Tag Archives: india

Delhi, India

Forget the Gandhis. Kejriwal is now India’s true opposition leader.

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When the former (and now future) Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal challenged Narendra Modi for a seat in the Indian parliament from the symbolically and religiously important city of Varanasi last spring, it was a sign that Kejriwal, days after resigning from Delhi’s 49-day government, maybe bit off more than he could chew. India Flag Icon

He lost. Badly.

Furthermore, instead of securing a national perch in Delhi, where Kejriwal (pictured above) and his newly formed Aam Aadmi Party (AAP, आम आदमी की पार्टी, literally the ‘Common Man’ Party) found such success in the 2013 Delhi regional elections, the party instead won none of the seven seats up for grabs to the lower house of the Indian parliament. The AAP managed to win four seats in Punjab only because of voter disgust with the corruption of the ruling Sikh nationalist party in that state.

Kejriwal’s decision to resign as chief minister, just 49 days after forming a minority AAP-led government to wage a national campaign looked like a disaster. The AAP, like many third parties, was largely swept aside by the Modi wave that gave the Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, or भारतीय जनता पार्टी) a landslide victory.

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RELATED: Kejriwal’s AAP looks for second chance in Delhi vote

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After Delhi’s government reverted to president’s rule, it seemed like the BJP would easily sweep to power there too, especially after winning regional elections last October in Maharashtra, the home of Mumbai (Bombay) and the second-most populous state in India.

Today, however, with the announcement that the AAP swept up an unexpectedly strong victory in voting on February 7 (winning 67 out of 70 seats in the Delhi legislative assembly), it’s no longer risible to think about Kejriwal competing on the same platform as Modi. Voters have given Kejriwal, whose AAP is barely two years old, a second chance to carry out his agenda of anti-corruption good governance. It’s the first time since Modi’s remarkable national victory last spring that any figure or group has decisively defeated the BJP at any level of Indian politics.

Remember that in the landscape-shifting December 2013 elections, the AAP won just 28 seats, four fewer than the BJP. It governed in an awkward alliance with the Indian National Congress (भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस) that, under former chief minister Sheila Dikshit, had governed Delhi for 15 years and, increasingly, became synonymous with corruption and incompetence.

delhivote15In the latest vote, Congress won no seats at all to Delhi’s legislative assembly. The party is still reeling after its massive rejection last spring. Congress won so few seats nationally that it cannot even appoint the leader of the opposition in the lower house of the Indian parliament, the Lok Sabha (लोक सभा). Since its defeat, there’s no sign that the Nehru-Gandhi family shows any sign of realizing that it must fundamentally change in order to regain the electorate’s trust. There’s no sign of any rising stars in the party from outside the family — if Rahul Gandhi proved uncharismatic and uninspired in 2014, it’s conceivable that his sister, Priyanka Vadra, might be the right answer for 2019.

But given the uninspired leadership of the quasi-monarchical Gandhi family, Kejriwal has a real chance to eclipse Congress and build a new, populist force for the secular center-left in India, attracting votes from all castes and religions whose votes are no longer tied to the independence movement of the 1930s and 1940s. That’s provided that Kejriwal can, in the years ahead in Delhi, deliver on his promise of less corruption, better services and greater safety, especially for women. (Critics will note that there’s plenty of Hindu traditionalism lurking beneath the surface of the AAP movement, but that’s just as true for Congress as well or for any Indian party that wants to compete in a country where four-fifths of its population practice Hinduism). Continue reading Forget the Gandhis. Kejriwal is now India’s true opposition leader. →

India, United States

Photo of the day: Obama meets Modi

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The most incredible thing about US president Barack Obama’s most recent three-day trip to India, which began today, is that Indian prime minister Narendra Modi can pull off such a sincere welcome less than six weeks after citing Russia as India’s top defense partner, even as he and Obama would later announce a new US-India nuclear energy deal.India Flag Icon

Has any world leader had such a strong first nine months in office from a geopolitical strategic perspective?

Keep in mind that Modi, barred from the United States for nearly a decade due to his alleged role in the anti-Muslim riots in his home state of Gujarat, was not always particularly keen on strengthening relationships with the United States. Instead, on the basis of his work promoting Gujarat, it was always more likely that he would look to China, Japan, Russia and the United Arab Emirates, where he wooed investment to his own state. With his emphasis on turfing out the corrupt and ineffective leadership of the Gandhi family, and with relatively little commentary on India’s foreign policy, no one expected Modi to build so many bridges in such little time.

