India has gone from false hopes in 2014 to false pride in 2019 | The Indian Express

India has gone from false hopes in 2014 to false pride in 2019 | The Indian Express

Written by Pranab Bardhan |Updated: June 15, 2019 8:26:55 am

The writer is professor of graduate school at the department of economics, University of California, Berkeley.

India has gone from false hopes in 2014 to false pride in 2019

India has gone from false hopes in 2014 to false pride in 2019

It is unlikely that the economic achievements of the Modi regime played much of a role in the elections, and it is not a coincidence that the ruling party campaigns did not much emphasise them either (File/PTI Photo/ Manvender Vashist)

Narendra Modi’s stunning victory in the recent general elections is no doubt a great personal achievement for a leader whose oratorical and political skills (often tinged with a bit of venom) are indeed impressive and matched by indefatigable energy. Of course, he has been helped by disproportionately large corporate donations that gave him a megaphone to drown other voices, by a largely supine media that, apart from allowing him to escape hard questioning, became used to blowing his trumpet, by a fragmentary Opposition with immature leadership, by an army of volunteers canvassing both door-to-door and via WhatsApp, and, of course, a last-stage unexpected gift from Masood Azhar in the form of a terrorist incident to “boldly” respond to. But all this is not enough to fully explain the victory that Indian voters have handed him