With an approval rating of 77%, India’s prime minister is more than twice as popular as his party
Mr Modi’s genius is his ability to capture the political narrative in such ways. He is adept at reading mass sentiment and, as a relentless campaigner, courts it as no other Indian leader has since Indira Gandhi, or ever. Also like Mrs Gandhi, he claims credit for everything his government has achieved—and much that it has not. His smiling image, ubiquitous on billboards, is the face of welfare schemes, infrastructure projects and diplomatic shindigs.
Asked to give a relative weighting to these factors, Sanjay Kumar, a psephologist, attributed 20% of Mr Modi’s popularity to the ineffectiveness of his opponents and 65% to his political skills. He attributed only 15% to the prime minister’s ruthlessness—which could seem surprising, given how conspicuous it is.
Mr Modi is closely associated with his party’s Hindu chauvinism, owing to a vicious pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, while he was the state’s chief minister. He denies having any link to the atrocity, but has never really condemned it. Nor does he chastise the Hindu zealots who man his campaigns while openly inciting violence against Muslims. It is good to know most Modi fans are not mainly drawn by his party’s Muslim-bashing.
Mr Modi has also ranged into other sorts of illiberalism. His critics in the media have been cowed into silence. India’s parliament, civil service and judiciary have been bent to his will—as demonstrated in March, when Mr Gandhi was convicted of bogus charges levelled by alawmaker and disqualified from parliament. Again, the fact that Mr Modi’s popularity is not dependent on such activities is comforting only to a degree. It suggests his illiberalism is less strategic than compulsive.
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