Within just nine months, Modi has been the guest of honor at a state dinner at the White House, and he packed Madison Square Garden, filled with tens of thousands of North Americans of Indian descent thrilled to hear from India’s most powerful leader in three decades. By all accounts, Modi and Obama have developed a strong working relationship, unique for an American president who isn’t particularly known for his chemistry with world leaders.

Today, however, Modi has the grin of a prime minister, who, despite a decade as a pariah throughout much of the West, now revels in being suited by everyone — not just the United States and Russia, but China, Brazil, Japan, Europeans, Africans. In foreign policy, Modi is running a positive-sum game. What other countries in the world could manage to nurture such close relationships, strategic and otherwise, with Russia and the United States simultaneously? (Serbia, maybe? The United Arab Emirates? The list isn’t incredibly long.)

Modi, whose social media use has been nimble, was quick to post a photo of his warm welcome for Obama early Sunday morning. But one look at his Facebook and Twitter feeds, which often border on the campy side, show that he doesn’t just delight in Obama — in 2015 alone, he’s featured shots with German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble,  Israeli agriculture minister Yair Shamir, Astrakhan provincial governor Alexander Zhilkin, Iranian presidential adviser Akbar Torkan, Canadian immigration minister Chris Alexander, Macedonian prime minister Nikola Gruevski, among many (many) others.

What’s becoming clear is that while Modi has taken only a gradual approach to reforming India’s government, slowly introducing changes to make the bureaucracy more efficient, the theme of Indian pride is constant in the Modi approach to both domestic and foreign policy. Continue reading Photo of the day: Obama meets Modi →

Sri Lanka

Sirisena easily wins Sri Lankan presidency

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Sri Lanka has avoided all the dark warnings of coups and political tumult — for the time being.SriLanka

Former health minister and one-time ally Maitripala Sirisena easily defeated two-term incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa, who called a presidential election two years early. Hoping to take advantage of a scattered opposition, Rajapaksa believed he would slide to an easy reelection to a third six-year term. Instead, Sirisena, the general secretary of Rajapaksa’s own party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP, ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්ෂය), promptly resigned as Rajapaksa’s minister and led 25 SLFP members of the Sri Lankan parliament into the opposition coalition, upending what Rajapaksa thought would be a cakewalk.

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Despite the fact that, like Rajapaksa, Sirisena comes from the country’s Sinhalese majority and practices Buddhism, he won significant support from Tamil-speaking Moors (who practice Islam) and Tamils (who practice Hinduism). That, in tandem with the support of a significant set of elites and Sinhalese voters who had soured on Rajapaksa’s decade-long rule, was enough to deliver to him 51.28% of the vote, versus just 47.58% for Rajapaksa.

In the space of six weeks, Sirisena has gone from the general secretary of the SLFP and top minister in the Rajapksa government to the president-elect and head of the titular coalition led by the opposition United National Party (UNP, එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂය), which traditional draws more support from Tamil-speaking minorities and which also embraces a more free-market liberal and center-right ideological persuasion.

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RELATED: Tumultuous election a test for Sri Lankan democracy

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Despite ominous warnings that Rajapaksa would deploy the military if he lost the election, the incumbent stepped down and moved out of the presidential palace, Temple Trees, immediately, paving the way for what could be a surprisingly easy and peaceful transfer of power for a country where elections and politics often collide in violence.

While Sirisena is the clearest winner of Thursday’s vote, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi is nearly as much of a winner. That’s because Sirisena is expected to strengthen ties with India at the expense of the People’s Republic of China. Increasingly, Rajapaksa looked to Beijing, not New Delhi, for international support, including billions in soft loans from the Chinese government, which in turn looked to Sri Lanka as its foothold in south Asia and the Indian Ocean. No longer. Sirisena has pledged to cancel several Chinese development projects that had become increasingly controversial.

