SP leader's 'chaiwala' remark will only make Modi more acceptable

It’s difficult to imagine just what Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agarwal was trying to achieve with his disdainful ’not-in-our-class’ remark about Narendra Modi’s humble origins as a tea vendor. But the outcome is clear. The statement, coming from the fourth biggest public face - after Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav and Ramgopal Yadav – of the biggest turncoat political Samajwadi Party, will actually help Modi in consolidating his expanding social support rather than make him retreat as a condemned chaiwala. Agarwal’s comment could even prove to be costly for his party, led by Dhartiputra  Mulayam Singh Yadav in the state of Uttar Pradesh, whose seat count would matter the most in 2014. [caption id=“attachment_1232235” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  BJP’s PM candidate Narendra Modi. Reuters[/caption] His feudal and classist views notwithstanding, Agarwal would have been better advised to remember some facts about today’s India. Modi in many ways represents the new, young and aspirational India. He may have sold tea on a railway platform for a living in his childhood but he had the grit to move on, innovating in emerging situations and capitalising on every single opportunity that came his way right up to where he is today – principal challenger to the topmost position in the country. That’s the reason why he is 63 years old, but still attractive to youth and the ever aspiring middle class. Modi’s ascendency is reflective of the rise of the subaltern within the BJP and outside. It is not without reason that the more articulate Congress leaders such as Finance Minister P Chidambaram no longer feel shy in calling him a serious challenge, to be no longer ignored. He is aggressive and unpredictable and comes up with phrases like ‘Shahzada’ for Rahul, that are hugely disturbing for the Congress and have huge mass appeal. He had earlier taken on Rahul Gandhi with a jibe about being “born with a golden spoon” to suggest that the occasional poverty tourism of the Congress vice president would not make him feel empathy for the poor unlike Modi himself whose underprivileged origins and upbringing make millions consider him one among them. So, it was only expected of Modi to make good use of a remark that was made to target him as a man with low IQ and vision. He immediately lapped up the class issue and did not waste time in turning the same lowly Chaiwala barb to his advantage. He has made it a big talking point for the second consecutive day of his poll campaign in Chhattisgarh. First, he turned it into a ruling UPA versus him issue because the UPA government has survived on outside support of the Samajwadi Party and second, he made the remark a reflection of anti-poor mindset of the ruling UPA. He then played to the gallery: Kamal (BJP symbol) ka ek swabhav hota hai ki uspar jitna kichar uchaloge Kamal utna hi khilega (the lotus has an uncanny nature to bloom in mud, the more mud you throw around it, that much brighter it blooms.) Beginning with the Maut Ka Saudagar (merchant of death) comment by Sonia Gandhi in 2007 to being likened to a Banar (monkey) in 2012 to mass murderer to yesterday’s remark of Khooni Admi (assassin) and even to a mentally sick animal by two senior Congress leaders, Modi has made good use of such personal attacks against him by taking the position of an aggrieved wounded victim who had every right to retaliate. While the Congress is livid over Modi’s comment that Sonia is ill and should pass over the responsibility to Rahul, some others outside the Congress  are opining that the BJP’s poster boy crossed the line of decency. Yet others are suggesting there was nothing indecent in his remark but who should be the Congress’s leader and what responsibility one should handle in the Congress is best left to that party. Modi too perhaps realised it, and so did not proceed on the subject beyond that line. Another issue that has badly hurt Congress leaders is Modi hammering hard on Rahul’s claim about Central grants to the states, asking whether this money was brought by his Mama (maternal uncle), indirectly referring on Sonia’s Italian origin. The innuendo has naturally made the Congress angry, but Modi is unrelenting. His supporters say he is only responding in a language that makes him build a rapport with the audience. The subsequent bitterness is lost in the political slanging match of who began it first. Going back to Agarwal, if he was suggesting indeed that a Chaiwala should live and die as a Chaiwala, the vast humanity of India disagrees – even Modi’s detractors would boo Agarwal for that.