India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Narendra Modi greets supporters at the party headquarters in Gandhinagar, in the western state of Gujarat, Friday. Modi will be India’s next prime minister, winning the most decisive election victory the country has seen in more than a quarter century and sweeping the long-dominant Congress party from power. — AP



S. Athar H. Rizvi

Saudi Gazette

India has changed. Signaling an end to the almost six decades of dynastic rule, the electorate have given a massive mandate to a man who single-handedly decimated his opponents both those within his party and those on the other side of the spectrum.



Results announced Friday after five weeks of a grueling, vitriolic and acrimonious election gave the resurgent Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies a commanding lead in the 543-seat Lok Sabha (the lower house of parliament). It is the first time in three decades that any single party in India has won a clear majority, the last time being in 1984 just after the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi.



The new prime minister now has a Herculean task ahead of him; the first and foremost being to reassure minorities, especially Muslims, that the secular fabric of the country remains intact and erase the fear psychosis that he and those brandishing his brand of hate politics have created among the minorities.



Modi will have to judiciously and articulately shrug off the many epithets attached to his name during his tenure as the chief minister of his Gujarat state. Modi has been variously called a “modern-day Hitler” and the “Butcher of Gujarat” for abetting or looking the other way when Hindu mobs massacred scores of Muslims in Gujarat after a train carrying Hindu pilgrims was torched in 2002.



Although Modi has denied the allegations and a Supreme Court ordered inquiry absolved him of responsibility, the monikers of 2002 continue to stigmatize the charismatic leader.



Modi promised to work to “fulfill the dreams of 1.2 billion people” as he addressed cheering supporters for the first time after the landslide victory for his party.



A sea of well-wishers from across his constituency of Vadodara in Gujarat turned out to hear the 63-year-old former tea boy who will now be prime minister of the world’s second-most populous nation.



“The heat of the election is over and the people have given their verdict which says that we need to take India forward to fulfill the dreams of India’s 1.2 billion people,” he said.



“There are no enemies in democracy, there is only opposition. I will take your love and convert it into progress before I return.”



“I want to take all of you with me to take this country forward... it is my responsibility to take all of you with me to run this country,” he added.



“Everyone’s support and everyone’s development is our mantra.”



If Modi is really serious in wanting to win the hearts and minds of all Indians including Muslims and other minorities, he has to unshackle himself from the clutches of the rabid anti-Muslim and main Hindutva force, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. He will also have to rein in the various Hindutva offshoots like the Bajrang Dal and the Shiv Sena and their archaic philosophy of Akhand Bharat — Greater Hindu rashtra (nation). India is for all Indians, it is not the personal fiefdom of a few ideological delinquents who want every Muslim to go to Pakistan and all Christians to go to Rome.   



Be that as it may, the meteoric rise of Modi is largely owed to the country’s desire for change, especially among India’s some 300 million strong middle class, which was totally disenchanted with multi-layered corruption and nepotism during the two terms of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance.



An unrelenting crackdown on corruption, bringing back the billions allegedly stashed away in foreign banks by politicians and corporate moguls, all-round development, good governance, business growth, arresting the rising prices and elimination of poverty have been and will remain the challenges faced by successive Indian governments. Modi and his team have raised expectations to such a high level that if the new government reneges on any of its promises, it will have to pay a very heavy price and its early demise cannot be ruled out.



But for that to happen Congress and other secular parties will have to introspect, identify their failures and take corrective measures and present the nation with a viable alternative.



Some of the factors involved in BJP’s decisive victory and which must be addressed by the new government on a priority basis are:



ECONOMY: Once-impressive economic growth, averaging above 8 percent over the last decade, slowed to below 5 percent in the last year while inflation rocketed into double digits. The BJP and Modi, who has run the state of Gujarat for 12 years, maintained a laser focus on the economy throughout the campaign, hammering the Congress party for stalled development projects while touting Gujarat as a model of success. In fact, Gujarat’s growth has been mediocre compared with others of India’s 28 states. But Modi’s message resonated with an electorate aching for change and upward mobility, and India’s corporate leaders backed Modi as the decisive administrator needed to revive industrial growth.



CORRUPTION: Indians are incensed over the enduring culture of corruption at every level of government, from bureaucrats who demand bribes for basic services to lawmakers embroiled in huge scandals involving public funds. Anti-graft protests encouraged a fierce anti-incumbency wave among voters and even inspired the launch of a new political party. But while some scandals have involved BJP members, Modi and his reputation are unscathed. Voters believe Modi has the political strength to curb any corrupt tendencies within his government.



YOUTH: India’s electorate is particularly young, with half the country’s 814 million voters under 35 and eager to secure employment with promise. They are also impatient with India’s political tradition of whipping up communal loyalties to secure votes from certain socio-economic groups, castes or religions.



TECHNOLOGY: The BJP and Modi ran a breathless and tech-savvy campaign that dazzled and engaged voters directly through social media. Modi snapped campaign selfies that went viral and even appeared as a holograph at campaign events. He has tweeted daily for years. By contrast, his main rival from the Congress party, Rahul Gandhi, shunned Twitter himself while his party took to the site only this year.



INFRASTRUCTURE: The crumbling roads and ports, plus lack of adequate electricity supply, were high on the list of problems that make business projects hard to get off the ground. They’re also of paramount importance to voters, one-third of whom now live in cities.