In Gujarat Videapeth, a university founded by Mohatma Gandhi under the principles of ahimsa and satyagraha to encourage education, run by Indians for Indians free from the governing control of British colonialism, one of the students called Narendra Modi, a Gandhian, follows the principles of the father of Indian nation. During our research in Gujarat it became obvious that Modi seeks to establish a comparison between his own figure and the figure of Gandhi. Modi’s desire for Gandhi’s fame is apparent at the Commercial Tax Circle, one of the central squares in Ahmedabad, where the iconic Gandhi statue is located. A symbol of the nation looks on his fellow compatriots from a concrete pedestal at one of the busiest and most vibrant squares of Ahmedabad. Chief Minister Modi became a new symbol of a Gujarat, and placed his image right next to Gandhi. Modi’s desire to be the next Gandhi (or one next to Gandhi) is obvious; however, I would argue that Modi seeks Gandhian fame, but he is not following Gandhian principles. Their ideology are incomparable; Modi’s Hindutva is fascist, and the slogan “one nation, one language, and one religion” could be compared to the most brutal ideology in the world, like Ku Klux Klan in America or Stalinism in Russia. This is the ideology that killed Gandhi, as people wanted a Hindu-nation state. And Narendra Modi wantsto symbolically kill Gandhi in Gujarat again.

However, there are people that devoted their lives to the fight with Modi for justice and peace, working for the poor and marginalized. One of them is Fr. Cedric Prakash sj, he is the director of Prashant, an Ahmedabad-based Jesuit Center for Human Rights, Justice and Peace. We were fortunate to have Prashant center that was co-hosting with the Centre for Conflict Studies our group in Gujarat. The organization was found on October 2, 2001, which is the international day of non-violence, and birthday of Gandhi. Father Cedric’s life is devoted, in his own words to “be a bridge between people and focus on what unites us in order to find commonalities with other people and other faiths,” and he carries his mission with happiness and joy. For me every time conversing with Fr. Cedric was a delightful and eye-opening experience, when the pearls of wisdoms are mixed with humor and unique experience that Fr. Cedric has. In these conversations I understood that a fight for human rights is not something romantic, or ad hoc, quite the opposite, it is an tiring routine work, when you sometimes have to take three steps back in order to make a small step forward. Everyday Prashant monitors, documents and highlights violations that are taking place in the state of Gujarat and India. Moreover, Fr. Cedric and hiscolleagues are fighting for justice for the 2002 victims in in the High Court of Gujarat and also in the Supreme Court. Besides these activities you can see Fr. Cedric giving interviews in the morning, helping sisters at the House for Dying and Destitute during the day, travelling to a conference in Delhi, writing a new article in a magazine or playing with kids in one of the Jesuit missions. For me Fr. Cedric is an example of a real Gandhian, a person who is not afraid to stand up against those who are in power (it does not matter wether it is colonial Britain or brutal Modi’s regime), a person who devoted his life to protecting and standing up for each and every person in need, for the marginalized and oppressed, a person who carries his mission with joy and happiness.

The phrase, Vibrant Gujarat, has become a cliché for economic development of the state. However, Gujarat was vibrant before Modi, and will stay vibrant without him. One has to go through the crowded streets of the old city to feel the real atmosphere of Ahmedabad. You will be overwhelmed by the noise of squares, the smell of street food, the vibe of the people that are enjoying festive night in the open cafes. After a busy day in which we celebrated theUttarayan festival and met Dr. Gandhi, we had an opportunity to relax and have a cultural experience walking in the night through the tiny streets of old town of Ahmedabad. The walled city, built before cars and motorcycles, was meant for pedestrians, so its tiny streets are best explored on foot. A local anthropologist who was born and raised in an old district of Ahmedabad guided us. He showed us secret paths that only locals knewabout and used in order to escape in case of danger. The old city saved the vibrant merchandise charm of Ahmedabad untouched by Modi’s development. In recent years, families have started moving out to live in more modern houses away from the city center, but many of them returned (as our guide’s family) as they still feel a strong attachment to the close-knit communities in the neighborhood that shaped their lives while growing up. Our guide kept greeting and shaking hands of his acquaintances while we were walking through the busiest square of Ahmedabad, where an old Stock Exchange is located. The square was swarmed with people eating traditional Uttrayan puri and sweet jellabi. The combination of the tastes is perfect, and it completes Gujarati meal with a sweet touch.

We finished our trip listening to a family that saved the tradition of celebrating the closing of the city gates by playing the traditional music through the generations.

