The Politics of Possibility has triumphed over the Peddling of Paranoia. Destiny has won over Dynasty. Hope has overcome Despair. And the Man from Vadnagar, Gujarat, has become the newest resident of 7, Race Course Road.
In Narendra Modi, India has found the perfect embodiment of its collective aspiration : Of redeeming its place on the global political high table and restoring its status as one of the world's most wanted economies. Buffeted by five years of slackening growth, weakened leadership and scam-tainted public life, Modi is an idea whose time has come. A stunning proportion of 814 million voters, one-fifth of them voting for the first time, have vested their faith in the lifelong pracharak and former railway station tea vendor. They have endorsed his promise to deliver good governance and development, sweeping aside naysayers who spared no effort to arouse the deepest anxieties and darkest fears possible, from Hindu majoritarianism to crony capitalism.
They have, for the first time since they bought into belief of Rajiv Gandhi's modernisation, given a powerful mandate to reshape the idea of India. They have surrendered to his triumph of will, and watched in admiration and awe as he first won over his party and then the nation, making BJP a force to reckon with nationally.
Now he has to deliver. It is a challenge Modi is equal to. For, the four-term chief minister of Gujarat doesn't want to merely govern the country, he wants to remark it. But changing India will not be easy. India's new Iron Man doesn't just inherits an Iron Throne, he also inherits an economy whose growth rate has plummeted from 8.2 per cent in 2003-04 to 4.9 per cent. He has to work with a bureaucracy that has to shake off the sloth of UPA 2. And he has to keep at bay the more rabid elements of the Sangh Parivar who think it is payback time.
No one understands the pain of the periphery as much as someone who has spent many years there. But Modi is not merely a geographical outsider to the Delhi durbar, but also a social outsider; not quite at ease with its english-speaking elites, its unwritten rules of the game of being feral in public & complicit in private, and its backdoor give and take.
So, as Narendra Damodardas Modi settles down to the arduous task of running this great nation, he will realise its expectations are of the same magnitude as his victory : Monumental.
Indeed... NOW IS THE TIME TO DELIVER.
#IndiaToday
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