Continue reading Sirisena easily wins Sri Lankan presidency →

Sri Lanka

Tumultuous election a test for Sri Lankan democracy

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Pessimists worry that today could bring the first coup in Sri Lanka’s post-independence history, as political tensions are running high and military forces are rumored to be out in strong numbers as Sri Lankans go to the polls to elect a new president. SriLanka

They’ll do so in one of the tightest such races in Sri Lanka’s history, at least the tightest since president Mahinda Rajapaksa first took power in the 2005 election, and one with profound consequences for the direction of Sri Lanka’s democratic and policy future and with important regional implications for both India and China.

When the folksy Rajapaksa (pictured above) brought forward the election by two years in November, he hoped to take advantage of a fractured opposition and new rules that allowed him to call early election in either of the final two years of his six-year presidential term and revisions to the Sri Lankan constitution that allow Rajapaksa to seek a third consecutive term to the presidency. He didn’t plan, instead, on a close election that could bring his administration to a premature end.

Sri Lanka is an island country just off the southeastern coast of India. With over 22 million people, it’s one-third as populous as France (though it pales in comparison to many of India’s states — Tamil Nadu, for example, is home to nearly 70 million people alone). Formerly the British crown colony of Ceylon, the country was trapped for much of the past quarter-century in a civil war waged between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகள்), popularly known as the ‘Tamil Tigers,’ a guerrilla group fighting to form an independent Tamil state. Despite false starts at peace talks, Rajapaksa presided over the group’s military defeat in 2009, a victory that has allowed Sri Lanka to put the fighting of the 1980s and 1990s behind it. Accordingly, under Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka has enjoyed annual GDP growth of nearly 7% over the last decade,  doubled per-capita income in the last five years, and marked massive reductions in poverty.

Nevertheless, the country remains precariously split between a Sinhalese-speaking majority that practices Buddhism (around 70% of the population) and its Tamil and Muslim minorities. Its Tamil-speaking minority practices Hinduism, not Buddhism — around 11% of the population consists of Sri Lankan Tamils clustered along the northern and eastern coasts and another 4% or so Indian Tamils clustered in the central highlands. Another 10% or so of the population consists of Tamil-speaking Sri Lankan Moors, who largely follow Islam.

For all of Rajapaksa’s successes in subduing the Tamil Tigers, he has become notorious for centralizing power in the Sri Lankan presidency since taking power a decade ago and amassing wealth for himself and his family, many of whom populate powerful positions in the government.

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The widespread impression of corruption and abuse of power is at the heart of the challenge to Rajapaksa’s reelection. His opponent, Maitripala Sirisena (pictured above), was until November 21, not only the health minister in Rajapaksa’s government, he was the general secretary of Rajapaksa’s ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP, ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්ෂය), the vaguely center-left ruling party that draws much of its support from the country’s Sinhalese majority.

In one fell swoop, Sirisena not only united the unruly opposition, but he brought more than two dozen members of the ruling Freedom Party into an anti-Rajapaksa coalition that includes the United National Party (UNP, එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂය), a more center-right party that draws support from minorities as well as Sinhalese voters, and any number of parties based on everything from Buddhist nationalism to Marxism. Less charismatic than the incumbent, Sirisena nevertheless heads a once-improbable movement that could topple Rajapaksa, tapping into the same ferocious energy with which Indian prime minister Narendra Modi ousted the long-ruling Nehru-Gandhi family and the Indian National Congress in last spring’s Indian elections. Continue reading Tumultuous election a test for Sri Lankan democracy →

United States

Throughout ‘reform’ debate, US ‘immigration’ has changed

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In 2001, when George W. Bush came to power in the United States, three factors — his record as a Texas governor, the strong relationship that he had developed with his conservative Mexican counterpart, Vicente Fox, and his hope to make the Republican Party more attractive to US-based Latino voters — meant that immigration reform was suddenly back on the agenda for the first time since 1986.USflag

Three US presidential elections, two Mexican presidential administrations and a 2001 terrorist attack and a 2008 financial crisis later, Bush’s successor, Democratic president Barack Obama, will take a leap toward immigration reform today through executive action, pushing as far to the line as possible without exceeding his authority vis-à-vis the US Congress.

Obama will announce today a plan that will de-emphasize the deportation of undocumented immigrants to the United States who have lived in the United States for at least five years, and he will do so with a prime-time Thursday night speech and a campaign-style rollout in Las Vegas on Friday:

Up to four million undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States for at least five years can apply for a program that protects them from deportation and allows those with no criminal record to work legally in the country, President Obama is to announce on Thursday, according to people briefed on his plans.

