Why Narendra Modi draws both fear and hope

India’s most important election in a generation began in earnest this month the same way consequential elections nearly always start here - with a proclamation and a deadly riot.

In New Delhi, the Bharatiya Janata Party announced last week that it had chosen Narendra Modi, one of the most divisive politicians in India’s history, as its candidate for prime minister in next spring’s national elections. Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, is an unapologetic Hindu chauvinist who has been accused of mass murder.

Modi has tempered his anti-Muslim tirades and replaced them with a message of development based on a record in Gujarat that even critics acknowledge is impressive. But critics also say he and his Hindu nationalist party have benefited from past violence between Hindus and Muslims, using it to paper over Hindus’ historic differences over caste and get them to vote as a bloc along religious lines.

Not coincidentally, mass rioting broke out last week in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous and politically important state, after a legislator from Modi’s party circulated a fake video of two Hindus being lynched by a Muslim mob. Forty-four people were killed and 42,000 were displaced as villages were sacked. Riyazat Ali of Bawari said he watched from a hidden room as a Hindu mob stormed his house, hacked his brother to death and fatally shot his 18-year-old niece.

India may be the world’s most populous democracy, but election campaigns here are often fuelled by hate and soaked in blood. By choosing Modi, a fiery orator who once peppered his speeches with anti-Muslim slurs, the BJP has raised the prospect that this election could be the deadliest in decades. Hindus make up roughly 80 per cent of India’s population and Muslims 13 per cent, a share about equal to that of blacks in the United States. Home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said that there had already been 451 cases of sectarian violence this year, surpassing last year’s total of 410. He warned that violence was likely to intensify as elections approached.

Rock-star appeal

Among the country’s vast urban youth, Modi has rock-star appeal. Half of India’s population is under 25, and most have seen little more from their leaders than the soporific near-whispers of octogenarians like prime minister Manmohan Singh. By contrast, Modi is a charismatic preacher of a resurgent India, a vision that millions mired in a sputtering economy find intoxicating. To many Hindus, he is a revelation.

To many Muslims, though, he is an abomination. In 2002, less than a year after he was appointed the state’s chief minister, riots swept Gujarat and killed more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims. Mothers were skewered, children set afire and fathers hacked to pieces. Some witnesses claimed that Modi encouraged the violence, which Modi has denied. He has never been charged, but close associates of his were convicted of inciting a riot.

“They want to create a Hindu voting bloc that transcends caste, and they’ll use hate to do it,” said Sumant Banerjee, a fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla.

The riots only bolstered Modi’s political standing. Months later, having consolidated the Hindu vote, he led his party to a resounding victory in state elections. Since then he has dominated Gujarat’s politics, the state’s largest city, Ahmedabad, remains deeply segregated and most of India’s Muslims hate him.

Modi, 63, refused requests over months for an interview to Western news organisations. Jay Narayan Vyas, a leader of Modi’s opposition party, said that Modi was not to blame for the 2002 riots and that his party did not demonise Muslims. “The BJP philosophy is justice to all but appeasement to none,” he said.

Vyas said that as prime minister, Modi would bring wealth to India and tame its political chaos. He said India needed a strong leader who “doesn’t allow democracy to be a passport to misbehave.”

Seeking the job

Modi will face off against the Congress which has yet to name its candidate for prime minister. Singh is widely thought to be too old, while Sonia Gandhi, the party’s president, is said to be ill. It is still not clear whether Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi’s son, is interested in seeking the job.

“The reason why Modi needs a chance to lead is that he is the first politician since Nehru who has articulated a clear economic vision,” said Tavleen Singh, an author and commentator who was referring to Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, and who argued that hate crimes were so routinely incited by Indian leaders that no major party or politician was innocent.

Car plants now crowd the outskirts of Ahmedabad. Top industrialists say they have located plants in Gujarat because Modi got them land, steady electricity and a pliant workforce, a rare combination in much of India. Although Gujarat has just 5 per cent of India’s population, it accounts for 16 per cent of its industrial production and 22 per cent of its exports.

A drive through Modi’s constituency of Maninagar in this western city demonstrates both the hopes and fears swirling around him. The neighbourhood is a mostly middle-class enclave of tidy homes and handsome apartment buildings with well-paved streets, a functional sewer system and constant electricity.

In almost any advanced country, Maninagar would be unremarkable. But in a country where roads are often atrocious, more than half of the population has no access to toilets and electricity is fitful at best, Maninagar is almost an idyll. Even the richest neighbouhoods in New Delhi and Mumbai lack such services.

Drive past M.S. Car Repair Shop, however, and this scene turns decidedly darker. Here, the roads are potholed and crumbling, the houses are tin-roofed shacks, trash is everywhere and the stink of sewage is pervasive. The reason for the difference in this small part of Maninagar? Religion, say its residents.

“Only Muslims live here, and you can see for yourself that it’s not nearly as nice,” said Mohammad Yusuf while repairing a punctured inner-tube on an ancient bicycle. “It should be a lot better, but it’s not.”