Death, according to Freud is ‘the great Unknown’, something we should all be consciously aware of. After all, ‘everyone owes nature a death’. We react in various ways towards death, in various situations, and our attitudes or reactions may have different results. Since we haven’t gone through the experience of death, it does not exist in our unconsciousness, we can’t actually fear death itself. These were the thoughts that were coming to my mind while we were driving to Mother Teresa’s Home for Dying and Destitute. As soon as I get our schedule for our trip and learnt that we will serve breakfast for the dying and destitute, the fear of death haunted me. I did not know what to expect, and how I would react at the home of those who are living the last days of their lives. When we say we are afraid of death, according to Freud, we may fear something else – such as abandonment, various unresolved conflicts, or the fear that death may be the outcome of a sense of guilt. I think that was the sense of guilt that haunted me while were walking into the Home for Dying and Destitute, as I was thinking about my granddad that passed away at the end of last year and was afraid to see his face in the faces of people that I would serve breakfast for. Mother Teresa’s home for Dying and Destitute is a free hospice for the poor. Sisters pick up dying men from the streets of Ahmedabad, feed them, wash them, and pray for their souls at the last days of their lives. Before I entered the home I was expecting a tough atmosphere of close death, and people’s struggle.

However, as soon as we entered the house and started serving food I felt joy. I saw smiling sisters joking around with their patients, I saw patients friendly teasing and helping each other; I felt life, not death. The whole atmosphere was full of friendship and care, and I totally forget that these people are dying.

I think for me this experience was one of the most important and eye-opening in my life. And this breakfast was far more important for me than for destitute and dying, I learnt much more from the sisters and their patients than they learnt from me. This breakfast again made me thought about our role in Gujarat as foreigners. Who are we to come for two weeks and hope to be a solution? How can we be a solution for patients of Mother Teresa Home? What does real service and devotion mean? How dare we claim to know how to fix everything in this world, just because we have an outsider perspective?

This breakfast will be forever with me, it helped me understand that even on the deathbed there is hope, care and friendship, that I am privileged to walk away and obligated to share the stories of those who do not have a chance to be heard.

One of the main objectives of the J-term course “Journey through Gandhi’s land” was to give voice to the voiceless. We, as foreigners, do not have a responsibility to provide recommendations to people on the ground, or dictate them the solution after just two weeks. The solution-orientated mindset leads to a paternalistic attitude, when we think that we know how to fix others problem. As foreigners we have a privilege to deliver the unheard voices to a broader audience and hope that increased awareness will bring the public attention to the problems existing in a particular region. That is why our group is trying to use every opportunity to raise awareness about the 2002 genocide, and the current situation in Gujarat.

Last month we presented our findings to the Indian American Muslim Council chapter in Santa Clara. The organization was established in response to the 2002 violence with the goal “Empowerment through strategic advocacy for peace, pluralism and social justice.” Among other activities of addressing the problems of the Indian Americans in the USA, they are also lobbying for the denial of the US visa to the Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi. Our group was happy to use this opportunity and present our take on the current situation in Gujarat. During the presentation we addressed issues of development, ideology, women rights, religious diversity, and Modi’s ambitious to become a Prime Minister of Gujarat.

For me it was very important to get feedback from the Indian American Muslim Council on my research about the Ideology of Hindutva, and I was pleased to hear that in my research is relevant, that I understood the Gujarati political context, and that my conclusions about the Hindutva and Modi’s Hindutva are realistic. I think that one of my favorite things about J-terms was to enter the country with limited understanding and knowledge, based just on documentaries and articles that we watched and read in pre-departure sessions, and then broaden and deepen my analysis on the ground. I guess this transformation of knowledge is what makes me want to study more. However, you are not just a person who accumulates the knowledge about the situation, the combination of knowledge and privilege to share this knowledge makes you an activist. Every time being the voice of the voiceless, sharing the knowledge I have with people in a bigger world, I feel happiness.

The story of a young Muslim, who supports the BJP despite the death of his father in the 2002 communal violence, leads us to another important assumption about the importance of youth for the Hindutva ideology. In his article ‘Hindutva principles for economic development’ Subramanian Swamy, the President of the Janata Party of India argues that youth is the primarily target of the Hindutva.

“This generation is most fertile milieu for promoting knowledge, innovation, and research. It is the prime work force that saves for the future, the corpus for pension funding of the old. We should therefore not squander this ― natural vital resource.”