An additional one million people will get protection from deportation through other parts of the president’s plan to overhaul the nation’s immigration enforcement system, including the expansion of an existing program for “Dreamers,” young immigrants who came to the United States as children. There will no longer be a limit on the age of the people who qualify.

But farm workers will not receive specific protection from deportation, nor will the Dreamers’ parents. And none of the five million immigrants over all who will be given new legal protections will get government subsidies for health care under the Affordable Care Act.

It’s a strong first step toward reforms that both Republican and Democratic politicians have attempted (unsuccessfully) to pass through the US Congress since the Bush administration. Obama’s action could affect between 4 to 5 million of the currently 11.4 million undocumented immigrants in the United States today.

Why now? And why without Congress?

A pro-reform Republican president couldn’t pass a bill with either a Republican-led Congress (from 2005 to 2007) or a Democratic-led Congress (from 2007 to 2009). Nor has a pro-reform Democratic president passed a bill with either a Democratic-led Congress (2009 to 2011) or, currently, with a Republican House. Obama’s action indicates that he doesn’t believe that the switch to a fully Republican-led Congress will make much different. Despite howling from the Republican opposition about the ‘monarchial‘ nature of Obama’s executive action

While Washington debated immigration for over a decade, the nature of immigration in the United States has changed dramatically. Even if the basics of ‘reform’ today still look and feel like they did in 2001 or 2005 or 2008, the world has changed, and the nature of immigration to the United States has changed with it.

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RELATED: 2014 US midterms showcase rise of Asian Americans

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For example, in 2013, more Asians migrated to the United States than Latin Americans, part of a new wave of immigration from an even more diverse array of cultures, languages and backgrounds that’s rising. In 2008-09, as the global financial crisis sent the United States into its worst recession in decades, net migration from Mexico actually decreased, reflecting a larger trend that began in the mid-2000s. Continue reading Throughout ‘reform’ debate, US ‘immigration’ has changed →

United States

2014 US midterms showcase rise of Asian Americans

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CIMG9933Flushing, in Queens, is one of the most Asian neighborhoods in the United States.

Apparently, the swing among Asian Americans between the 2012 general election in the United States and the 2014 midterm elections was a staggering 46%:asia iconUSflag

Note the big swing in the Asian voting bloc, too. In 2012, strong support for the president among Asian-American voters was a surprise. Asian voters preferred the president by 47 points. In 2014, the (low turnout) group split about evenly. It was a 46-point swing.

That still translates to a fairly robust tilt among Asian Americans toward Democrats — just not the overwhelming trend that we saw in 2012 and 2008 and, even to some degree, 2010. Other exit polling shows that Asian Americans still strongly supported Democrats — in Virginia, they favored incumbent Democratic senator Mark Warner over Republican challenger Ed Gillespie by a margin of 68% to 29%, for example.

But why should Asian Americans necessarily lean to the left? The Asian American experience in the United States is extremely varied, and it’s a growing bloc of disparate cultures and experiences. In that regard, Asian Americans are just like Latin Americans, who come from an equally broad range of national and ethnic background. Mexican Americans in California may have different political views that Mexican Americans in Texas, to say nothing of Salvadorans in Maryland, Cubans in New Jersey or Dominicans in Florida.

The same goes for Asian Americans.

So what are we talking about when we say, ‘Asian Americans?’ Continue reading 2014 US midterms showcase rise of Asian Americans →

Haryana, India, Maharashtra

Four lessons as Modi wave extends to Maharashtra, Haryana

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Voters in two of India’s largest states elected regional assemblies last week on October 15 — in Maharashtra and Haryana.India Flag Icon

In both cases, the conservative, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) will take power of state government for the first time in Indian history in what was the first major electoral test for prime minister Narendra Modi (pictured above), who swept to power nationally in May after promising to bring a new wave of economic prosperity, reform and good governance to India.

