S Gurumurthy On Modi's 'Mission South' Ahead Of Elections 2024 | NDTV Profit

namaskar welcome to NDTV today you are watching a very very special interview with Mr s gurum morti he needs no introduction but there are certain introduction you must keep in mind he is editor of the magazine iconic magazine TLA he's chairman and founder of Vive Anand International Foundation he's a chartered accountant by profession by his qualification and there was a time when if he picks up a balance sheet a corporate group would actually get very very nervous that those were the times he is a commentator of our times and one uh very interesting introduction not many people would recall he is an ex congressman and he has never joined any other party except congress party that was long back during kamraj days sir thank you for uh sparing time for us it is an honor to talk to you thank you sanay I'm happy you are here in Chennai and I'm meeting you after a long time long long time yes sir so we will talk about Chennai it becomes very important actually this becomes a real Battleground in the big Modi 3.0 plan why is he focusing so much on Tamil Nadu see Tamil Nadu uh actually participated uh in a very significant manner in the Freedom Movement the continuation of that was all Tamil Nadu Congress leaders were mostly national leaders they didn't focus on local politics that is what gave space to the DMK to capture power in 1967 and kamaraj became old and m Gandhi divided the Congress weakened the Congress and the Congress was virtually wiped out in 1971 afterwards the DMK split and the split in the DMK did not help the Congress it actually took away the Congress votes the faction led by mg ramachandran which was capable which emerged as capable defeating the DMK took away the Nationalist votes the anti- DMK votes and the Congress got weakened even further so the admk emerged as the main uh opponent of the DMK and it became a pseudo nationalist party and so the admk kept on winning and the DMK became weaker and weaker and weaker after mg ramachandran also the situation did not get repaired except for one election in 1989 when when the DMK split when the DMK split the uh kamaj that the Congress thought that this would be an opportunity to emerge which is which was an opportunity my friend Chamas Swami played a very significant role in that so J's faction of the admk got 21% vs jiki faction got 9% votes Congress got 20% votes this is a very significant ific percentage as compared to what it has been doing so far but the DMK which got 29% votes emerged as the winner more or less the similar situation is arising in Tamil Nadu today post Jita and karuna nidi both parties are Meandering they are they are not in a position to show the vibrancy which used to be there in both the parties and the admk was the the principal uh role Ro of admk was to oppose the DMK and the dmk's role was to redefine Tamil Nadu in the dadian way directly indirectly said amount of anti-nationalism anti-hindu anti-th anti Brahmin you know it had smuggled in these things into what is called the ran ideology all this karuna nidi could articulate very well that ended with karuna nidi and what is now happening is like you know many parties are run by families this also run by family so it has run its course is there a fatigue about dravidian politics yes yes why would you say so you see Tamil Nadu is perhaps in two ways in human resource terms it is probably the best state in the country and it is perhaps the most Hindu State most people do not know the religious roots of Tamil Nadu are so strong this was overshadowed by the uh uh dadian movement in 1960s and70s at that time the society had also turned some kind of non-believing society but the society has become completely a believing society and politics does not know how to handle a believing society and that's why the DMK is flabber GED so DMK is in a huge ideological confusion so this is the time that uh BJP entered here and there was also a provocation for that Narendra Modi is not a man who will take go back Modi slogan which emerged in 2018 and 19 so he decided these triggers help him actually correct you provoke Narendra Modi you are in trouble and he doesn't have a very two month three month or four month plan he has a decade old he has he thinks decades ahead so he decided to take on the Tamil platform and then he began quoting Tamil in United Nations in Us in Australia in Malaysia everywhere he went he to Tamil Nadu did not know how to handle this person and in Tamil Nadu he went about wearing DOI and Chinese Prime Minister President he was working in doti and uh this is something which the DMK could not understand so correct me if I'm wrong earlier BJP RSS conversation about Tamil Nadu as dadian politics put it uh about uh Hindu hu hinda Hindi language uh the Modi Le BJP is using a different narrative it is bringing Xi Jinping here uh getting single out and making a big commentary about it and then uh starting his first day about diha Temple from Tamil Nadu and talking about Antiquity of Tamil Nadu the language the history the mother of democracy was Tamil Nadu in first and second century so this north and south north versus south or north Dash South actually is a integration project for him see for Modi Tamil Nadu emerged as not a political challenge but as an intellectual and cultural challenge there was actually no cultural divide between Tamil Nadu and not that is where the DMK went wrong they tried to give political interpretation to small small differences between