Narendra Modi has changed the face of Indian poli- tics. Emerging from the wings as Gujarat chief minis- ter, he stormed his way to Delhi in the general election of 2014. He sensed the mood for change in the coun- try and struck a deep and abiding chord with his mes- sage of development and root and branch economic reform. He strategized his vision through the superb organizational skills of his point man Amit Shah. He adjusted his goals to realistic timelines, and with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s resounding victories in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarkhand, together with the BJP lead- ership’s quickness off the mark and sure footedness, they successfully cobbled coalition governments in Goa and Manipur. The BJP and Prime Minister Modi stand at the pinnacle of their political authority and influence. At the present time they have no second. The ride to the top has been anything but easy. Mr Modi was tarnished at home and abroad by the Gujarat riots. Governments in the West preferred, ini- tially, to shun him, before the second thoughts of American and British leaders, reading the runes, decided to open their doors to a dialogue. The warm welcome Mr Modi received on his visits to London and Washington, where he was invited to address Parliament and the Joint Houses of Congress tell of a swift and remarkable turnaround; he recognized early the importance of the Indian diaspora and their out- standing achievements, reaching out to them to har- ness their considerable talents to the service of India and the Indian people. 

Mr Modi’s outreach has been integral to his overall achievements as an international statesman. The climb from adversity to the sunlt uplands has been nothing short of spectacular. 

Like all outstanding leaders, Mr Modi chose his team shrewdly, ruthlessly, sidelining the BJP old guard long accustomed to power with nothing really to offer the country in the way of programmes, hoping only that their names and faces would carry them through. This was not to be. Many of their number retired to sulk and nurse well worn grievances to no effect; having been reduced to irrelevance. They are mostly an ageing lot, so time is not on their side.

Having humbled his political opponents, Mr Modi has surely cleared the ground of old obstacles that have impeded progress in unshackling the economy from wasteful and opportunist populism. The imple- mentation of infrastructure projects by States are being carried forward with renewed urgency. Well considered schemes that promise lasting economic and social benefits for society at large are bearing fruit. Ambitious legislation such as the General Services Tax (GST) designed to abolish inter-State duties and taxes and replaced it with a single, overar- ching system is ready for implementation. Once it comes through India will emerge as a unified market, drawing the final curtain on the cumbersome system of multiple markets that have impeded investment, both foreign and domestic. Despite the present effi- cient system, India attracted foreign investment in 2015 worth $63 billion, larger than those of China and the United States. With GST in place this figure is to rise exponentially.

Mr Modis’s message has also been pitched to an aspiration of a more wholesome life. A new genera- tion is driven by fresh possibilities of success; they wish to live better, to be better educated and achieve the sort of prosperity beyond the dreams of their par- ents and elders. Having embraced the future, they live in hope. Mr Modi incarnates its fulfillment, as he pre- sides over India’s transformational rebirth into a new age fit for purpose.

Congress twilight road to oblivion 

No person who values the health of Indian democra- cy would wish the Congress party ill. It has richest, the most glorious history of any political formation in contemporary India. Founded in December 1885 in Bombay, it came to embody the voice of liberal nationalism. It was an inclusive body, a broad church, if you like, that took India through its vicis- situdes and despairing setbacks to the sunlit uplands of freedom. Mahatma Gandhi once remarked that without Congress he would be nothing. Almost every figure in the gallery of the great and good came from within the ranks of the Indian National Congress. This included a number of remarkable Britons, fore- most among them, Allan Octavian Hume, William Wedderburn and Annie Besant, all of fertilized and enriched with the Indian experience.

But dwelling incessantly on the past is no service to the party’s current dysfunctional malaise. Its slow descent into twilight and possible oblivion is no rea- son to rejoice, more an occasion to weep in silence. What hope can there be of a healthy functioning two-party system at the centre to keep Indian democracy robust, alive and well?

The Congress performances in Uttar Pradesh and Uttakhand Assembly elections were abysmal. Punjab was a triumph of sorts, owing largely to the doughty Captain Amerinder Singh, the party’s regional head. Rahul Gandhi’s contribution was to keep away from the fray. Punjab, a critical, strategically-located State, has been ruined economically and socially by the Akali Dal’s jathedar interests and the Badal fam- ily. Punjabis have voted for change and revival.

Under Mr Gandhi’s and his mother, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, the party been reduced to a dynastic rump with oleaginous courtiers in dutiful attendance.

Mother and son have no coherent policies befit- ting an opposition seeking to convince the electorate that it is a government in waiting. Mr Gandhi, eter- nally on the stump, mouths populist platitudes and barbed insults at the BJP leadership in infantile road shows. He is unelectable on every count. On the great issues of state: the economy, defence and national security or the trajectories of Indian for- eign policy, he has been barely audible. Mani Shanker Aiyer, a failed and discredited Congressman in government and outside it, has advised Congress to seek redemption through coali- tion politics in which smaller partners call the shots, on cue presumably from Congress prompters. All hands on deck to defeat the BJP juggernaut, the des- perate call. This is delusional pie-in-the-sky. Smaller regional parties are not likely to be hos- pitable to the prospect of partnering Congress, and end their days in a close embrace with death. For Congress, the Gandhis are too heavy a cross to bear. With the 2019 general election virtually lost, the next best option would surely be to start afresh preparing for the general election due in 2024. Recycled waste is not what the doctor ordered. 

Lure of Kolkata for a Jewish visitor

Gerry Judah and his family, denizens of old Calcutta for generations, left the city in 1961, migrating to Britain, where Gerry found his calling as an interna- tionally renowned artist and designer. Gerry was a mere ten-year old when his parents left for their new home in London. But memories of his boyhood never deserted him and the lure of Calcutta remained. Says Gerry Judah, ‘I became more Jewish in London. In Calcutta, Jewish culture was part of the Indian way of life and the city was such a cosmopolitan place. We had our own rituals but we were part of others. We soaked in the festivities of Durga Puja, we played Holi with our friends and we celebrated Eid.’

The dramatic landscapes of India and the ornate architecture of its temples, mosques and synagogues, with their theatrical rituals ...were to surface in his own work. At its peak, Calcutta’s Jewish population numbered over 4,000; today it is around 20. Soon there won’t be anyone left, Jael Silliman, 61, and her mother, Flower, left first, for Israel, then for the United States,. They have now returned to the city of their birth as permanent residents. Jael, by training an academic, has created a digital archive documenting the history of the community, starting with the arrival of Shalom Cohen in 1798 from Syria to a city associat- ed with the name of its founder, Job Charnock. While the Sasoons were integral to rise of Bombay, the Ezras were similarly associated with the glory days of Calcutta. The stately David Maghen synagogue, built by the Ezra family is the largest in Asia, and a Calcutta landmark. Another is Nahoum’s bakery and Calcutta Stories, a restaurant noted for its Jewish, Armenian and Parsi cuisines.

Professor Amlan Dasgupta, Director of the School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University, says regretfully: ‘The loss of memory of the presence of the Jewish community pains me. Our children need to be told the story of the city’s cultural diversity.’