Younger generations are an easy target for BJP; a lot of young Gujaratis support Modi because of the development, and because they are afraid of being left behind. As we observed on the ground, youth dreams of mobile phones, cars, watches, and other attributes of luxurious lifestyle that they see in movies, and they think Modi’s model of development can give those to them. A lot of them were not affected by the 2002 genocide, or did not hear about it. They are ready to step forward, because Modi‘s smiling face promises them all kinds of benefits. However, even those who were directly affected by the 2002 violence are ready to forget and move forward, because otherwise they will be left behind. As we heard in one of the IDP camps from a young Muslim who lost his father: “I lost my father, you would never understand the pain I went through, you would never understand how much I struggled, but I speak for Modi, because he is our future, he represents values of my generation.”

It was fascinating for me to read Swamy’s article and how he is afraid of the waste of “demographic dividend” of youth that India currently has. In his words in order not to “waste” the supply pool of youth, India should structure a national policy for the youth of India so that “in every young Indian the five dimensional [Hindu religion] concept of intelligence, cognitive emotional, moral, social and spiritual manifests in his character.” So what Swamy is saying is that the new policy for the Indian youth must be structured around the values of the Hindu religion, and Hindu nationalism, or otherwise, the demographic would be lost.  Basically it means that the young Muslim population has to be raised into the Hindu identity in order not to be left behind. And it is already happening in Gujarat, as the same Muslim guy said: “All my friends are Hindu, and I don’t want to stand out [in this group]”

Another problem with this new policy is the issue of gender imbalance among youth; the national male-female ratio in India is 940 women to 1000 males, with high rates of female infanticide and foeticide.  This gender imbalance in numbers will necessarily lead to a gender imbalance in a new youth policy. If Swamy wants the new policy to be structured around the Hindu religion (Hindu nationalism) then the policy will perpetrate the traditional notion of women’s role in the society; moreover, it is obvious that when he is talking about the “working source” he is speaking about men, not women. Therefore there is a strong possibility that Swamsy’s policy will benefit the current patriarchal mindset in the young minds and will lead to even more severe gender discrimination.

Modi and BJP have to be conscious that playing games with the youth can backfire at them at any time. It has been proven by history that a creation of an ideological group of youth fully loaded with testosterone can lead to dangerous consequences for the regime.

I love cooking. Cooking is my personal way of dealing with stress and pressure. I can see how the ephemeral emotions that overwhelm me will go away as I mix ingredients and create something tasty out of nothing. But rather than cooking alone, I prefer preparing food with my friends and family. It makes the process even more exciting. You can feel a sense of belonging to the same process, and enjoy the interactive engagement over a steaming pot. In Gujarat my friend Omar and I had a wonderful opportunity to prepare food on an open fire in a Tribal village, guided by a women who is a community leader. And this process helped me discover another advantage of cooking together for your research. There is a lot of literature around the topic of conducting interviews on the ground, but there is not a lot of emphasis on the importance of shared activity in the process of interviewing. As soon as we sat around the fire and started kneading corn dough to make delicious bread, I asked the woman how she felt as a community leader; did she feel a sense of empowerment; did relations in her family change after she was elected? I was surprised to hear her response that it was her husband who told her to run, and he is responsible for the decisions she makes. I think that open atmosphere of cooking food together helped us build trusted relations between the interviewer and the interviewee and get honest and direct responses for our research. Apparently in this particular Tribe, the patriarchy has not gone with the election of a woman as a village representative.

Having said that, however, it was one particular village where we heard that the imbalance of power has not changed, and we cannot draw conclusions based on one episode. We visited another tribe in Zankhvav the same day and saw a shift in patriarchal structure. The village leader was not only the head of the household giving direction to her husband; the young woman was also fighting for the benefits of development for her village. In our research we have to be aware of both stories of women as leaders, that are challenging the patriarchy, and fighting for empowerment, and about stories of others that are oppressed and discriminated against. In our research we have to be aware of both stories.