north and south and try to say South is different but the amount of integration that has taken place in the post Independence period in terms of people traveling apart from the cultural influences economic influence kind of for example the K uh people who have risen up as an economic Force you know 60 80% of the GDP is generated in the kungu region by six districts and they do financing all over India and they do uh uh they do the lry business all over the I mean they have become National and as well as they have gone to Africa and things like that they have become an International Community they are a very powerful community so the economic integration that has taken place and the educational institutions which have brought about this kind of this this is completely beyond the compation of the DMK to integrate it into their separatist politics so Narendra Modi saw all this and then he brought in the Kashi Tamil link and now he has emerged as a person against whom not a word can be said in Tamil Nadu as someone who is not from Tamil Nadu and he is also in a sense dadian you know the the dadian states include from Gujarat downwards all the states down from vindas are called ddas so he's also part of the dvan stock so now he emerged as as a challenge so is that the reason when he was Gujarat chief minister he was interacting with J Lita very regularly you see J Lita and uh uh Modi struck CAU because she was basically a cultural Hindu and so when she decided to support the shanas program in 1990 this is a very very major development from tamilar dadian chief minister supporting shanas of the BJP which no party which touch with the barge pole then he identified that there is something deeper in her began relating to her and that's why when Modi became chief minister she was perhaps the only chief minister to attend that program because he was not a very welcomed chief minister in Gujarat at that time so they struck C to that extent there is a connection between the admk mind and mod so there has been a Confluence taking place between the BJP and the admk and the admk is a Hindu DMK so that also helps I really want to talk a lot about this election but I think I will save it for later uh let's uh focus on some big picture ideas which is why this election is very important at Global level it is just not one more election and the kind of future Mr Modi is crafting there is debate about how Democratic he is so let's begin from this part because we saw congress party you worked during emergency as underground activist and now uh we hear this less democracy more democracy versus unstable government you have written about it so I want you to capture your thoughts on that you see the idea of uh people do not know what was emergency I have experienced emergency I was underground in fact I could not attend my father sh because I was underground I could not eat in my house so that is the kind of uh situation that prevailed it was pitch dark everywhere so to say that there is some Undeclared emergency no it means so how illiterate these people are about emergency emergency is a constitutional clamp down on All rights it is not that a strong leader takes a strong position you call him an autocrat an autocrat can emerge only when the Constitution itself certifies that autocracy that's what happened during the emergency such a situation can never arise in this country because the J party amended the Constitution to say unless there is armed Rebellion anywhere you cannot declare emergency and even then you can declare emergency only in the region in which the armed Rebellion takes place previously there is a disturbance if there was a Law and Order situation there is a massive riot you could declare emergency all over the country so that has been completely snuffed out that situation doesn't Arise at all for some people to say today that there is an emergency the emergency like situation it means coughing at the Constitution scoffing at uh the Parliament and even demeaning the Supreme Court which is supposed to be protecting the constitutional rights of the people and so this is a a kind of debate in which only illiterates can take part all that I can say is that there is uh less democracy in India is foolish there are five 5,500 cases under the pmla Act only less than 50 cases have been filed against politicians only politicians come and Shout before you all other people who have been caught who are running away they are not before you these are the people and money have been caught 350 cres 200 cres 150 crores and all these monies have been caught from who and they are the people who are coming and saying that there is no democracy and there is so much of autocracy I think you know this hiding behind the idea of democracy to escape pmla is not a debate on Democracy Now if you want to know what is happening at the global level the transition of India I can tell you you see you have to go back to 1989 in which I am a party to in a way to bring instability in this country by defeating Rajiv Gandhi on the issue ofers after first in the next 10 years till 1998 we had seven Prime Ministers some lost her for months some lost her for days this is what did India down and afterwards we had coalitions but not as sufficient as one would expect the government of India to be which resulted in the fobes magazine writing an article why China flew and India only grew they held Indian democracy responsible for that they said because of democracy in India it took 60 years to to construct the uh NADA Dam but the