in many innovative ways. He was himself quite IT-savvy and wanted his officers to use IT in a productive manner. He had noted that the government machinery in Gandhinagar wasn’t using IT adequately. So he came up with a simple way of enforcing usage – the Chief Secretary started sending instructions to officers through email and officers down the line had no option but to start using email! As he was not used to wasting time on innuendoes, many officers and ministers were surprised at the speed with which he disposed off business on hand and ushered them out courteously.

Those calling the CM on phone too were pleasantly surprised by a refreshing new change. When one calls Modi on phone, either he takes the call instantly, or he calls back within a reasonable time. This was in sharp contrast with most politicians and senior bureaucrats as most of them consider it below their dignity to call back.

On 31 October 2001, birthday of Sardar Patel, PM Vajpayee was invited to a grand function at the historic Somnath temple. After some rather effervescent ceremonies to welcome Vajpayee, he got down to listing his demands, including release of Gujarati fishermen arrested by Pakistani authorities and broad gauge railway for Somnath town.

On 11 November 2001 he invited Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh to inaugurate a statue of Pandit Nehru and successfully sweet-talked him into committing rehabilitation of 800 families within 45 days and to agree for the construction of a bypass tunnel from the Narmada dam reservoir. Digvijay Singh eventually delivered on his promise and finally permission for raising the height came through on 17 May 2002 and the height of Narmada dam was raised to 100 metres on 15 July 2002, in spite of Godhra having happened on 27 February. The result was that Narmada waters started flowing into the Sabarmati as early as August 2002. Digvijay Singh still rues the day he allowed Modi to seduce him.

On 14 November (Diwali) Modi arrived at a village in Kutch at around 8.00 a.m. About 150-200 villagers were sitting in an open space. Modi greeted the villagers with folded hands and without uttering a word, started singing Ram dhun. The meeting got converted into a prayer session instantaneously. Everybody started singing and tears rolled freely down the cheeks of the young and the old alike, washing grief at least temporarily.

When Modi made a presentation to update senior leaders of BJP on the post-quake situation in the presence of PM Vajpayee on 25 January 2002, his party heaved a collective sigh of relief. The consensus was that Modi was on track and the party could look forward to retaining power after elections due in December 2002. A separate event was organised for making the same presentation to the world which was attended by diplomats from over 70 countries.

During this period he also started using video conferencing to interact with district collectors, announced the Samras Yojana which rewards villages which are able to elect their panchayats unanimously, took steps to ensure the state’s vast IT infrastructure is used more extensively and productively, recovered 3.35 lakh sq. metres of government land that had been grabbed by unscrupulous elements, started organising Lok Kalyan Melas to ensure people do not have to run around for what is due to them from the government and launched a massive drive to check power theft in almost the entire state. In the budget for fiscal 2002-03 he hiked capital expenses for water supply and sanitation from Rs 339 crore to Rs 462 crore, for irrigation and flood control from 558 to Rs 705 crore and allocation for roads and bridges was hiked from 242 to Rs 533 crore. All other heads were left almost untouched.

Obviously, Modi had achieved a great deal before Godhra happened. The process of what the good governance he is known to have delivered during his nearly 12 year long rein had started in October 2001, immediately after his appointment. Modi had already got himself elected to the state assembly from Rajkot and he had every reason to be smug about the future but destiny had something else in store.

You can download the whole book from: http://narendramodiwillhebepm.wordpress.com/

 

Source: http://narendramodi-willhebepm.blogspot.in/p/cm-modi-pre-godhra.html