Modi bashing is easier to do than having to courage to actually support the other choices the voter has before him.

What’s the easiest way for an intellectual to make national headlines? Utter the sentence, “I would not like to see Narendra Modi as Prime Minister,” or some variation thereof.

Noted Kannada writer UR Ananthamurthy has become the latest ‘liberal’ intellectual to join what is fast becoming a cottage industry. He is reported to have said at a function, “I would not want to live in a country where Modi is the prime minister.” Ananthamurthy is the third high profile left-liberal (the accurate description) intellectual in recent weeks, after Amartya Sen and Amitav Ghosh, who has come out in public to express strong opposition to Narendra Modi as a potential Prime Minister.

Of course, it is not at all unusual for intellectuals (who live in the free world) to express views on politics. But in most democracies such interventions tend to be more constructive. It is plain lazy and cynically publicity hunting, to target one individual without actually expressing any support for an alternative, either within Modi’s party or in another party. Because, ultimately, the voters of India have to choose their rulers between the available alternatives. They do not have the luxury, like Sen and Ghosh do, of residing mostly abroad, or indeed the option that Ananthamurthy has, of migrating overseas.

Ananthamurthy’s choice of role model Prime Ministers was curious. He singled out Jawaharlal Nehru, a safe bet, and PV Narasimha Rao, an odd choice. He praised both for being scholars, writers of books. In doing so he revealed the real reason for his opposition to Modi – the Gujarat Chief Minister is just not intellectual (in the bookish sense) enough. After all, if concern over communalism was the real reason of Ananthamurthy’s anti-Modi stance, how could it not apply to Narasimha Rao who, as Prime Minister, stood by in silence as the Babri Masjid was demolished?

Amartya Sen was wishy-washy in a different way. While he upbraided Modi, he refused to comment on Rahul Gandhi’s candidature (the obvious alternative for India) because he claimed he did not know enough about the young Gandhi scion. Sen should have had the courage of conviction to endorse an alternative to Modi, but endorsing anyone from Congress after five years of misgovernance would have been embarrassing. As a left-liberal Sen would also not want to be seen suggesting someone else from BJP, never mind if he cosied up to Vajpayee and Advani when the NDA was in government.

Amitav Ghosh was more convincing. He critiqued Hindu Nationalism as a political force and then pinpointed Narendra Modi as a flag-bearer of that kind of politics which he argued is a threat to the plurality and stability of India. But like most left-liberal intellectuals he chose to spare the Congress and other overtly secular parties like the SP for the part that they have played in furthering communal politics (Muzaffarnagar had burned just before Ghosh gave his interview).

Needless to say, he also gave no concession to Modi’s attempt at redefining himself over 11 years, not as a merchant of hate but as a merchant of hope (through good governance), the real reason behind Modi’s consistently rising popularity pan-India. Liberal intellectuals just don’t seem to want to recognise that not everyone who sees Prime Ministerial potential in Modi is either a Trishul-wielding fanatic or a khaki shorts-wearing fascist.

That is why the blunt pontifications of the left-liberal elite on Modi are lazy. They simply aren’t reaching out to the independent voter who is inclined to Modi, because he or she sees the alternatives as more corrupt, less able to govern and hardly secular.

If only Messers Sen, Ananthamurthy and Ghosh had more conviction. Tell us gentlemen in detail about the merits of other political parties and politicians. After all, in the West, those liberal intellectuals who opposed George W Bush put their weight behind Al Gore or John Kerry, those who opposed the war-mongering Tony Blair supported Gordon Brown. So why not endorse Congress, or CPI(M) or SP or Aam Aadmi Party or Manmohan Singh or Rahul Gandhi or even LK Advani rather than the soft option of “I don’t want Modi.”