I would argue that the fight against Modi should be carried on a symbolic level. The main strength of Modi is the symbolic attachment of his figure to the state of Gujarat. The message he carries is simple: “Without me, Gujarat will become violent, the forces of communal violence will be unleashed, and the state will get away from the development track.” This symbolic attachment makes it very hard for a contender to challenge Modi. All the debates would be held on development and security, and the competitor would be caught in a vicious cycle of rhetoric such as: if you are against Modi it means that you are against development and security. An example of this is Shweta Bhatt who was contesting Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the last election campaign. Shweta ran her campaign under the agenda of honesty and said that she is “fighting for freedom of speech and development in Gujarat.” Her campaign slogan was “If I win, it will be a victory for Gujarat; if I lose, Gujarat will lose.” As we see from her campaign, she got trapped in the same cycle of debates on development; however, she as a first-time runner could not convince the electorate that she knows more about development than the political heavyweight Modi, who already attached his face to the development in Gujarat, and proved that he could successfully facilitate the flow of foreign capital into Gujarat and provide security for Gujarat (no communal violence since 2002.) Moreover, her slogan is not convincing to the people of Gujarat, as they have seen improvement in security and development in the state. I will argue that these improvements are nothing more than a myth; however, a myth in a sense is something that people believe in. So it is not surprising that Shweta lost the battle to Modi before the actual elections. Despite my pessimism about her campaign, I believe that she made a right decision to fight a heavyweight politician on the political level under the overarching theme of honesty.

The fight with Mr. Modi should be carried on a political level; however, this fight should incorporate strategies of symbolic politics and should be carried on the level of symbolic politics. In my opinion the main aim of the contender is to detach the face of Modi from the state of Gujarat and especially from the symbols of development and security. Theory says that there are two ways to deal with political symbols. The first approach is to change the charge of symbol from positive to negative. For example the Modi’s model of development has a positive connotation right now, so by taking the approach of honesty, carried out by Shweta in her campaign, and by telling the truth about the dark side of the model like IDP camps, increasing ghettoization, benefits to foreign investors in stead of the locals, the charge of Modi’s model could be change to negative. Another approach is to deconstruct the relationship between signifier and its signified. An example of that could be a campaign with an aim to hijack the benefits of development from Modi, and return them to the Gujarati people. Again the agenda of truth introduced by Shweta could be used to say that Modi is not totally responsible for the rapid development of Gujarat. The real numbers show that the state was ahead of most Indian states before Modi, and not to forget that Per Capita Income in Gujarat 2010-11 ranked 8th in India. I believe that these approaches of competing on the level of symbolic politics where he obviously dominates could be highly beneficial. And the motto of the campaign should not be “If I win, it will be a victory for Gujarat; if I lose, Gujarat will lose,” but “Gujarat will sustain and prosper without Modi, we do not need Modi’s development for few; if I win, it will be a victory for all in Gujarat!”

The group visited Gujarat during the Vibrant Gujarat forum, an event, which takes place every two years, is meant to show the foreign investors the Gujarat’s business vector. However, it is also an opportunity for the Chief Minister Narendra Modi to burnish his image as the nation’s most business-oriented and pro-development chief minister. During the festival the image of Modi dominated not just the Vibrant Gujarat forum, but the whole state; billboards across the city showed Mr. Modi’s smiling face welcoming foreigners with open hands. The ubiquitous image of the chief minister became a symbol of not just progress, business, development, security, and investments, but the symbol of the whole state of Gujarat. One says Gujarat and thinks about Modi, or says Modi and thinks about Gujarat – symbolic politics in its essence. One, especially a foreigner, would never link Modi to the communal violence of 2002; the image of progress and development has absorbed any other negative connotations, and festivals have always played a crucial role in this transformation. It is the symbolic politics of these festivals that suggest the argument about the crucial role of foreign investors in the development of the region, and the role of Narendra Modi who facilitates the flow of foreign capital into the state.

However, the Vibrant Gujarat forum was not the only festival that took place in Gujarat during our visit. The famous Uttarayan festival was held at the same time. I would argue that the merge of Vibrant Gujarat and the Kite festival was made on purpose, and this fusion represents the essence of Modi’s symbolic politics. In one of the interviews a successful architect from Tamil-Nadu expressed her surprise with the government attention to the culture life in Gujarat. She said that she had never seen that many festivals in her state. All the festivals in Gujarat, that originated as local projects, have now received an international appeal; like the Uttarayan festival, that is  now called International Kite festival. In the world of symbolic politics the boundaries between the sender of the message (politician) and the receiver (electorate), as well as between high culture and kitsch, local and global became blurred in order to create a mythology around the sender. Modi deliberately rejected the localized narrative of Uttarayan festival, in favor of the new metanarrative of globalization in order to outline his own importance as the most business-oriented and pro-development chief minister. Modi take the lead in organization of the Uttarayan festival and incorporated his image along with the BJP symbols in order to arouse a strong emotional response to the festival, and one more time outline his international oriented state of mind.

With the obsession about the chair of Prime minister, Mr. Modi hijacked the whole state of Gujarat with its cultural traditions, symbols, and rituals in order to generate a powerful message about the “myth of development,” and connect this myth with his own political image.