In Maharashtra, India’s second-most populous state, with over 112 million people, and home to Mumbai, India’s sprawling financial and cultural center, the BJP won a plurality of the vote and the largest number of seats in the 288-member regional assembly, where it will form a coalition government with either its longtime ally, the far-right, Marathi nationalist Shiv Sena (शिवसेना) or a more intriguing option, the center-left Nationalist Congress Party (NCP, राष्ट्रवादी कॉँग्रस पक्ष), which unexpectedly offered to support a BJP government shortly after the results were announced on October 19:

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In Haryana, a state with just 25.4 million people, which forms much of the hinterland of New Delhi, the BJP won an outright majority of seats in the 90-member legislative assembly:

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There are at least four narratives about what happened in these two absolutely pivotal state elections, the first since India’s national election cycle in April and May. Keep in mind that, together, the two states have a population of 137 million, larger than Japan.

The first narrative confirms the BJP’s political dominance in the honeymoon period of the Modi era. The second narrative is its direct analog, the post-independence nadir of the Nehru-Gandhi family and the chief opposition party, the Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस).

The third narrative, with almost as much national importance as the first two, is the rift between the BJP and its longtime ally, Shiv Sena, and the possibility that Shiv Sena will be shut out of the next Maharashtra government.

The fourth and final narrative has to do with India’s third parties, especially as the election relates to the anti-corruption Aam Aadmi Party (AAP, आम आदमी की पार्टी, Common Man Party), which didn’t even bother contesting the Haryana elections and may soon lose its one-time grip on Delhi’s government. Continue reading Four lessons as Modi wave extends to Maharashtra, Haryana →

India

Modi showcases newly muscular Indian foreign policy

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Indian prime minister Narendra Modi took power less than five months ago, but he’s already made five major world visits, including to Japan, to the BRICS summit in Brazil and this week, Modi is sweeping through an action-packed five-day visit to the United States.India Flag Icon

His current visit to New York and Washington has the air of triumph about it, and his speech to nearly 19,000 fans at Madison Square Garden certainly marks one of the very few times that a foreign leader has drawn such genuine support from an American audience. It’s all the more amazing, given that for much of the last decade, the US government refused Modi a visa to travel to the United States, due to his questionable role in the 2002 Hindu-Muslim riots, which took place four months after Modi became the chief minister of Gujarat state.

India’s foreign relations with major world powers like the United States, Russia and China aren’t always easy, and its relationships with other south Asian neighbors, especially Pakistan, can often be downright frosty.

Nevertheless, there are at least two reasons why Modi has such a strong opportunity to maximize India’s role on the world stage today — and none of it has to do with India’s economy, which is growing far slower than it needs to sustain truly transformational gains.

The first is the world’s growing multipolarity, which must seem especially multipolar from New Delhi’s view. Neighboring China is poised to become the world’s largest economy within a decade. India also has longstanding ties with Russia dating to the Soviet era that are now especially relevant as Russian president Vladimir Putin reasserts his country’s might in its ‘near-abroad.’ That makes cooperation with India, the world’s second-most populous country, a strategic advantage for any major power, and it gives India considerable leverage.

The second is the nature of Modi’s election in May. With 336 seats in the Lok Sabha (लोक सभा), the lower house of the Indian parliament, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) has the strongest majority and boldest mandate than any Indian government since 1984. While no one knows whether Modi can use that strength to revitalize India’s public sector and institute reforms to boost its private sector, the magnitude of his victory forced the world to take notice. If, as Modi promises, he can introduce robust economic reforms, a more liberalized Indian economy could birth a lucrative market of over 1.25 billion consumers, especially if Modi can lift India’s poor into a middle-class standard of living.

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When Modi appointed Sushma Swaraj (pictured above earlier today with Modi, former US president Bill Clinton and former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton), the former leader of the Lok Sabha, as India’s new external affairs minister, it was a gesture of respect for an ally of the BJP old-guard leaders, such as LK Advani, who have largely been pushed aside in the Modi era. But it should have also been a sign that Modi, known for his micromanaging style, would take a hands-on approach to foreign policy.

Given the emphasis that Modi placed on good governance and economic reform, it might be surprising that he’s spent so much time in his first five months on international relations. Modi has so far been cautious on economic policy — for example, his first budget in July featured far more continuity than rupture, disappointing some of his booster.

So what do five months of Modi’s foreign policy tell us about what we might expect over the next five years?

