It is no Oriental hyperbole to describe Narendra Modi as a man of giant stature. A state chief minister to start, he took on the old national establishment embodied in a Congress party living off its past, woefully out of touch with the present. The pretender from Gujarat barn-stormed across the country, demolishing Congress to a rump: 206 seats to a derisory 44 in Parliament. That was 2014.
In 2019, the drubbing was worse: all the standard calculations of caste, ethnicity and faith were subsumed, not by a wave – the favoured media description - but by an unforeseen tsunami. Congress is comatose; the unelectable Rahul Gandhi in grief, pole axed. Indian democracy needs a robust and credible opposition; hopefully one will emerge in the fullness of time.
The election campaign was bruising; no quarter given, none asked for. The country appeared polarised judging by the high octane rhetoric. It clearly wasn’t, as the scale of the Modi triumph amply demonstrated. The incumbency factor was pulped.
With the battle lost and won, Prime Minister Modi was every inch the statesman. His government, he said, represented not only the BJP, but every section of society including the many thousands who had voted against him and his party. Prime Minister-elect Modi and Odisha Chief Minister Navin Patnaik set the tone with gracious acceptance of each other’s achivement: the Chief had won a record fifth consecutive State Assembly election by a landslide, the BJP had performed exceeding well in the national parliamentary elections. The two leaders promised to cooperate for the well-being of Odisha. An interesting feature of Odisha politics is that the Chief Minister barely speaks the local language, or Hindi, having spent much of his earlier life abroad. His sole medium of communication is English. This didn’t much matter. Over the past two decades his development policies have transformed the the face of a hitherto backward state, now moving briskly into the future.
Andhra Pradesh is yet another state deserving of special mention. Its new young Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy swept to power routing the incumbent Chandrababu Naidu. Jagan Mohan Reddy happens to be a practising Christian. The majoritarian buzzword looks a trifle shallow. He called on Mr Modi to discuss the state’s financial problems., cooperation, not confrontation the motto. Mr Reddy has already established cordial relations with neighbouring Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao.
The picture in West Bengal is far sombre. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) has been traumatised by the scale of its setbacks to the BJP, poised, hereon, to become a primary force in a formerly marginal state. Banerjee was the principal architect of the TMC’s calamitous electoral performance, undoing much of her her good development record in the state. The violence by emboldened TMC goons backfired. Mamata Banerjee’s future looks none too rosy.
The saturnine reports sections of the Anglo-American media, notably the BBC, CNN, the Guardian and New York Times newspapers, to go no further, was par for the course. CNN’s first take on the election result was a dark hint of anti-Muslim riots. The evidence on the ground was of considerable numbers of young voting BJP. Democracy for the US is Haiti and Saudi Arabia – the latter’s standing sanctified by mega purchases of US weaponry. Contrast such conduct with the refusal to issue visas to Mr Modi for travel to the US and UK because of perceived responsibility for the “anti-Muslim” rioting in Gujarat in March 2002. Those proven to be responsible have been tried and punished by the courts with long prison sentences. The ban was subsequently withdrawn when Mr Modi became a contender for the prime minister’s office.
Indian special pleaders for lacquered status in an American imperium – a privileged Bantustan, perhaps - will, no doubt, keep fighting their corner, as is their constitutional right. But this endeavour is unlikely to yield positive dividends in the foreseeable future.
Foreign relations
The list of foreign presidents and prime ministers congratulating Prime Minister Modi on his election victory was large, much of this routine, but some clearly more significant than the rest. US President Donald Trump issued buoyant message to Mr Modi, but he must know that his capricious policies of threats and sanctions against targeted states will command not the slightest support from a Modi-governed, sceptical India [See Media Watch p 12 for Sushma Swaraj statement at SCO]
The greetings from Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, should be contextualised with the honour conferred on Mr Modi with Russia’s foremost civilian award, the ‘Order of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First.’ Prime Minister Modi received it on April 12, weeks before his election success. President Putin’s office stated: ‘The order was presented to the Prime Minister of India for his distinguished contribution to the development of a privileged strategic partnership between Russia and India and friendly ties between the Russian and Indian peoples.’
It takes two to tango. The Indian Prime Minister responded warmly, saying, ‘President Putin remains a source of great strength for India-Russia friendship. Under his visionary leadership bilateral and multilateral cooperation between our two countries have scaled new heights.’ The best, possibly, is yet to come.
The other significant greetings to ‘Narendra’ emanated from his ‘friend’ Israeli Premier Benyamin Netanyahu, who both keep in touch on twitter, exchanging thoughts and deepening understanding as their two nations gallop abreast into the future, bonded by trade, investment, defence and intelligence cooperation, together with ties of science and technology. A strong Israel means a more secure India, while a strong India contributes to Israel’s security: truths that took decades to register with the ponderous, Indian obtuse babus and their dim-witted political overlords. There has been closure to the lean years of the Indo-Israeli relationship.
Summing up India’s amazing democratic experience, one can scarcely do better than ponder the following lines of Britain’s wartime Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden: ‘Of all the experiments in government, which have been attempted since the beginning of time, I believe that the Indian venture into parliamentary government is the most exciting. A vast subcontinent is attempting to apply to its tens of thousands of millions a system of free democracy. It is a brave thing to try and do. The Indian venture is not a pale imitation of our practice at home, but a magnified and multiplied reproduction on a scale we have never dreamt of. If it succeeds, its influence on Asia is incalculable for good. Whatever the outcome we must honour those who attempted it.’
Writing to India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, Britain’s wartime prime minister, Winston Churchill, said: ‘It seems to me that you might be able to do what no other human being could in giving India the lead, at least in the realm of thought, throughout Asia, with the freedom and dignity of the individual as the ideal...’ Enough said.
Brixit saga, as Theresa May departs
Like most enforced exits from high office, Prime Minister Theresa May’s departure from 10 Downing ended in tears. The country has been in a sort of limbo since the British people in 2016 voted against continuing membership of the European Union. As Prime Minister Theresa May was entrusted with the onerous task of negotiating a deal with EU on the terms of Britain’s exit, while maintaining close economic and security ties to their mutual benefit. In time the negotiating process became an unforeseen talkathon; visits to and from Brussels were a weekly features on television, coupled with reams of speculative analyses in newspapers on possible outcomes. The cud was chaewed to visible exhaustion.
Debates and speeches in the House of Commons made confusion worse confounded, with the corridors of power the source of Byzantineintrigue and vicious backbiting. The ruling Conservative Party was (and still is) a house divided; the Labour opposition is in little better shape.
The campaign for a new Conservative leader to replace Theresa May is underway; it will be mid-July before the new leader emerges from the shadows and Theresa May care-taker role ends. The cast of rival contenders is intriguing. Rumours and gossip should add spice to the serial.
Meanwhile, the European Union is embroiled in its deepening Time of Troubles. Political convulsions keep spreading, with individual states preferring national sovereignty to its pooled Brussels alternative. The Maastricht treaty, transforming a successful common market into a single political entity with a common currency may, in the fullness of time, become the cause of EU’s eventual undoing.
