Narendra Modi's brilliance and efficiency was evident as he was a full-time worker (pracharak) of the voluntary organization i.e. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as a "Pracharak" he was expected them which proved to be very beneficial as he became the All India General Secretary of the political party i.e. Bharatiya Janata Party. By and large Shri. Modi proved to be successful as he discharged his responsibilities very well perfectly. He heavily relied on his personal qualities and initiatives after assuming the state's political and governmental reins of power.
Shri. Modi while managing affairs kept before him these dimensions viz. i) policymakers, ii) citizens, iii) government. Together with his govt. Modi learnt the linkages which were the cause and effect and result in the process of management. He has before him these dimensions viz., i) policymakers, ii) citizens, iii) government. Together with his government.
Modi learnt the linkages which were the cause and effect and result in the process of management. As stated earlier, he started his life with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a socio-cultural organization engaged in building civil society in India. He was a third-year trained officer in RSS which focused upon social dedication and nationalism to its cadres and participation in politics only occasionally, most often by deputing its prachaaraks to BJP and other supplementary organizations.
India’s former Prime Minister Mr Vajpayee (1998-2004) and the former Dy. Prime Minister Shri. L.K. Advani were among those deputed to politics (i.e. the erstwhile Bharatiya Jan Sangh and presently the BJP) by the RSS. During his early years with the RSS, Shri. Modi played an important role on several occasions whenever deputed, including the 1974 anti-corruption agitation and during the harrowing 19 months (from June 1975 to January 1977) long ‘emergency’ when fundamental rights of Indian citizens were suspended. Shri. Modi kept the spirit of democracy alive by staying underground for the entire period and fighting a spirited battle against the fascist way of the then government.
Shri. Modi was a ‘Vibhag Pracharak’ in RSS in 1988, when he was deputed as the General Secretary of the BJP’s Gujarat unit and took up the challenging task of energizing the party cadres in right earnest. The party formed coalition in April 1990 but the partnership fell apart within a few months. Later BJP came to power with a two-thirds majority on its own in 1995, since then, the BJP has been the ruling party in the state of Gujarat. Between 1988 and 1995, Shri. Modi was entrusted with the responsibility of organizing two crucial national events also the Somnath to Ayodhya Rath- Yatra (a long march) of Shri. Advani- 25 September 1991, and a similar march from Kanyakumari (the Southernmost part of India) to the troubled Kashmir in north.
Modi as a driving force in political programming
In October 2001, Shri. Modi was asked to rule the state government most importantly when Gujarat was facing problems because of several natural calamities in the preceding years, including the massive earthquake in January 2001. Once again Shri. Modi took the bull by the horns and decided to convert the adversities into an opportunity. With a clear vision of his own for the future of the state, he re-organised the government's administrative structure, embarked upon a massive cost-cutting exercise and successfully put Gujarat on the road to growth in a short period of three years.
In his first three years, Modi successfully reduced the fiscal deficit of the State exchequer by fifty per cent and had stashed the losses of the huge public utility functional agencies (like Gujarat Electricity Board), besides making available electricity for domestic consumption in over 5,000 villages. Perhaps the most important achievement of his government was raising the height of the crucial Narmada Dam from 95 to 110.64 meter in two quick bursts of activity, which lasted for about two months each. The increased height resulted in waters finally flowing to practically all parts of the state and commissioning of the hydroelectric power generation facility at the dam. When the Narendra Modi government was sworn-in on 22 December 2002 (for the second time), the economy of Gujarat was reeling under the adverse effects of several natural calamities, including a gigantic earthquake in January. In December, elections were preponed a few months ahead of the schedule and the Narendra Modi government was voted back to power with a massive majority of 128 in a house of 182. Skilfully wading his way through the onslaught of a massive slander campaign unleashed by the opposition Congress party, Modi dealt a convincing and crushing blow to the principal opposition party, the magnitude of which stunned friends and foes alike.
Modi as a political administrator :Popular and progressive, tech-savvy and a true democrat, Shri Modi was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Gujarat for the second term on December 22, 2002 becoming one of the most easily accessible political leaders in India.
