Where Modi governs, Nehru ruled

The Internet has awoken to the milestone that Narendra Modi will be surpassing Jawaharlal Nehru on June 10 to become India’s longest continuously-serving elected prime minister. That’s a lot of qualifiers, but they are deserved.

Nehru held office for four-and-a-half years before going to the polls for his first electoral test, while his daughter, Indira Gandhi, had two very different prime ministerships — the first ending in shambles and the second in tragedy.

By contrast, Narendra Modi’s record is that of a successful modern politician, more like that of Germany’s Angela Merkel than those of Jawaharlal Nehru or Indira Gandhi.

PM Modi governs India, critics might say with an iron fist, but then perhaps it takes an iron fist to govern India. But Nehru did not govern India. Nehru ruled India.

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There is a subtle difference between governing and ruling. The English verb “to govern” is ultimately derived from a Greek original meaning “to steer”, as in to steer a ship.

It takes more than a strong will to steer the ship of state in the direction you want it to go. To govern effectively, a country’s leader must take account of the political winds and the electoral tides. A dictator does not provide effective government.

A dictator rules. The English verb “to rule” comes from a Latin word meaning “to straighten”; in American English a “ruler” is the measuring stick that Indians call a “scale”. A leader who rules straightens society to fit his standards. He doesn’t adjust to society; society adjusts to him.

Nehru came to office at India’s independence with a super-majority, and he retained a super-majority throughout his rule. When newspapers criticised him, he gave himself the power to censor them. When industrialists resisted his Five-Year Plans, he gave himself the power to nationalise their firms.

Modi, by contrast, came to office with three major policy goals. It took him five years to abrogate Article 370 and nearly 10 years to see the Ram Mandir built. India still lacks a uniform civil code, and is unlikely to see one before 2029.

That is because despite all the Opposition angst and loose talk of a Modi dictatorship, Prime Minister Modi and the BJP he leads must always tread carefully. There is always an election just around the corner, if not at the Centre then in the states, and the BJP wants to win it.

In his three national elections, Nehru never won less than 40 per cent of the popular vote — and never less than two-thirds of the seats in the Lok Sabha. Perhaps more importantly, no single non-Congress party took more than 11 per cent of the vote in the 1951-52, 1957 and 1962 elections. Nehru faced the polls, but he never faced opposition.

Narendra Modi’s BJP has never won as much as 40 per cent of the popular vote — and its opposition, notwithstanding the current weakness of the INDIA bloc, always poses a threat.

Indian commentators (both pro-Modi and anti-Modi) tend to see the BJP as an overwhelming, unstoppable force in Indian politics. They have already forgotten the mood of June 2024, when those same commentators thought that the BJP was teetering and that Modi might fall.

The more objective view from abroad is that Narendra Modi is an extraordinarily astute politician but not an all-powerful ruler. His BJP only wins because it bends. The moment the BJP starts to govern like it rules India, it will find it no longer governs anything.

Prime Minister Modi’s flexibility is the secret to his longevity. He may look stern, but he governs tactically. Of course, he has goals, and he may very well reach them. But he won’t get there in a straight line.

Angela Merkel served 5,860 days as Germany’s chancellor. To beat her record, PM Modi will have to sail through the 2029 elections and keep the BJP afloat and on course until June 10, 2030. That’s a tough challenge. But I wouldn’t bet against him.

(Salvatore Babones is an associate professor at the University of Sydney and the author of ‘Democracy with Dharma: The Successful Indian Experiment’. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)