Plenty — especially on the basis of his international efforts as Gujarat’s 13-year chief minister.

Here’s a look at how Modi’s efforts in reaching out to five other global powers already provide strong hints to the Indian prime minister’s worldview, and how we might expect India to engage the rest of the world for the foreseeable future. Continue reading Modi showcases newly muscular Indian foreign policy →

India, Tamil Nadu

Jayalalithaa scrambles India’s southern regional politics

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JayalalithaPhoto credit to Malayalam Daily News.

It says something about the strength of India’s democracy that a regional leader who controls the third-largest bloc of MPs in the Lok Sabha (लोक सभा), the lower house of the Indian parliament,  and who has developed something of a personality cult as chief minister of her home state of Tamil Nadu, can fall from power broker to convicted felon in the blink of an eye.India Flag Icon

So it goes for Jayalalithaa (pictured above), a former star of Tamil cinema, who has towered over Tamil Nadu’s politics for the past three decades — she first served as chief minister from 1991 to 1996, again for four months in 2001, from 2002 to 2006 and, most recently, since May 2011 regional elections, when her party, the AIADMK (All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) won a landslide victory. She is known throughout the state as Amma, a Tamil word for ‘mother.’

With over 72 million people, Tamil Nadu is the sixth-most populous in India, and it has a population equivalent to Turkey’s. Its Tamil-speaking population also makes it unique among India’s states as a key cultural link with Sri Lanka, the island nation to India’s southeast.

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In the most recent national elections in April and May 2014, her party won 37 out of 39 constituencies in the state of Tamil Nadu, a rare performance in withstanding the electoral wave that brought prime minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) its biggest mandate, by far in Indian history.

But on Saturday, Jayalalithaa’s luck ran out when a Karnataka-based court sentenced her to a four-year jail term in a corruption case that resulted, suddenly, in her demotion from office. The court found Jayalalithaa guilty in a ‘disproportionate assets’ case, essentially convicting her for illegally obtaining up to 530 million rupees (around $8.7 million) in unexplained income. That forced her to step down immediately as chief minister and report to prison, though she’ll have an opportunity to appeal the verdict.

She is now the first sitting chief minister to be found guilty of corruption charges.

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RELATED: Jayalalithaa, the Tamil actress-turned-strongwoman,
could play India’s kingmaker

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If the conviction holds, it will be a rare victory for anti-corruption reformers in India. Among the strongest regional politicians, few are as powerful or as popular as Jayalalithaa. That give the case national importance. If the Indian judiciary can hold to account someone like Jayalalithaa, whose face plasters billboards, subsidized food halls and even bottled water in Tamil Nadu, no one in India can credibly believe that she (or he) is above the law. It’s a powerful precedent, and it’s a sign to global investors of the growing strength of Indian legal institutions.
Continue reading Jayalalithaa scrambles India’s southern regional politics →

India

Photo of the day: Manmohan Singh in defeat

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From Scroll.in comes this piercing photo of former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh in January, four months before the landslide election that delivered to Singh’s ruling Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस) its worst defeat in Indian history.India Flag Icon

Raghu Rai, a photographer and journalist, captured images of both Singh and India’s current prime minister Narendra Modi for his new book, The Tale of Two: An Outgoing and An Incoming Prime Minister.

The photos of both candidates are compelling, but the shots of Singh are particularly so, coming after a decade as prime minister that most Indians (and non-Indians) consider disappointing.

An economist by training, Singh made his international reputation as the finance minister in the government of P. V. Narasimha Rao between 1991 and 1996, spearheading the most thoroughgoing set of economic liberalization reforms in India’s post-independence history.

When Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and daughter-in-law of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, demurred from taking the premiership after Congress won a surprise victory in the 2004 parliamentary elections, she turned to Singh instead, boosting hopes that India might enact further reforms, especially with respect to liberalizing foreign development. It also gave India its first leader from the Sikh community.

But those economic reforms never happened, which voters didn’t seem to mind in Congress’s first term. After all, the economy was still growing at breakneck speed and Indian voters hadn’t become acquainted with the dozens of scandals (e.g., Coalgate, the 2g spectrum scandal) that would come to define Congress’s second term, which Singh and Gandhi won easily enough in 2009 under the steam of India’s stellar growth.