the gorgeous Dam which sank some 23 cities 172 towns and some 1,200 Villages and 1.2 million people they constructed in 10 years your NADA Dam affected no City no Town 123 Villages and just about a lck of people that took 60 years they said this country can never develop because of democracy but Narendra Modi different because in this very democracy he had seen Gujarat lifting and growing and becoming a prominent and a global level prominence Gujarat had attained this very democracy so he must be laughing within himself he he knew that it was political instability that caed India and so when he brought stable government in 2014 by appealing to the people he addressed 780 rallies when I met him after uh he became prime minister he told me Guru one leg did not work I had to stand on one leg to address 700 rallies that is the effort he put in got the Mandate and transformed the country and he was an Untouchable to the world every country denied visa to him he said I will never apply for Visa they came and gave the Visa and today what is the position a man who was declared as a mini Hitler Italian Prime Minister calls him as the most loved leader and B and called Melody Mel so uh uh Biden says that I feel like taking your autograph and Australian prime minister calls him a boss you see the shift the shift is because of India's rise as well as modi's capability to transform India and himself and to convince the world who was seen as a mini Hitler as a person who can emerge as a leader of that kind you know what kind of capacity tenacity and what kind of effort he must have put in so he transformed himself and transformed India two decisions which he took that India will produce uh vaccine everybody laughed we all laugh we always see who produces the vaccine and who will export it to us and we suffer all the diseases and then get the vaccine but he said I will produce the vaccine and he produced not one but two and he vaccinated 110 CR people and in America for uh 1.2 million people died and for in America uh the number of people affected if it is translated in population ratio death per 100 was much much higher than if the American Casualty and American infection is translated in terms of population India must have had infection of 45 CR people and death of 4.5 CR people he saved us otherwise we would never have got vaccine at all no country could have produced the kind of vaccine we needed second is his decision on on Ukraine he didn't have 10 days to decide he didn't have 10 hours to decide he had maybe couple of hours to decide and he he took a decision to remain neutral which means supporting Russia which is the biggest affront you could have caused to the United States and what he did he didn't mean it only is a political action he knew that Ukraine war means oil will hit $200 he decided to buy oil from Russia in rupe terms it not only brought down the very oil threat which could have damaged the global economy and the Indian economy and smashed Indian economy out of existence after the we got l in both hands his sture increased America indirectly threatened sanctions against India we kept quiet now America needs India we have friendship with America because you know the liberal democracies constitute only 13% of world's population without adding India's 18% they me they are nothing so they want India that is why G7 nations are giving special place to Indian participation so they need India and Russia is a friend of India so the four of America is a friend of India and America cannot give up India they make their statements against us has no meaning today so what I'm saying is India has emerged as a player as the only player who can probably avoid a cold war in future so when you are electing a government this time a leader this time you are not electing a leader for India you are electing a global leader on the Indian soil this is a major shift this has never happened in the history of India n was a leader in his times because of the global effect but the kind of difficulties the impediments the opposition the uh kind of uh calumny Narendra Modi overcame to emerge in this situation this requires a historic study very very interesting So currently many of us are grappling that how do we Define ourselves uh what is the ideological Mings of uh Indians and some very ordinary observations I want to make globalization is a broken project people say democracy is in recession and some strong leaders oblique autocrats have immersed so basically the Western world view is actually on recession and those societies and countries who had very strong cultural identity are rediscovering themselves that is why some of us uh middle pathas and the Liberals are grappling and not understanding this new change going back to the roots to create a Modern Nation you see uh in fact you have to understand the shift in the world not only in the western world because we always understand the Western world through world through the Western World you know in 1965 what happened and between 65 and 74 what happened in China destroy all the past cultural revolution they destroyed every image every book of confucious now in 2021 Xi Jinping in the 100th year of the Communist Party celebrations he said 5,000 year culture of China will not only guide us today it will guide us in future also how did Communism produce culture or how did confucious emerge out of Communism this is the shift in the world and the you know they are all top down countries India is the only country which is a bottom upwards country this