As I was reading one of Gujarat’s news journals, with Modi on the front cover of course, I nearly burst out laughing.  The author of the article referred to Modi as Lord Voldemort, the evil villain of the Harry Potter series.  And suddenly, without even reading further into why he made this reference, it all clicked.

Lord Voldemort envisioned a world where only wizards and witches lived and dark magic ruled their lives.  For him, Muggles (humans) only got in the way and the world would be a much better place without these people who understood nothing about what it meant to be a wizard or witch or the pride of their rich history.  In this sense, Modi is comparable because he envisions Muslims as terrorists and as people who don’t belong in his world because they don’t understand what it truly means to be a Hindu.  Therefore, he envisions a nation or perhaps even world with only Hindus.

Then, Lord Voldemort does not like Mudbloods (Wizards/Witches who procreated with humans to make half babies).  He believes this Mudbloods are not true wizards/witches and, again, do not understand what it means to truly be a member of this elite and prestigious part of the world.  And he envisions that these Mudbloods be wiped out as well, in order to secure a world of just wizards and witches.  Modi does not like anyone who defends the Muslims, like the Christians or Hindus who mix with Muslims.  He perceives people who do as the enemy and as a threat to the legacy he is trying to develop.  In order to continue his position of power and to secure a unified nation of Hindus, he must target those who defend anything besides Hinduism.

In order to stop Lord Voldemort, Harry Potter must go through a series of challenges and destroy the 7 parts (Horcruxes) of the dark lord in order to defeat him entirely.  In other words, there was a process that Harry had to go through in order to destroy Voldemort or else he would continue to attempt his dream of a world with nothing but wizards and witches.  For Modi, there is no easy solution, either.  There must be a process in order to hinder a man obsessed with Hinduism and using fundamentalists to get his message across and mobilize the mass, as Voldemort did with his posse of Death Eaters who would carry out this plan. Because Modi has his claws in many parts of Gujarat, there must not only be multiple people/organizations going against him, but there will also be many phases to stop his actions.

Gujarat needs a Harry Potter; or many Harry Potters, for that matter.  It needs people who have no personal or selfish agenda, people who aren’t afraid to be heard and to speak out against evil and atrocities that are being committed, and people who are willing to fight till death for the greater good.  If the “defender of the faith” does not have enough Harry Potters to stop him, then eventually the envision of a unified and assimilated Gujarat will become reality.