“Where are you from?” queried our middle-aged, burly Turkish cabbie after finally agreeing to ferry us to our hotel in central Vienna from the station after considerable protestations calculated to hike up his (off-meter) fare, reminiscent of what happens back home. “India,” said my husband and I together, wondering what was coming next. Raj Kapoor? Shah Rukh Khan? We were both surprised at his reply. “Aah, India!” he exclaimed. “Moody! Your friend? Moody?”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been to Austria just two months prior to our little trip, but we were surprised a Turkish cab driver had been interested enough to note the visit given that underplaying political events seem to be a leitmotif in that country. After all, we arrived in the city with just a week to go for the national elections and yet there was hardly any evidence of it: just the odd poster, that too none relating to the party that finally got the most votes!
With the far-right (correctly) predicted to win in Austria, we were not too sure what the cabbie’s next comment would be. We were surprised again. “Moody,” he said, with a reflective pause after enunciating the name, “is…businessman.” Seeing our quizzical expressions he laughed and continued, “Moody, he talk to everyone. He talk to Ukraine, he talk to Russia, he talk to Israel, he talk to the Emirati. And he always do business for India! Moody is businessman!”
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar could not have explained India’s foreign policy mantra more succinctly. It also proved that the popular perception of “Moody” may be very different from the slanted narratives that play out in mainstream media and the internet. A Turkish cabbie is probably not a typical reader of Hindenburg’s reports and nor does he tune into secularist doomsayers on social media. Maybe that’s why he was more perspicacious.
India’s firm stance of putting national interests over European preoccupations has percolated into sections that many media (mostly western) have not bothered to consider. And there is admiration—not grudging either, in the case of our Turkish cabbie, at least—for Modi’s pragmatism, which does not come counter-balanced by gratuitous concern for the state of various “freedoms” in India. For Indians like me, it was a refreshing change from Bollywood references.
In Hungary too — one of the so-called “bad boys of Europe/NATO/EU” — there is regard for Modi’s emphatic ‘India First’ mantra. It is not surprising that Prime Minister Viktor Orban is similarly derided by the same people who love to hate Modi. Indeed, irate Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have described Orban’s 14 years in power as a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy”, a phrase that India’s Congress Party may borrow one of these days.
The term ‘illiberal democracy” — gleefully accepted by Orban, much to the chagrin of conscience keepers who have forgotten what Communism did — has gained currency in Europe, and the successful coup against Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh this year must have emboldened elements everywhere to get more “acceptable” faces installed, somehow. The meteoric rise of a younger right wing politician, Peter Magyar, now an MEP, will be watched closely by all.
Meanwhile, Austria voted the day after we left Vienna. The “Far Right” Freedom Party (FPO) emerged as the single largest party with its best ever performance but fell short of a majority with a little over 29 per cent of the votes. However, all the other parties, including the ruling Austrian People’s Party (OVP)-Green alliance were in the same boat. Moreover, none are willing to join FPO in a coalition. It seems to be an uncanny replay of France’s results earlier this year.
Many Indians would have a sense of déjà vu about this, particularly the Prime Minister who has led the “Right Wing Hindu Nationalist” (the western media’s favourite prefix) Bharatiya Janata Party to forming its third successive national government — also this year as it happens. Though FPO has allied earlier with the outgoing OVP, it has never led the coalition. And its “political pariah” status has unmistakeable similarities with the predicament of pre-1998 BJP.
The question is whether the abrasive FPO supremo Herbert Kickl can morph into a consensus-building Atal Behari Vajpayee, who pulled BJP out of the isolation of 1996’s “13-day government” into the first National Democratic Alliance era of 1998-2004. On the face of it, he does not have Vajpayee’s charm or political smarts. Moreover, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen, a former leader of the Greens, is not fond of Kickl either—and the feeling is mutual.
The uneasy National Front-type solution (which India weathered from 1989 to 1991 and then again from 1996 to 1998) reportedly being pushed by the Austrian President urging all other parties to cobble together a coalition, portends an eventual public longing for a decisive government and leader. The strains of post-poll tie-ups only hasten this process. The fall in the Green Party vote and the stark upswing in that of FPO in 2024 indicates that such feelings are rising.
The OVP, which has been in power with a succession of different allies since 1945, has evolved but describes itself as “Liberal Conservative”. Karl Nehammer, its 52-year-old current leader who has been Austrian Chancellor since 2022 is no softie, but with migration the most emotive topic in Europe, FPO’s Kickl appears to have struck more of a chord with the people, especially with his use of the word “remigration”. Will they bury the hatchet and put “Austria First”?
Unfortunately, we did not get a Turkish cabbie on our way to Vienna’s airport to ascertain what that community thinks of that prospect. After all, the FPO plus OVP voteshare means over 55 per cent of Austria has veered to the Right. The OVP has so far refused to ally with FPO if Kickl remains its PM candidate. But that sort of exclusionism is usually counter-productive too, as the BJP’s rise from to power and forming three successive governments since 2014 proves.
The Turkish cabbie’s smiling endorsement of “Moody the Businessman” who talks to everyone to further the interests of India should show Austria’s Right wing leaders the way forward. If the people’s economic situation improves by their leaders “doing business” for the nation, their political inclinations or differences become secondary. No matter how much sections of national media and social media try to skew the narrative to the contrary!
The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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