A leader who believes in teamwork, Modi had launched an ambitious training programme for the 500,000 Government employees in Gujarat. A true Karma yogi (doer), Modi refused to be cowed down by disasters and disturbances and is successfully leading his state on the path to economic growth. Widely been able to impart faith, trust and hope among the 50 million people of Gujarat With the successful conclusion of the Vibrant Gujarat Summit in January 2005, image of the state as a preferred investment destination among global investors has taken a quantum leap. A wide cross-section of the people of Gujarat continues to adore Shri. Modi as an able and visionary leader who is effectively, substantially, significantly, transparently and convincingly uplifting the quality of their lives. A skilled orator and a deft negotiator, Shri. Modi has earned the love and affection of people from village and cities alike. His following spans people belonging to every faith and religion and every economic strata of the society.
Prof. Maria Misra in her book titled “Vishnu’s Crowded Temple” wrote on the characteristics of Mahatma Gandhi. Her interpretation of Mahatma Gandhi can be no different from Shri. Modi. It is applicable to Shri. Modi as well. She states; “Throughout his (Gandhi) ascendancy Gandhi gained his strongest support from these essentially conservative groups. His populist vision of village democracy in particular resonated with the better-of farmers. While they had learnt to appreciate the state as a source of patronage and resources, they were deeply suspicious of further intrusion. For merchants, traders, artisans and petty clerks, known for their piety and jealousy of more privileged and westernized elements, the coming of a modern nation-state was a dubious blessing which might ultimately lead to their disappearance as a distinctive social and cultural group. In Gandhi, both the rural and urban little men saw a national leader in their own image: a compelling political vision of an India imbued with their values, not those of the godless and materialist West. Gandhi’s ambiguous endorsement of the caste system and the lure, therefore, of continuing dominance over the poor, proved irresistible to those eager for prestige within the conventional caste hierarchy.
Analysing Narendra Modi as a CM of Gujarat :
The founder of RSS has maintained that RSS is supposed to lead the society and our nation and for this the entire society need not be RSS. The very purpose of RSS aims at producing leadership which maybe a handful of individuals who possess the qualities of leadership. Shri. Modi was a “Prachaarak” in RSS and had undergone rigorous physical training. It’s in his Pracharak genes! He was a ‘pracharak’ and was supposed to be leader.
Shri. Ajay Bishnoi* has aptly referred Shri. Modi as ‘Sir Winston Churchill’ of Indian politics Shri. Modi also has an impeccable character like the one Sir Churchill had. He is a tough hard-driving person who works for Gujarat round the clock. He never retires or is tired. He has a firm belief that Gujarat is his destiny. He does things in his own ways and he loves to put on a show. He talks of development and development only.
*Source: http://www.merinews.com/shareArticle.do?detail=Print&articleID=1... ).
When Shri. Modi became the Chief Minister of the state, instability in the political affairs was at its height. Nobody would be sure of his continuation in the office of the Chief Ministership. Pressure groups, lobbies, interest group, preferences, favouritism, and discrimination all these factors played in its full strength. The Government had become unstable and political atmosphere was vicious. Personal interests and personal ambitions ruled the order of the day. Ambitions differed from individual to individual. Some of the ambitious persons dreamt of becoming Chief Minister, some less ambitious wanted to become Ministers and the other expected cash rewords. Party loyalty did not matter anymore. Change of party, defections was rampant. The defectors declared their prices, which was a floating phenomenon. The middlemen in political transactions made most of the day.
The transaction fee of the middlemen also floated. At times it was a sellers market, and at other times it was a buyers market there was also group marketing. The middlemen had to promise group marketing – of sale and purchase. Planes, luxury buses, taxis, five-star Hotels bookings, luncheons and dinners, wine and women, everything was available for those in demand. There appeared political chaos. Democracy was exaggerated. The political institutions in the state were attacked by political and social miscreants. The theory and practice of democracy was thrown to winds the principles of democracy were forgotten. The tenets of democratic practices were twisted. The rule of distrust prevailed. This was Gujarat.
