The Time magazine which featured Narendra Modi on the cover with a controversial headline, now run an article that says no prime minister has united India in decades as he has done. The article titled 'Modi has united India like no other prime minister in decades' is written by Manoj Ladwa, founder and the chief executive of the India Inc Group, a London-based media organisation.
The article came just days after BJP secured a landslide victory in the country's general election, winning 303 seats in the 542-member Lok Sabha. Despite the strong and often unfair criticism levelled at Modi's policies both throughout his first term and his marathon election, no prime minister has united the Indian electorate as much in close to five decades”, Ladwa wrote.
Ladwa, who in 2014 had led the Research Analysis and Messaging division of the Narendra Modi for prime minister campaign, further wries that Modi won a massive mandate as he manged to transcend India's greatest fault lines: the class divide. The article published in the Time Ideas section, which the publication said “hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society and culture.”
“Having plugged some horrendous holes in India's notoriously inefficient and corrupt bureaucarcy in his first term, he will need to focus much more ruthlessly on reforming those institutions and make them fit for the coming decades. This will require him to remain the pragmatic politician he is, and continue to shun the temptations of populism as he sets out his march for a second term.”
While all achievements of the Modi's government are still “works-in-progress”, Ladwa said that its efforts have been recognised by virtually every single global institute of any standing, including the World Bank, the IMF, and the UN, and “Modi's India is finally progressing at a rate worthy of its size and potential. Modi may have been criticised for remaining silent during incidents of social unrest. But his work has been give the thumbs up at the ballot box by the Indian voters for directly addressing the root causes of some of India's divisions. For them, the Modi's dream of a New India remains very much intact.” Ladwa added.
In another article titled 'India's Economy Needs Tougher Reform. How will Modi Use His Election Mandate?' published on the TIME website. Alyssa Ayres, senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. writes that the “continuity of a second Modi term, then, suggests to some that a bold economic reform agenda may be what comes next.”
Ayres who served as US deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia from 2010 to 2013 under the Obama Administration, said due to his pro-business orientation and road-show pitches for investment, Modi has gained a reputation among US industry as someone with a reformist mindset.
“We may well see the new Modi government storm into its new term with a bang, tackling market access problems and liberalizing the economy further to boost economics growth.
“It could happen. But equally possible might be an approach that continues a focus on infrastructure. Sanitation and other development projects necessary for improved prosperity but not necessarily keys to unclocking greater bilateral trade and investment.” Ayres writes.
Bad for India’s soul: Guardian
The British paper Guardian in its comment saw Modi's victory as bad for India and the world. The Guardian says, “BJP is the political wing of Hindu nationalism, a movement that is changing India for the worse. Little wonder, as it stands for the flagrant social dominance of the upper castes of Hindu society, pro-corporate economic growth, cultural conservatism, intensified misogyny, and a firm grip on the instruments of state power. The landslide win for Modi will see India’s soul lost to a dark politics – one that views almost all 195 million Indian Muslims as second-class citizens.
“On the campaign trail Muslims were denigrated as “termites” by Modi’s right-hand man. Off it, they were lynched with apparent impunity. Despite their number, Muslims are political orphans, shunned by a political class fearful of losing support from the majority Hindu population. A divisive figure, Modi is undoubtedly a charismatic campaigner. Rather than transcend the faultlines of Indian society – religion, caste, region and language – Modi’s style is to throw them into sharp relief. He is a populist who speaks in the name of the people against the elite despite being a seasoned public figure. Modi deployed with terrible effect false claims and partisan facts.”
ys The Guardian view on Narendra Modi’s landslide: bad for India’s soul
The biggest election in history has just been won by one man: Narendra Modi. Mr Modi has become the first Indian prime minister since 1971 to secure a single-party majority twice in a row. In 2014 the Bharatiya Janata party won an absolute majority in the lower house of parliament for the first time in its history after the Congress party’s appeal vanished in a haze of corruption. Despite a spluttering economy five years later, Mr Modi seems certain to have expanded his parliamentary majority. This is bad news for India and the world.
The BJP is the political wing of Hindu nationalism, a movement that is changing India for the worse. Little wonder, as it stands for the flagrant social dominance of the upper castes of Hindu society, pro-corporate economic growth, cultural conservatism, intensified misogyny, and a firm grip on the instruments of state power. The landslide win for Mr Modi will see India’s soul lost to a dark politics – one that views almost all 195 million Indian Muslims as second-class citizens.
On the campaign trail Muslims were denigrated as “termites” by Mr Modi’s right-hand man. Off it, they were lynched with apparent impunity. Despite their number, Muslims are political orphans, shunned by a political class fearful of losing support from the majority Hindu population. Before the election Muslims held just 24 seats in parliament, about 4% of the total, and the fewest the community has held since 1967. This is likely to shrink further.
A divisive figure, Mr Modi is undoubtedly a charismatic campaigner. Rather than transcend the faultlines of Indian society – religion, caste, region and language – Mr Modi’s style is to throw them into sharp relief. He is a populist who speaks in the name of the people against the elite despite being a seasoned public figure. Mr Modi deployed with terrible effect false claims and partisan facts.
Perhaps we ought not to be surprised. Polling in 2017 revealed that support for autocratic rule by a “strong leader” was higher in India (55%) than in any other country, including Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The world does not need another national populist. Mr Modi has threatened independent India’s most precious facet: a functioning multi-party democracy. As the authors of a new book on Mr Modi’s politics – Majoritarian State – put it, “the BJP has made it clear that no other party should compete with it … reflect[ing] its views of competitors not as adversaries, but as enemies”. Mr Modi recklessly chose to raise the stakes with neighbouring Pakistan over Kashmir earlier this year. He took both countries close to war and pressed conflict into his service by ridiculously accusing the opposition of collusion with fundamentalist Islam.
The Congress party and the Nehru-Gandhi clan that leads it will have to seriously rethink how they can defeat Mr Modi. The BJP has been allowed to be funded anonymously to the tune of 10.3bn rupees (£120m) by big business after Mr Modi legitimised opacity in political donations. The party pays lip service to reducing the yawning inequalities that disfigure India, but political cleavages in India’s party system have grown along the lines of caste and religious conflict. This suits the BJP, with its pro-business and anti-Muslim nationalism. The opposition will need to be able to run a distinctive campaign on an egalitarian platform. To be fair, Congress did peddle, but without much vim, a form of universal basic income. Fights over symbolic aspects of identity need to be replaced by political competition over how to benefit all Indians. That will require an opposition in India far savvier and more in touch with the country’s poor than exists today.
• This article was amended on 31 May 2019. An earlier version said that before the election India’s parliament had the fewest number of Muslim MPs in the lower house since 1952. This should have said 1967, and has been corrected.
