EXTRACT OF MY NEW BOOK ON SHRI NARENDRA MODI

CONCLUSION : THE HOUR OF GOD

Sri Aurobindo penned a small booklet called The Hour Of God. In this extremely inspired writing, he explains that there are moments when the Breath of God is upon humanity and immense progress is made in a few years ; and there are others, where for centuries, little happens and humanity seems to stagnate. This “Breath of God” needs instruments to manifest itself – and it also descends when the very future of humanity is threatened and direct actions are needed. We remember during the second World War, as an asuric Hitler was about to conquer the world, most of Europe was invaded, but England stood alone as the rampart. Churchill was the instrument of this resistance to the Nazi menace and Sri Aurobindo himself, though he had fought the British for Indian independence, said that in an invisible and occult manner, he guided Churchill – and indeed eventually Hitler was defeated.

There are many in India who feel that Narendra Damodardas Modi, born on 17th September 1950, in Vadnagar, Gujarat, is the man chosen to guide Bharat to greatness and success in the 21st century. His four terms as Gujarat Chief Minister were exemplary : not only he was perceived as a strong national leader, efficient, non-corrupt, hard driving himself and his ministers, but he also made Gujarat a prosperous State, and whittled down all the bureaucratic hurdles, so that investment became easy. Thus Gujarat turned out to be the wealthiest State in India, where all the big companies wanted to invest. Mr Modi was also an ardent ecologist, and he introduced solar power, wind turbines, and a vast irrigation system thanks to the Naramada dam, which brought plentiful harvest to the farmers.

His campaigning for becoming the Prime Minister of India in 2014, also attracted worldwide attention: he was the first Indian leader to successfully use Social Media to propagate his image and his message; he tirelessly toured the whole of India, delivering fiery and passionate speeches, that called a spade a spade, and promised all the things that Hindus had been deprived of for decades, since Nehru and his family imposed their secular, socialist, and often anti-Hindu policies. He also side-lined those leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party that could be a competition to him: Lal, Krishna, Advani, and Murli Manohar Joshi (Atal Bihari Vajpayee was already very sick and in bed). But this was forgiven to him, because they were already of an advanced age, and had their chances in the previous BJP government, which lost power to the Congress in 2004. Therefore, the entire Hindu population of India, from the Dalits to the Brahmins, voted for Mr Modi and he was twice elected by a landslide.

Some of us who love India deeply and passionately, felt that he was indeed this instrument of the Hour Of God, because the land of Bharat needs so badly a politician of great vision leadership and strength: corruption still reigns supreme, poverty had not been eradicated; India is surrounded by enemies, the Chinese being the most dangerous of them; and Hindus, a marvellous people, holders of the last living spirituality on this Earth, have been undermined, made fun of, attacked and sometimes killed in the last seventy years. This is why an entire nation held its breath and waited for the Miracle Modi to happen.

This book examined whether – and in what measure he succeeded – and where we feel he faltered. It is therefore important to remember that Sri Aurobindo added: “In the hour of God, cleanse thy soul of all self-deceit and hypocrisy and vain self-flattering that thou mayst look straight into thy spirit and hear that which summons it. All insincerity of nature, once thy defence against the eye of the Master and the light of the ideal, becomes now a gap in thy armour and invites the blow. Even if thou conquer for the moment, it is the worse for thee, for the blow shall come afterwards and cast thee down in the midst of thy triumph”.

What is then the assessment of Mr Modi’s ten years in power, as he is about to enter his third mandate? Once again, there is absolutely no doubt that he is the BEST Prime Minister India ever had. He is non corrupt, very hard working, and his entire focus is the welfare and betterment of his country, Barath. His vision and actions speak for themselves: demonetization, Swacch Bharat, removal of Article 370, which was a must, cancellation of Talaq divorce, Ayodhya, G-20, putting India on the world’s map, ect… It is also not his fault that the people of India did not collaborate fully with him and that in terms of honesty, cleanliness, corruption, black money, indiscipline, they partly failed him.

What is worrying though – and it may be only a temporary phenomenal – is that Mr Modi’s rule, along with Amith Shah’s, is beginning to take an autocratic tone: everybody is afraid of saying anything against him – from his ministers to his spokespersons; from the Indian media, who used to speak so much against him, but now does not utter a single word of criticism, to the book editors, who do not publish anything critical of him.  We all have our faults and dark sides. Definitely, Mr Modi’s weakness is a bit of arrogance and ego. For instance, he does not forgive anybody who says anything against him once, even if they might have praised him to heaven for twenty five years (for example Rajiv Malhotra who gave his wealth and health to defend Hindutva). We also see that his media team, headed by Hiren Joshi, goes to extraordinary lengths to make Mr Modi a near god – for example having crowds throw on him millions of petal roses in Karnataka, or Kerala – but to no avail, as the BJP lost badly there. The spitefulness of Mr Modi does not stop to ordinary people, but also extends to Gurus: the great guru Asaram Bapu is still in jail, and we were shocked when Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Swami Ramdev, extraordinary spiritual masters, who have millions of disciples, were kept behind steel barriers during the Ayodhya inauguration, as if they were a security risk! As we have said earlier, Mr Modi has been cut off – both by the VVIP security apparatus, the farness of Delhi, and his own aloofness – from the Hindus, who have elected him and he often has no idea of what is really happening in his own country. We see at the moment that he is making a genuine effort to woo again his Hindu electorate – the latest being his beautiful underwater puja in Dwarka (though an RTI showed that no maritime exploration of the remains of Lord Krishna’s city have happened in the last 10 years, as no funds were allotted…

It is absolutely true that there is nobody else in sight that could match his greatness and vision. And therefore he needs to be re-elected for a third term, so that he can continue his fantastic work. Will he surrender power to Mr Yogi or Mr Gadkari, both very capable potential Prime Ministers, after one year or so, as some have hinted? We do not know. But power has its own momentum, and he may rightly feel that HE is the ONLY one capable of guiding India to the super power status she deserves. This is how dictatorships begin, often with good intentions. But in the light of Sri Aurobindo, it would be a great misappropriation of this Hour of God, granted to Mr Modi and Bharat, if he would embark upon this path of a One Man show: considerable misfortune may rain on India and the BJP could again lose power. Therefore, it is hoped, that he, a meditator, who practices Hatha Yoga, will, in the spirit of Bhagavad Gita, rekindle in himself the humility and the impersonality in works, that all Indian scriptures have preached forever.