The world’s biggest democracy and second-biggest country has a new leader, and he’s a controversial one: Narendra Modi, the head of the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, and the longtime chief minister of Gujarat, a state in the northwest of India. In a post here today, the Indian journalist Samanth Subramanian describes what the lengthy election campaign felt like, noting how Modi, who will forever be associated with the 2002 riots in Gujarat that left more than a thousand people dead, most of them Muslims, tacked to the center, emphasizing economic growth and anti-corruption measures rather than Hindu chauvinism.
From an international perspective, Modi’s ascension to the Prime
Minister’s office raises two questions. Will India adopt a more strident
and bellicose foreign policy than it did under Manmohan Singh, an
Oxbridge-educated economist, and his Congress party? And will the new
government succeed in rebooting India’s “economic miracle,” which has sputtered in recent years?
During the election campaign, Modi didn’t talk very much about foreign
policy, which isn’t voters’ primary concern. But the B.J.P. has
traditionally adopted a more aggressive stance toward Pakistan, Kashmir,
and other international issues than the Congress party. Optimists
suggest that Modi’s desire to attract foreign investment, which he made a
big theme of his campaign, will militate against any foreign-policy
adventurism on his part. In what is perhaps an encouraging sign,
Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, called Modi on Friday, congratulated him on his victory, and invited him to visit Islamabad.
In the past, Modi has also had his issues with the U.S. government,
which denied him a visa in 2005, when memories of the Gujarat riots were
still fresh. (Modi has always denied having anything to do with the
killings. His critics accuse him of whipping up anti-Muslim feelings and
doing nothing to prevent the pogrom. A special committee appointed by
India’s Supreme Court investigated his role, and found nothing to charge
him with.) In recent years, as the prospect of Modi becoming India’s
leader has become more real, U.S. diplomats have reached out to him and tried to improve relations. On Friday, Benjamin Rhodes, a deputy national-security adviser, tweeted,
“US congratulates BJP on its victory in India’s historic election; we
look forward to working w/ govt once formed to advance our partnership.”
A bit later, the White House announced that Modi would now be welcome
to visit the United States.
Whatever tone Modi strikes on foreign affairs, his most urgent task will
be to fulfill some of the domestic economic pledges he has made. In the
decade from 2000 to 2010, India’s gross domestic product grew at an
annual rate of about nine per cent,
and, despite rapid population growth, per-capita income doubled. These
were the years of the “miracle,” when observers often twinned India with
China. Since then, though, the rate of economic growth has fallen
sharply, and inflation has risen. In the 2013-14 fiscal year, which
ended in March, India’s G.D.P. expanded by just about five per cent.
During the election campaign, Modi promised to revive the growth rate
by attracting foreign investment, reducing red tape, making hiring and
firing easier, and improving the nation’s infrastructure.
All of these things have the support of India’s business community,
which provided strong backing to Modi during the election. Investors
like Modi, too. (The Indian stock market has risen sharply in
anticipation of his victory, and it rose again on Friday.)
During his long tenure in Gujarat, he courted foreign companies,
oversaw G.D.P. growth that exceeded the national average, and helped
start irrigation projects that have boosted agricultural yields.
Capitalizing on this success, he organized a series of conferences for
international investors that he called Vibrant Gujarat.
It will be fascinating to see if Modi can replicate his success in
Gujarat on the national stage. Many, though not all, economists believe
the Indian economy needs another wave of liberalization that builds upon
the one that Singh introduced
in the nineteen-nineties, when he was minister of finance. Those
measures cut the budget deficit, stripped away some of the country’s
infamous licensing restrictions, and made it easier for foreigners to
invest in Indian companies. Jagdish Bhagwati, the Columbia University
economist who is one of Modi’s most prominent supporters, has criticized Singh for not following up on these reforms during his time as Prime Minister.
It has been widely reported that Bhagwati and his Columbia colleague
Arvind Panagariya, another supporter of free-market reforms, will play some role
in the new Indian government. Modi, however, also has his critics in
the academy. Some studies suggest that Gujarat, despite enjoying
stronger than average growth, has a questionable record
relative to other Indian states in reducing poverty, improving child
nutrition, and promoting education and social inclusion. Last year,
Amartya Sen, perhaps India’s most famous economist, came out strongly against Modi’s candidacy, criticizing his failure to protect religious minorities, and saying, “His record in education and health care is pretty bad.”
Indians and people the world over will be watching to see how far Modi
goes in the direction of liberalization. Reforming India, which has many
powerful states and innumerable vested interests, is much harder than
reforming an individual state like Gujarat. And while Modi has obtained a
historic mandate for his economic agenda—the B.J.P. will be the first
party in thirty years to have an outright majority in Parliament—there
are still widespread concerns that the fruits of economic progress are
not being spread widely enough, concerns that more business-friendly
reforms are unlikely to alleviate. “It felt like a vacuum period,” Modi said on Friday, addressing his supporters in Ahmedabad. “Now we will fill that vacuum.”
COURTESY-THE NEWYORKER
