Henry Srebrnik [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer
It’s now been four months since the Indian general election propelled Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) into power in India.
The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance won 336 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament. The BJP itself gained 31 per cent of the popular vote and 282 constituencies.
The governing Indian National Congress, the party of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, led by Rahul Gandhi, was handed an historic defeat. Its United Progressive took just 58 seats, 44 of them Congress wins, and just 19.3 per cent of the overall vote.
In 20 of India’s 36 states and federally administered union territories, Congress did not manage to win a single seat.
While Congress lost 162 seats, the BJP’s landslide victory saw it increase its share of seats by 166. The party and its political allies now form the largest majority government in India since 1984 election.
Modi, a Hindu nationalist who promotes the idea of India as a cultural and religiously Hindu nation, also served as the chief minister of the state of Gujerat from 2001 to 2014.
His controversial tenure in that state, which adjoins Pakistan, included his alleged complicity in the mass violence between Hindus and Muslims that swept Gujerat for three months in 2002.
According to official figures, the riots resulted in the deaths of 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus; another 2,500 people were injured, and 223 more were reported missing. At the height of the killings, as many as 125,000 Muslim took sanctuary in refugee camps.
But Modi’s image since then has changed and by this year he was being touted as a pro-business administrator at the helm of a corruption-free government in Gujerat.
To attract foreign investment in Gujarat, Modi had made visits to countries such as China, Singapore and Japan. Under his rule, Gujarat has attracted such foreign corporations as Ford, General Motors and Suzuki, which have set up factories in the state.
Modi won a commanding victory in the election in large part by promising to restore high economic growth to India. An advocate of the free market, Modi has announced that he will be shutting down the Planning Commission of India. Created in 1950, when India’s rulers hoped to create a socialist economy, it’s detractors referred to it as a “Soviet-style” relic.
In July, Modi’s Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, presented the new government’s budget to Parliament. The government pledged to open the defence and insurance industries wider to foreign investors, bring in tax reform, improve the country’s inadequate infrastructure and support manufacturing to create more jobs.
India’s foreign policy is also evolving. Under Nehru and Indira Gandhi, the country followed a policy of non-alignment, one tilted towards the Soviet Union. Now the country is more interested in pursuing trade.
At the end of August Modi set off on a five-day trip to Japan, which is now India’s number one foreign development aid donor. In Tokyo, heand Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe signed a defence agreement laying the groundwork for deepening bilateral military exercises, weapons procurement and production, and transfer of technology.
Tony Abbott, Australia’s prime minister, came to see Modi in early September to sign a deal to supply uranium for India's nuclear reactors. And China’s leader, Xi Jinping, will arrive towards the end of the month.
Was this election also the end of the political dynasty that led India to independence in 1947 under its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rahul’s great-grandfather? Rahul’s own father Rajiv, and grandmother Indira, were both also prime ministers of India, and his mother Sonia serves as president of the Congress Party.
To be fair, Rahul Gandhi inherited the mantel of an outgoing nine-year-old Congress coalition government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which was besieged with allegations of widespread corruption and weak leadership, the lowest economic growth in a decade, and rising prices.
“It is our responsibility to save this country from such a government,” Modi declared during the campaign. “We cannot leave India helpless and must restore the faith of a billion citizens.” He has his work cut out for him.
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