Modern Chanakya Neethi (Righteous Governance): A comparison of the Leadership of Mr Modi and Imran Khan

Disclaimers/Mandatory disclosure:

1. The Author is a one-time hater of Imran Khan, then became an admirer, and is now clueless about Imran Khan’s status.

2. The Author had voted for BJP in the Parliamentary elections and had voted for other parties in State Assembly elections.

3. The Author has not yet decided on his voting preference for the 2024 elections.

In August 2018, I wrote a blog titled “Imran Khan Leads Pakistan, who should lead India?” 5 years have elapsed since then. I thought I would revisit the contemporary issues and my views 5 years ago. Hence, this blog.

Thiruvalluvar, a great Tamil poet said that it is more satisfying to carry a spear with which you attempted to kill an elephant (unsuccessfully), rather than carrying an arrow with which you successfully killed a rabbit. When I look at the Indian subcontinental scenario, the wisdom of Thiruvalluvar squarely applies to Imran Khans' case. He became PM after he was a celebrity for a long time. He has been in politics for more than 2 decades. He established a party, contested elections successfully and unsuccessfully, and enjoys a support base all over Pakistan. He launched a relentless political battle against the Bhutto-Zardari families, as well as the military-inspired industrial capitalist Nawaz Sharif. Finally, Imran became a PM. But his performance as the Prime Minister of Pakistan made his one-time admirers rethink their admiration, he has now become a fallen idol for the influential as well as grassroots communities in Pakistan. We are all clueless because Imran Khan has been convicted of corruption, like Nawaz Shariff, Lalu Prasad Yadav, etc. He still has to face many cases. Considering the history of military-inspired prosecutions in Pakistan, we can be reasonably certain that he will be convicted for many other offences (a very few of them maybe be legally correct). This will make him ineligible to contest in the forthcoming (?) elections in Pakistan. That is why we are truly clueless about his future and his role in shaping Pakistan during the Third Millenium.

On the other hand, his counterpart in India, Mr Modi, performed much better. During his tenure, India became the fifth-largest economy. India’s defence preparedness vis-à-vis China is much better than it was in the past. During his Independence Day address at Red Fort this year, Mr Modi declared that in his next tenure as the PM of India, India will become the Third largest economy. A record number of people have been pulled above the Absolute Poverty Line (though other countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam and Indonesia have done better). He was part of the RSS movement and came up the tough way. He has been the chief minister of Gujarat for 3 terms. He took a political risk by contesting in Varanasi (an acceptable risk because he also contested from Gujarat). In a way, Modi and Imran Khan faced the same type of political challenge. Mr Modi-a one-time pracharak of RSS as the Prime Minister has to deal with RSS -in his role as the PM of a secular country. One should remember that the RSS is an organisation committed to Sanatana Dharma. But the Indian Constitution demands that the PM ensure equality as part of the basic structure of the Indian Constitution. Modi himself is non-Brahminical and hails from a Backward-caste trading community. Dealing with the RSS would have posed special difficulties because the RSS has amongst its cadre stalwarts like LK Advani, Murali Manohar Joshi, Arun Shourie, Sushma Swaraj, Jaswant Singh, Vasundhara Raji Scindia etc... Similarly, Imran Khan had to deal with Pakistan military establishment. Under the Pakistani Constitution (inspired by the colonial British Administration and bankrolled by the US Administration), the military establishment has a constitutionally guaranteed dominant role in the conduct of global, economic and at times Judicial affairs. The Pakistani military establishment runs a parallel economy, playing an important role in the running of important industries like cement, sugar, ordinances etc. Furthermore, it is rumoured that ISI which has tentacles spread deeply and invisibly within Afghanistan; thereby has a role in International Drug Traffic and Money Laundering (Drugs and Terrorism generated profits). Hence, Imran Khan had to face a ruthless opponent having draconian strength. The Pakistani Military establishment demonstrated in the past that they can deny civil and political rights to their own people and get away with it. Their acts of genocide in Baluchistan during the late 1950s and early ‘60s and in Bangladesh during the 1970s had not earned even a reprimand from the nation’s political leaders. On the other hand in India, a socialist, George Fernandez as the Defence Minister could ensure the dismissal of a Navy Admiral and demand that the Indian army must do a course correction while it dealt with the political yet well-armed rebels of Myanmar. I say this essentially to stress the fact that (Modi in comparison with Imran Khan) may not be a better politician, but Modi had a more favourable political and constitutional wicket to play cricket on. Hence, relatively, Modi as a political leader had done much better than Imran Khan. I feel now that my vote for Mr Modi in 2018 was one of the best political decisions I have made. Yet I feel that Imran Khan comes out as a better leader because he tried to take on the worst internal enemy of Pakistan, namely, the Military. He has definitely failed:

a. His handling of Pakistan's political and economic relations with the USA, India and Saudi Arabia could have been better.