is what Mahatma Gandhi showed the top down Congress did not work when he came he went to the Ordinary People mobilized the masses made them participate in the freedom movement that was the most democratic Freedom Movement so in India the ramjan Bui movement developed to to bring out the corrupt Corruptions and the distortions the West Le political cultural secular thoughts have introduced into this country and the slow shift of the country was seeded I was part of the process at the time you know it in 1980s we were all very much part of the seeding of the ramjan Bui movement as the only thing which can U-turn India and if you see all the political changes that took place the redefining of the idea of India you use the word ideology India has had never an ideology ideology means there is an enemy India is the only country which did not have an ideological enemy Hinduism is the only religion which is not does not have a theologically declared enemy we have only a philosophy so we have understood the philosophy of India it's an inclusive philosophy can you ever see so many Christians Muslims so many people with differing faiths we have we have at one point we had more Gods than the number of people in this country we could coexist only because of philosophy ideology means we have killed each other so that identity is coming back though the recovery of that Identity or the reinstatement of it is being projected as uh some kind of hostile development that has not clicked it happened in '90s it has not happened in 2019 I think Narendra Modi has despite the fact that he's being caricatured like this he has struck C with the ordinary people that he has no enemy you may say I am home so and so enemy you may even convince people but I don't think that is clicking so the idea of India consistent with the philosophy of India for thousands of years he's now slowly sipping in that is what happening in Tamil Nadu also very interesting so coming back to Tamil Nadu there is one more component to the whole thing which is cast the BJP which was seen as brahin Bania party is at National level working to become an OBC party in Tamil Nadu this cast factor is very very important and it seems that Mr Modi LED BJP has figured this out and they are coming up with a new social uh Coalition in Tamil Nadu will you describe this in bit bit bit detail you see cast is not just a social institution many people misunderstand it it is a cultural institution and in sense every cast is a religion in itself it has a god it has a way of life it has it own way of celebrating marriage it has its own literature it has its own Matas it has it own madis people do not know this the BJP through the ramjan Bui movement later the SLE it figured out that cast is not just a social institution to be politically used it is not just a social institution to be set up against one another that there is a larger identity which is partly spiritual and partly religious and partly cultural this can be a a kind of a coalition of costs at that level that has been ignored by the DMK DMK fought against it DMK not only fought against it wanted to destroy it it wanted to keep the cost separate from its cultural roots that is where the costs are now alienated getting alienated from the the culture free dvan ideology so the costs are now beginning to go back to the roots and that is what Narendra Modi is doing for example the dendra K movement which is a scheduled cast and they said we are not they are being distributed in seven eight names they said no we are dendra we want our name so they went an appeal to Modi he said you are dendra I am Narendra I will get your name Chang he amended the Constitution changed the name that Community feels proud their economic status is different their uh they are not scheduled cast in that sense they said we are not scheduled cast you know what is the next demand we don't want to be part of the schedu cast They want to come out of it this is what cultural Pride can do this Modi is figuring out so he is now introducing a new way of approaching to Nadu politics which has completely made the dadian approach outdated that's where the BJP is rising today so now coming back to Tamil Nadu the biggest curiosity everyone has that with so much effort what will electorally BJP gain in this loab election you see my feeling is as I told you I am recalling the 19 uh 89 Assembly Election where the DMK won and the DMK lost the DMK will lose all elections afterwards was certified by 1989 election because all other parties put together got some 60% votes the DMK got only 28% votes the DMK won that election because the other parties votes got divided almost the same situation is coming today because the DMK has lost its team in the last 2 three years and uh I wouldn't call it an anti-establishment wave that is a huge anti-establishment sentiment it is not able to overcome it because it doesn't have a the capability which we used to see in karuni the same way we don't have the capability which we used to see in J but Narendra Modi has emerged as some kind of a person who is as much local as he looks as he deals with as he speaks and at the same time National and Global so he connects a series of uh uh social and intellectual strata of Tamil Society so there is a new uh appreciation of the BJP if the BJP gets 15 to 20% votes this time the 1998 where election where the Congress got 20% votes which it lost later because it had to enter into alliances and compromise itself and reduce the Tamil Nadu congress party to zero that