As an RSS prachaarak he had moved across the length and breadth of Gujarat. He knew where the shoe pinched. He knew the basic needs of the common man in the street, the smallest artisan, the marginal farmer, the educated unemployed, the helpless small self-employed, the land-less labourer, the poor housewife, and of course the financial and administrative problems faced by medium and large-scale entrepreneurs in the state.
As a Chief Minister of Gujarat, 2001 he had his own ideas on different policymaking planks. This could be considered as initiatives in the following fields: (i) Economic developmental goals, (ii) Political initiatives and programs, (iii) Public administration, (iv) Social awakening, (v) Cultural origins and programs.
Shri. Modi was an HRD (Human Resource Development) expert and he had acquired the knowledge and the training to identify and pick up efficient persons and place them appropriately in the seat of responsibility. Shri. Modi as Chief Minister had deployed all these qualities to make the central government machinery work efficiently. Shri. Modi can be said to be product of RSS because Modi as a Chief Minister appears to have full confidence in the competence of his Council of Ministers. He himself was convinced that the people of Gujarat, the government of the state and the bureaucracy under it all were fully competent to grow with full vigour. The people of the state seemed to have reposed full faith in Shri. Modi because of the personal integrity, selfless attitude, tremendous enthusiasm, novelty in imagination, political predictions and political judgements, the affection of people across political party lines and ideologies, all these factors were beyond doubts.
Modi’s determination of trying to achieve the laid down goals of development was appreciated and even the opposition political parties admit and respect the personal integrity and honesty of him as an individual. Shri. Modi’s experiment of social stratification through electioneering appeared to have emerged successful to a large extent. Shri. Modi had subtle knowledge and understanding of it. Stratification is a term used to characterize a structure of inequality as it is a situation where individuals are in differentiated structural positions and such positions are in hierarchical standards. Talcott Persons a renowned sociologist stated in his essay “An analytical approach to the theory of social stratification”, published in 1940 (pages 841-849), “The status of any given individual in the system of stratification in a society may be regarded as a resultant of the common valuations underlying the attribution of status to him” in dimensions such as achievements, possessions, authority, and power. “Social stratification is at the core of society. ‘Social stratification is a social division of individuals into various hierarchies of wealth, status and power.” (Source: An article by Stephen L. Morgen from Encyclopaedia Britannica).
According to Mauro F. Guillen, “economic sociology which can be considered as application of social stratification and organizational theory and the sociology of development which studies the organization of economic activity. According to him “sociology emerged as a science geared towards providing an institutionally savvy and culturally rich understanding of economic life.” He further submits three postulates of the comparative approach to economic sociology.” ( I ) Ideological change precedes or at least goes hand in hand with economic change. Therefore, it is the task of economic sociology to understand ideological transformations as explanatory variables. The underlying assumption here is that ideologies are, at least in part, exogenous to economic change. His postulate stands in sharp contrast with the proposals of rational choice theories of action. ( ii) Here is no one mode of organizing the economy or its various components that are utterly superior to all others under all circumstances. Thus, there are multiple solutions to the complex problem of economic performance, and it is the second task of economic sociology to establish principles of empirical variation among economic models or systems , and ( iii ) Economic life whether it has to do with production, distribution or consumption cannot be understood without paying simultaneous attention to patterns of social stratification, organization, and economic development.” The government of Gujarat under Shri. Modi seems to have adopted this comparative approach to the economic sociology of development in the state. The entire discussion on this point of view leads to the consideration of globalization and its impact on economic development at the grass-root as well as at the state level. Mauro F. Guillen concludes - comparative economic sociology seeks to reunite the fields of social stratification, organizational theory, and the sociology of development so as to better understand patterns of economic organization.
This approach seems especially appropriate to tackle the problem of economic development because it cannot be analysed without taking social structure and organizational actors into account. Further work is necessary to show how comparative economic sociology can illuminate other questions in the field, including both production and consumption aspects of economic activity.”
(Source: Comparative Economic Sociology; Blending Social Stratification, Organizational theory, and the Sociology of Development, Mauro F. Guillen, The Wharton School & Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, Prepared for presentation at the Latin American Studies Association Annual Meeting Miami,2000).
Shri. Modi and his government seem to have been under the influence of this particular theory of eco-socio development which they considered essentially as part of dynamics of developmental administration.