Since the 2002 communal violence the chief minister Modi has completely dominated the political arena in Gujarat, and has converted it into BJP’s laboratory of Hindutva politics. During our time in India we heard a lot about Gujarat being a laboratory for Modi to research the implementation of his new ideology Hindutva 2.0. Ideology that is driven by professionals, the middle class, and by OBCs who are eagerly to improve their social status. In the research it is important to pay attention to the vocabulary that ideology uses in every day interactions with the masses. Because the language that an ideology provides a researcher with an insight on the discourse in which the creators and owners of the ideology exist. Moreover, the language BJP and Modi uses, especially in the choice of metaphors, represent a message that the leaders want to deliver to masses. And Gujarat was advertised by the BJP as “the laboratory of Hindutva 2.0,” or nationalism with the face of neo-liberal development.  For some reason a world “laboratory” resonated for me in India; however, I did not give much thought to it during the trip, and forgot about the metaphor.

Back home, when I was writing the conference proposal the metaphor of Gujarat as a laboratory for Modi to conduct the experiments with the new version of ideology came back to me. “Laboratory,” I said to myself and paused for a minute, “Why would you refer to a state, as a laboratory? What is the first thing that comes to mind when someone connects politics with experiments?” The answer was lying on the surface, twentieth century knew one more political leader that was passionate about the experiments and laboratories, his name was Adolf Hitler. A lot of dictators were compared to the leader of the Third Reich; however, not all of them loved these comparisons. At the beginning of this blog I outlined the importance of language in understanding of the ideology, and it is apparent, that Modi uses the Hitler allusions on the symbolic level. In Gujarat we heard about changes that happened to the textbooks in school under Modi’s regime, and that Hitler is discussed as a “strong European leader.” Moreover, one of the interviews referred to the state of Gujarat, as a place that would Europe look like if Hitler was in power.

Gujarat is a laboratory for huge political experiments similar experiment in Nazi Germany leaded to the creation of other laboratories, not metaphorical ones. Block 10 at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp was a cellblock where women and men were used as experimental subjects for German doctors. The experiments in Block 10 ranged from skin testing for reaction to relatively gentle substances to giving phenol injections to the heart for immediate dissection. The main doctor who worked in Block 10 was Josef Mengele. Every political experimenter must remember this side of ideological experiments, and do not legitimize them at any price. A new, even perfect ideology cannot be a result of violent experiments that have caused thousands of deaths. I will hope that Mr. Modi realizes it, and it will be extremely difficult for him to replicate the Gujarat experiment in other states given the vast difference between the “laboratory” and the real world.

A brand new Ahmedabad airport welcomes foreigners to Gujarat. Comfortable cabs, with air conditioning drive foreigners through the newly paved roads of the state’s financial capital. A luxurious 5 star hotel opens its doors for foreign investors, offering them continental breakfast with a nice “colonial touch.” You do not feel yourself in India anymore, its rather Westernized for foreign investors, that are looking for a place to maximize their profits. If you are looking for a place where it’s easy to do business, there is no better place than Gujarat. Modi promises you a high return on investment with no bureaucratic delay and corruption, which prevents investment projects elsewhere in India. However, is it real development, or just a simulated model of development, provided by a chief minister, who is charmingly looking at you from billboards in Ahmedabad?

A huge question for me in Gujarat is the reality of the “Gujarat model of development,” or, better, the “Modi model,” that perfectly suits the interests of corporate India and of foreign investors. And I find the response to that in Boudrilliard’s model of simulacrum and simulation. According Jean Boudrilliard, what has happened in postmodern culture is that our society has become so reliant on models and symbols that “the current” lost all contact with the real world that preceded that reality. Reality itself has begun simply to imitate the model, which now precedes and determines the real world. Modi’s model of development is what we, as foreigners, perceive as development. Simply ask yourself: what do you imagine as development? The first images that comes to my mind are not images of schools and hospitals but, bridges, roads, factories, power stations, dams, traffic, hotels, concrete riverbanks, etc, which are all symbols of development, that in reality lost any connection with reality.

Modi effectively operates with the images and symbols of development, he replaces reality by imitating the symbols of the neoliberal model of development that exists in the western mindset. There is no longer any distinction between reality and its representation; there is only the simulacrum. Modi develops the cities, not the villages, he provides electricity to foreigners, and electricity cuts to tribes, divides communities and unites investors. The “Modi’s model” benefits investors, and brings violence to people of Gujarat.

Kirill