situation the BJP was in between 1996 and 20 2014 and it gradually was getting out of it and now thanks to adk's decision to move out of the DMK it is a gift to BJP by the admk to realize its own strength that's where I think principally the two personalities played a great role Modi at the national level and anamal at the local level this is been a deadly combination true I think if they are able to post this kind of uh voting I don't know about the number of seats they may say they get three seats some four seat but one thing the has made an analysis maybe three or four seats the BJP may be in the league but you know they they distribute lot of money and all that last minute what change will take place we don't know but there are seven seats in which the BJP is number two that means in 10 seats the BJP is either number one or number two in 13 seats according to the BJP is number three in no seat the BJP is getting less than 10 11% votes if the BJP posts this kind of electoral performance irrespective of the number of seats it has brought about a turn in Tamil politics absolutely so another survey by csds that projects that in this election uh in South India BJP May touch a vot share 25% that means Tamil Nadu will be the biggest contributor and Kerala also and karnatka you already have a sizable presence there so it may not get you seats this time BJP may not get many seats maybe three maybe four maybe five whatever but vot share will significantly increase in double double digit no that indicates the trend you know till now there is no break there was no critical mass of uh a party emerging apart from the admk and the DMK this critical mass once the BJP gets in 2026 election the BJP will play probably the principal role in politics and for which Narendra modi's long-term strategy the provocation that Modi go back and he's installing anomal as the person and the relative decline of both the DMK and the admk and the admk decision to dissociate from him because of the Karnataka defeat not visualizing that the BJP will win in the three northern states all this culminated to put the BJP in the diversity in tamad politics absolutely and Tamil Nadu has one more unique feature which is uh Tamil Nadu voter they people they crave for the larger than life Persona so post MGR Jita karuna nidi there is a void so at larger level Mr Modi and at incubation level Anam Malai is a great combination correct another also Tamil Nadu education wise in terms of its connectivity all over India and its role at the global level many Tamil people are leading uh multinational corporations absolutely and they are all educated in ordinary schools here you know this is the internal brand of Tamil Nadu which is working which will not be visible to theologist but but that is a global presence there a global presence and last but not the least the woman power of 2016 onwards uh Women Voters are outnumbering men voters in this uh election and Modi has a special appeal for women I don't know how uh the personality of Modi and the personality of women are two different things but he has been able to culturally appeal to them economically make them important and gives them a role in every one of the schemes which he has devised you know in all this he has put a lot of efforts and that has connected him to women in a manner in which no leader after so Indira Gandhi had been able to uh sir very fascinating conversation with you on behalf of our a audience says I want to make a public appeal to you that once a month we must talk yes and I have a lot to tell you about what happened between 1975 and how the Indian potic shifted stage by stage by stage to today's stage where India occupies a principal place in the global Arena and this is not known or it is not being discussed in the discourse in India because of our concerns with the day-to-day things and TV has contributed no less to the fact that it is interesting the hourly development yeah and we are we have become such such short-termist in approach we don't connect to the past and we cannot get to the Future you are so right sir so we should actually do a conversation a series of conversation because you have been um in this whole last four decades uh you have been part of uh historical twist and turning points of this country in politics Society culture and journalism now so we must talk about it you know why it is because they refused to get into politics when I was asked to become a rajasa member in 1992 it is the Ki mahaswami who told me not to get into politics so that made me relevant in politics even today otherwise after rajas SAA team was was over nobody would have cared for me so maybe it is my guru's advice which has kept me relevant even today I know and you won't like this but many people say that without any seat of power you are one of the most powerful person in India you know in 1990 G magazine rated me as one of the most 50 powerful persons in India and in 2018 50 most powerful persons were listed in the India today in which my name figured but I don't think in 1990 who were there except me anyone else was there so this why if you occupy power your influence goes with power if you don't occupy power maybe you will influence loss it it flushes and thrives and it is 2024 thank you so much for your time sir thank you Sanjay lovely to have met you after a long time thank you so much sir [Music]

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Id: OhO-sxEjimA

Length: 33min 41sec (2021 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 16 2024