Modi’s use of Trump-style MP puts reform at risk

NEW DELHI — “He is the Swamy of America,” said 76-year-old Indian lawmaker Subramanian Swamy, of Mr Donald Trump, in an interview at Bloomberg’s New Delhi office. “I came much earlier than him.”

Outspoken, nationalist and combative towards minorities including Muslims and gays, Mr Swamy, who formerly lectured at Harvard University, has long been a lightning rod for controversy in India. In 2011, Harvard cancelled lectures by Mr Swamy after he wrote a column that proposed removing hundreds of mosques from Hindu temple sites as part of efforts to fight Islamic terrorism.

Now Mr Swamy is back in the spotlight, adding a new risk for investors.

In April, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appointed Mr Swamy to the upper house of Parliament, giving him a national stage to trumpet corruption allegations against political opponents and push for rebuilding the Ram Temple — a flashpoint for deadly religious divisions that have defined politics in India since its independence in 1947.

Mr Swamy said the BJP asked him to find a way to get the opposition Congress party, which is controlled by the Gandhi family, to stop blocking reforms in Parliament. So he did what he does best: Go on the offensive.

“You have to attack them,” said Mr Swamy in the interview. “Then to silence you, they will cooperate.”

On the surface, it seemed to work. With two major legislative wins, including the overhaul of a colonial-era bankruptcy law, the parliamentary session that ended on May 13 was one of the most productive since Mr Modi took office.

Yet Mr Swamy’s rise in the BJP also adds uncertainty for investors. While he is not currently in a position to set policy, and many analysts view him as a colourful sideshow with no influence over Mr Modi’s reform agenda, Mr Swamy sees himself as a “moulder of public opinion” with an alternative vision for India.

He has already strayed into economic affairs with his push to oust central bank governor Raghuram Rajan, and in the interview he called for India to stop targeting inflation, abolish the income tax and shelve a proposed goods-and-services tax.

“Subramanian Swamy is not somebody who can be easily controlled,” said New Delhi-based political analyst Arati Jerath, who has written about Indian politics for about four decades. “He is a very good weapon for Modi, but Modi has to use him very carefully. If he is not careful, certainly it will backfire on him.”

Mr Swamy has never had permanent friends or enemies during a nearly five-decade career in politics. He has variably been both an enemy of the Gandhis and close enough to them to hold a Cabinet-rank portfolio in a Congress-ruled government in 1994.

Mr Swamy’s ties with the Hindu-dominant BJP have also wavered. While now he calls himself a “believer in a renaissance for Hinduism”, in the 1990s he helped take down former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s BJP-led government and called it “a party of semi-literates”.

Mr Swamy rejects any notion of duplicity. He has gained legions of Twitter followers in recent years while exposing graft in the granting of telecom licences and accusing Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and her son, Mr Rahul Gandhi, of a US$300 million (S$414 million) real-estate fraud involving a party-run newspaper. The pair have repeatedly denied wrongdoing, saying the cases are political.

“Tell me one thing I have said which is not consistent with party policy,” said Mr Swamy. “You think if the general feeling was against me I would be in Parliament today?

“I know the rule, I know law, I know economics, I know Parliament,” he added. “That’s an explosive combination.” bloomberg