The NaMo Story by Kingshuk Nag

Author:Kingshuk Nag [Nag, Kingshuk]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789351940159
Publisher: Roli Books

6

Vibrant Gujarat

Located in two different parts of New Delhi are the head offices of two organizations that have made it their business to promote trade and industry in India, and also India’s exports to foreign countries.

The office of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) on Tansen Marg, close to Bengali Market, is quite a landmark.

But the office of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Lodhi Road too, though tucked away in a side lane, is an important destination of many policy-planners and businessmen from India and abroad.

In his days as secretary of the BJP, Narendra Modi had scarcely paid attention to these organizations. It may have even escaped his notice that the two were locked in intense competition with each other to secure the ‘goodwill’ and patronage of the government. Strange as it may seem that this should be the case in post-liberalization India, FICCI and CII resorted to all sort of techniques to be closer to the government than the other. This was possibly a throwback to feudal India, when the ‘mai-baap sarkar’ prevailed.

By the turn of the century, it was the CII whose voice counted more with the central government than that of FICCI. Therefore, it may have come as a rude shock to the NDA government led by Atal Behari Vajpayee, that the CII stridently questioned the actions of the Modi government in 2002.

In fact, Gujarat cast a long shadow on CII’s annual session in 2002 in New Delhi where the themes chosen included: ‘Numbed Sensitivities: How Do We Dream Again?’ And ‘Social and Ethical Breakdown in India: What Should We As A People Do.’

Says a senior official of CII: ‘These were thinly-veiled attempts to bring focus on the Gujarat affairs. Gujarat had shocked the conscience of the nation. Although we normally do not comment on political matters, many of our members were deeply agitated.’

The then leader of the Opposition, Sonia Gandhi, was also invited to the plenary session of the CII. Gandhi was forthright while commenting on the state of the nation: ‘It is a colossal tragedy that globalization is accompanied by communal polarization,’ she said.

Outside the meeting hall, the media was asking the then CII president, Sanjiv Goenka, whether the Gujarat riots would affect the flow of investments into India. Goenka was hard-pressed to answer that it would not be so, although he was not sure about what would happen to ‘Destination Gujarat’.

However miffed the BJP bosses – even those critical of Modi – may have been at what the CII was saying, there was precious little that they could do.

But while CII was vociferous about Gujarat affairs, its rival FICCI kept quiet. This was a strategic silence, because FICCI realized that this was their big chance to get even with CII. After all, the government was that of NDA, of which BJP was the largest component, and they were not very happy.

FICCI’s silence did not escape the attention of Narendra Modi; when he came back to power after the

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