Continue reading Photo of the day: Manmohan Singh in defeat →

India

So far, so good? A look at Modi’s first weeks as India’s PM

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It’s been just over a month since the historic election that vaulted Narendra Modi to the top of India’s government, and he took office on May 26, nearly four weeks ago.India Flag Icon

So how has his tenure as India’s prime minister gone so far?

Fairly smoothly, though of course it’s still far too soon to tell just whether Modi (pictured above with Bhutanese prime minister Tshering Tobgay), ushering in a new government with the slogan of ‘minimum government, maximum governance,’ can achieve the transformational economic and other policy achievements.

With his first day in office, Modi made global headlines by inviting Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif to attend his swearing-in ceremony, which saw the two regional leaders hold closed-door discussions on Modi’s second day in office.

On June 1, his government marked the relative seamless creation of the new state of Telangana, out of what was formerly a much larger Andhra Pradesh, and the rise of its first chief minister Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao (known as ‘KCR’), though KCR is already making headlines for his blunt approach to press freedom.

Modi has already started to outline his economic policy priorities, which will kick off with a concerted effort to lower inflation. His government will unveil its first federal budget in July, but for now, Modi has signalled that he’s willing to deliver tough policy to improve fiscal discipline that will almost certain including cuts to fuel subsidies and further liberalization of India’s economy, especially with respect to foreign investment. That was clear enough from Indian president Pranab Mukherjee’s address to the Indian parliament earlier this week.

Modi has also appointed a strong, streamlined cabinet that was met with approval among both domestic and global observers: Continue reading So far, so good? A look at Modi’s first weeks as India’s PM →

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Photo of the day: Modi, Sharif meet at India’s inauguration

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Former Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi was sworn in today as India’s 14th prime minister in New Delhi today.India Flag IconPakistan Flag Icon

But as historic as his inauguration is, which brings to power Modi’s conservative, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) after a landslide victory in India’s April/May national elections with the largest mandate of any Indian political party since 1984, it’s been eclipsed by the presence of Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

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It was the first time that a Pakistani leader has ever attended an Indian inauguration, and the handshake between Modi and Sharif is an audacious start for the Modi era. Modi, who has evinced a hawkish line on foreign policy, especially regarding India’s Muslim-majority neighbors, Pakistan and Bangladesh, made the surprising invitation to Sharif late last week. Sharif, much to the world’s surprise, and likely in opposition to hardliners in his own conservative party, the Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML-N, اکستان مسلم لیگ ن) and within Pakistan’s military and intelligence communities, accepted invitation over the weekend. 

Sharif joins a handful of regional leaders from within the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to attend Modi’s swearing-in ceremony, including Sri Lanka president Mahinda Rajapaksa and Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai.

Modi’s invitations weren’t without controversy at home — Modi’s hard-right, Hindu nationalist allies in Shiv Sena (SS, शिवसेना) opposed the outreach to Sharif, and Tamil Nadu leaders in both Modi’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa decried the invitation to Rajapaksa.

But Modi’s mandate is so sweeping that he has enough political capital to do just about whatever he wants, no matter what his allies think. Modi’s hawkish reputation, in combination with his parliamentary majority, could give him the space to pursue the kind of closer economic ties that have eluded prior Indian governments. Continue reading Photo of the day: Modi, Sharif meet at India’s inauguration →

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A state-by-state overview of India’s election results

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It quickly became clear early on Friday morning across India that Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) were headed for a historical victory in India’s national elections, which took place across nine separate phases between April 7 and May 12. India Flag Icon

But to really understand the impact of the victory, it’s important to delve into the results on a state-by-state level. Where did the BJP massively exceed expectations? Where did it fall short? Where did regional leaders keep the ‘Modi wave’ at bay? Where did regional leaders fail? Each state tells us something about the future shape of India’s new political reality in New Delhi and about the future of state governance, which, after all, represents the most important level of government for most Indians, even in the Modi era.

For the record, here are the final results:

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The BJP, together with its allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 336 seats in the Lok Sabha (लोक सभा), the House of the People, the lower house of India’s parliament. It’s the largest mandate that any Indian party/coalition has won since 1984.

The ruling Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस) and its allies in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) won just 58 seats. Not only did the Congress suffer the worst defeat of its history under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, the great-grandson of India’s first post-independence prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, it’s the first time that a non-Congress party has won an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha.

