Here is the winning entry for the NDTV organized ‘Big Blow to Modi’ contest sent by an intellectual. This entry was selected unanimously by NDTV’s panel of judges because the theme wades into uncharted territory. The theme is that Narendra Modi’s success in life is purely because of dumb luck and fortuitous circumstances:

Maybe, one can give Narendra Modi the benefit of doubt and agree that he became the CM of Gujarat on 7th October 2001 by his hard work and abilities. However, his success after this date is based purely on luck.

When he replaced Keshubhai Patel as the CM of Gujarat, the BJP was in a sharp decline in the state, the only state where it has a legislative majority of its own. After taking over as Chief Minister, he managed to win a by-election by a very small margin. The Congress was in a comeback mode and assembly elections were just about a year away. Very few people in the country had heard of Modi.

In February 2002, a mob burnt a compartment of a train carrying pilgrims which was followed by unfortunate communal violence in Gujarat. The media and political parties used these happenings to make Narendra Modi a household name across the country. The media went after him so savagely that a disunited BJP and other right wing outfits united behind him and people voted overwhelmingly for him, giving him a two-thirds majority. Further the media etched his Hindutva image so firmly in stone that he could get away with demolishing illegal temples and taking on other RSS inspired outfits like the Bhartiya Kisan Sangh and still be considered the poster boy of Hindutva. Who is lucky enough to demolish illegal temples, get criticized by, Pravin Togadia of all people, for being anti-Hindu, and still be considered the poster boy of Hindutva?

Tarun Gogai has been the CM of Assam continuously since May 2001, a time longer than Modi has been the CM of Gujarat. Further he was a six term Member of Parliament prior to becoming the CM of Assam. Like Gujarat, Assam is a border state and unlike Gujarat it borders more than one country. And communal violence took place in Assam under Tarun Gogai’s tenure. And Assam, unlike Gujarat, is famous for tea. However, the media refused to give Tarun Gogai his share of fame and focussed on making Narendra Modi a household name.

Even Naveen Patnaik has been the CM of Odisha since 2000, a tenure longer than Modi and Odisha also has its share of communal violence. However, the media refused to give Naveen Patnaik his moment of fame.

Shivaraj Singh Chouhan, Raman Singh and Naveen Patnaik have worked in developing underdeveloped states but the media continues to ignore their achievements.

Tata Motors could have setup the Nano plant straight away in Gujarat. But no, first Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Mamata Banerjee had to come together and mess up the Nano plant in West Bengal and help it relocate it to Gujarat, thereby giving Modi free publicity. The reformist Prime Minister had to let the economy drift to such an extent that industrialists started clamouring for Modi. The media also gave Modi his corporate friendly image; by calling Gujarat a Hindutva laboratory, the media made Modi look like the CEO of a pharmaceutical company.

Pramod Mahajan’s ill-conceived ‘India shining’ campaign cost NDA the 2004 elections and later Vajpayee retired from active politics. Advani could have become PM in 2009 but a string of events like YSR’s manipulation of Telangana and Raj Thackeray’s impacting the NDA prospects in Maharashtra spoiled Advani’s chances of becoming PM. This reduced Modi’s competition and at the same time gave the UPA ten long years to work hard to improve Modi fortunes. Dr Manmohan Singh improved Modi’s luck with his silence and Robert Vadra with his business acumen.

But despite all this, Modi was just the CM of a state and his becoming a PM candidate was too far-fetched. But Justice Katju jumped in with his opinion on why he did not want Narendra Modi to become the PM of India, thereby kickstarting a national debate on his candidacy to the chagrin of senior BJP leaders. This was followed by other intellectuals voicing their opinion on why Modi would make a bad PM choice. The poor BJP leaders were forced to defend Modi’s candidature rather than debate their own candidature. To quote from Shakespeare, Modi was neither born great nor achieved greatness but Justice Katju and others thrust greatness upon him. This must be the first time in the history of the world that intellectuals started arguing on why they did not want a person to become the prime minister even before his own party had made up its mind on his candidature. Influenced by this noise, Nitish Kumar snapped the alliance with the BJP, giving the inevitability of Modi’s PM candidature as the reason. Many other leaders started posturing that they would not let Modi become PM. Britain as well as the European Union first boycotted him for years and then scampered to end the boycott, making Modi’ candidature look inevitable. All this pushed the other BJP leaders into a corner and they feebly had to give in to naming Modi as the PM candidate.

Various CMs of India occasionally visit The United States of America and hardly anyone notices. However, if the US had granted Modi a visa, he would have been just another Indian chief minister addressing a group in America. So the US rejected his visa. It was more newsworthy and dramatic for Modi to address NRIs in America via video conferencing. And America had to occasionally keep harping “Modi welcome to apply for a visa and await a review like any other applicant” to keep him in the news. And finally the US had to reach out to him on his own terms and US ambassador Nancy Powell visited him in Gandhinagar. This late scampering by foreign powers just helped fuel the Modi wave without any effort from Modi.

All these entities were guilty of first delivering a “Big Blow to Modi” and making him famous and then doing a “Big Bow to Modi”, thereby propelling the Modi wave.

To use stock market terms, a large part of the so called Modi wave is nothing but a short squeeze caused by the stampeding herd of investors as they rush to cover the short position they have held on Narendra Modi for more than a decade.

Even Meghnad Desai, an Indian-born British economist and Labour party politician who refused to set foot in Gujarat even to meet his own brother as long as Modi was the CM, finally decided to bury the hatchet and met Modi; probably to avoid self-exiling himself from India.

The terrorists tried to disrupt his rally in Patna but bungled it and instead gave him a chance to demonstrate his character in the face of crisis. And by sheer coincidence, they had to do it on a day home minister Shinde had to attend the music launch of Rajjo.

Assembly elections were held in four states and BJP comfortably won three of them. Shivaraj Singh Chouhan defended Madhya Pradesh and Raman Singh defended Chhattisgarh because of their good performance but Modi got the credit.

To Modi’s good luck, the BJP emerged as the single largest party in Delhi. But again, to his good luck BJP could not form the government and thereby was saved from the prospect of facing an aggressive AAP in the Assembly. This caused Delhi to have an AAP government supported by the Congress, fueling the Modi wave. This also triggered 49 days of non-stop high decibel theatrics which gave Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Raman Singh and Vasundhara Raje sufficient time and solitude to settle down and start governance away from the media glare and retain the momentum of the Modi wave.

And look at his luck: Politicians like Ram Vilas Paswan, who refused to join Vajpayee in 2004 and Advani in 2009 because of Modi, are willing to join Modi in 2014 because of Modi. And Gujarat based leaders like Keshubhai Patel and Gordhan Zadafia who refused to support Advani in 2009 because of Modi are now supporting Modi because of Modi.

Modi does not have to sit on a dharna or order his party workers to attack toll plazas to get publicity. Others do this for him.

Even at this stage Modi is just a political party’s PM candidate. But the high decibel campaign of the intellectuals and the Prime Minister’s silence has had such an impact that some people have started mistaking Modi for the PM rather than the PM candidate and started questioning him about everything from economic policies to fiscal deficit to gas pricing.

With all this evidence, one can sum up that Modi’s success is purely based on luck and nothing else.