b. His failure to deal with extremist Islam in Pakistan and to mitigate the all-pervading evil of corruption within the Pakistani Society.

c. He allowed his status as PM to go to his head and behave as one of the big contemporary leaders of Modern Islamic Society by associating himself with leaders like Turkish PM Erdogan and Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohammad.

d. His hostility to Narendra Modi and the BJP government which in my opinion are less evil when compared to the way the Pakistanis treat their own minorities and even different sects of Islam such as Shias, Ahmadis, Ismailis etc. were the biggest mistakes he made during his tenure as Pakistani PM.

Had Imran Khan granted MFN status to India and traded with India in the way Chinese and India continue their trade relations despite armed conflict, he would have probably been on a better wicket to play Political Cricket with the Pakistani army. His arrogant insistence that India should restore the repealed Art 370, cost him dearly. The China-Pakistan economic corridor is a millstone around the neck of Pakistan. Had Pakistan traded with India normally, it would not have had to face the terrible economic misery that Pakistan is currently in. This is not to say that Pakistan would overnight become a rich country if they trade with India. At least, the life of poorer sections of the Pakistani community would be less painful because the Indian food supplies would have substantially reduced the cost of food for the really poor in Pakistan. Sri Lanka still has a semblance of political stability, essentially because of the economic support given by India. In fact, even Bangladesh and Nepal would acknowledge that Indian aid to their countries is qualitatively more beneficial than their economic cooperation with China.

On the other hand, Mr Narendra Modi was far more acute in his diplomatic engagement with the rest of the world. Admittedly, India’s relations with the Arab Muslim world is much better than what it was during the Congress regime. That has not prevented the Modi government from having strong military and economic ties with Israel. But both India and Pakistan let down Iran because both of them had reasons not to antagonize the USA. Modi’s stature as a global leader is much better than Imran Khan’s.

One has to recognise that India and Pakistan are part of the Indian Subcontinent and their population can boast of a common cultural heritage. The evolution of India into a secular polity with a higher commitment to democratic norms has made India a more politically evolved society. On the other hand, Pakistan could not even finalize its constitution for about 10 years. The constitution gave the military preferential treatment, enabling it to veto expressions of elected political governance. Later when it declared itself to be an Islamic State, the potential for mischief became even more pronounced. In the meantime, countries like Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh have committed themselves to be secular nations despite having a majority Muslim population. The biggest problem for the political leadership in Pakistan is to keep the Military establishment in its right place and deny it the power of interfering in political, economic and judicial affairs. In India this problem is non-existent. The biggest problem that faces India is the mitigation of Hindu bigotry, which mercifully is less vocal in comparison with the scale and magnitude of problems that Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan face because of their dominant religious faith. This problem of majority tyranny in India is manifested more in the Indian cow belt or BIMARU states. In my opinion, Mr Modi as the PM of secular India has not controlled the incidence of attacks on minorities, restrictions on their food, attire and culture, or the blatant efforts to promote Hindi at the cost of regional languages; and the removal of the federal features in Indian Polity. On all these counts, Imran scores slightly better than Mr Modi.

End Note

Mr Narendra Modi has done not much better than Imran Khan. After all, Mr Modi enjoyed a better political pitch to play his match. Mr Modi had more political experience despite his very humble beginnings. Mr Modi did not address the core issues. He attended to a lot of peripheral, yet essential issues which made a big difference. Mr Imran Khan, the celebrity on the other hand took the core issue of ending the army’s dominance without focusing on peripheral, but essential issues. Mr Modi continues his political slugfest where he may have another innings to play. He has a more complex country to govern. If he does, I would like him to address our core issues:

A. Improving the majority-minority inter-se trust level.

B. Strengthen the federal spirit of the Indian Constitution.

C. Improving and promoting the learning of all National languages of India, rather than focusing on one official language.

D. Not destabilising opposition-run duly elected governments by misusing the instrumentalities of the Union government.

In conclusion, I would say that Mr Narendra Modi has done much better as a national leader than his counterparts in the region despite his failure to address the core issues. But Mr Imran Khan remains a hero because he took on the core issues head-on, though he failed.

Is Saint Thiruvalluvar Correct?