Regional parties and other third groups won an additional 149 seats. Continue reading A state-by-state overview of India’s election results →

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The phenomenon of Narendra Modi, 56-inch chest and all

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It’s not hard to understand why Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi is leading his Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) and its allies to a victory that will be the most resounding in Indian history since 1984.India Flag Icon

The truth has been there all along, as Narendra Modi became more than just a potential prime minister. Somewhere along the course of the election campaign and the nine phases of voting that began way back on April 7, Modi became a phenomenon.

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RELATED: In-Depth: India’s elections

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Even before he leapt to the national stage, Modi perfected the art of campaigning by hologram, whereby a life-size avatar of Modi could address election rallies in multiple cities simultaneously:

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His colorful kurtas — traditional body-length garments for men that Modi often wears with short sleeves — have become a downright fashion statement and have already attracted international attention. Here he is in a great photo from Sonia Paul of The Caravan:

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Modi himself has admitted to a bit of cockiness about his fashion:

[Modi] confesses he likes to dress up well, is “god-gifted” in the way of mixing and matching colours and is happy at compliments on his dressing sense…. “Yes, I like to dress up well and stay clean. God has gifted me the sense of mixing and matching colors. So I manage everything on my own. Since I’m god-gifted, I fit well in everything. I have no fashion designer but I’m happy to hear that I dress well.”

Implausibly, as he brags about his 56-inch chest (critics joked it was more like a 56-inch belly), he’s also become something of a sex symbol among a certain segment of India’s population.

But when, as now seems inevitable, he becomes India’s next prime minister, the entire world will turn its attention to one of the oddest — and compelling — characters in international politics today.

So who is the personal Narendra Modi? And what have we learned about him on the campaign trail?  Continue reading The phenomenon of Narendra Modi, 56-inch chest and all →

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Who’s who in Modi-world: A guide to the next Indian government

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In just a few hours, India’s national election results will be released.India Flag Icon

If exit polls (and virtually all polls, leading up to India’s six-week elections) are correct, Gujarat’s chief minister Narendra Modi will have delivered his conservative, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) and its allies to a potentially historic victory — and an equally historic defeat for the ruling Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस).

Whatever happens when election results are announced, there’s no doubt that Modi led one of the most ‘presidential’ campaigns in Indian history. If the BJP emerges victorious, as expected, it will be a mandate for Modi as much as for the BJP.

The magic number is 272 — if the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) can win an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha (लोक सभा), the lower house of the Indian parliament, Modi will certainly be India’s next prime minister, and he’ll likely steer a relatively stable government that should last for its full five-year term.

If the BJP and its allies fall short of 272 seats, while still emerging as the largest bloc in the Lok Sabha, they will also likely form the next government by forging a series of alliances with regional parties, including any of the following:

  • the ruling, Dravidian AIADMK of Tamil Nadu’s chief minister Jayalalithaa;
  • the Uttar Pradesh-based Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) of former chief minister Mayawati; or
  • the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), which is a former member of the NDA, and is forecast to win both state and Lok Sabha elections in the state of Odisha.

While regional allies might temper the Hindutva tendencies of a stronger BJP government, they might also prevent Modi from enacting the kind of economic reforms that he has promised to unleash greater GDP growth and development and to stymie bureaucratic waste and massive corruption.

In any event, almost every sign indicates that Modi will become India’s next prime minister, and he was already gathering with top BJP officials in Gujarat yesterday planning his new government (pictured below in a photo that Modi tweeted):

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So who are the individuals that could become the most important officials in a Modi administration?

Here is Suffragio‘s guide to Modi-world — a list of 25 Indian politicians and leaders who are most expected to play a role in a government that promises to be very different than the current government.

The officials are divided into four categories:

  • the BJP’s ‘old guard,’ which controlled the party in the its first major stint in government between 1998 and 2004;
  • the BJP’s ‘new guard,’ the new generation of leadership with whom Modi is more comfortable;
  • the Gujaratis, the members of Modi’s own inner circle after 13 years of state government; and
  • the allies, those non-BJP party leaders who might be expected to take key roles within the NDA and otherwise in the next government.

Continue reading Who’s who in Modi-world: A guide to the next Indian government →