How Western media reacted to Narendra Modi’s victory International newspapers, including those in the US and the UK, gave extensive front-page media coverage to the remarkable electoral performance of the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but their editorial writers still expressed familiar misgivings about the imminent ascension of the Gujarat chief minister as the nation’s prime minister. The BJP won a clear majority on its own in the 543-member Lok Sabha in the 16th general election—the first time any party had done so since the Congress under Rajiv Gandhi swept to power in 1984 on a sympathy wave following his mother and predecessor Indira Gandhi’s assassination. The front pages of Western dailies said as much. “India delivers a clear mandate to the Hindu party,” read the headline in the New York Times. “Modi victory heralds new era for India,” pronounced the Wall Street Journal. The London-based Financial Times kept it simple—“Modi sweeps to power in Indian election.” Modi is still associated with aggressive Hindutva and the 2002 riots in Gujarat in much of the Western press although in the April-May general election, his campaign plank was rapid economic development and equitable distribution of its dividends to India’s 1.2 billion plus population. In an opinion piece by its editorial board, the New York Times wondered “whether Mr. Modi will be the pragmatic pro-business leader who has argued for putting a priority on economic reforms and creating jobs, or whether he will be the strident Hindu nationalist who might impose a sectarian agenda on a largely secular state.” The newspaper also published an article written by Gardiner Harris that talked about Muslim sentiment in India following the saffron party’s victory. “After a landslide electoral triumph Friday by the Bharatiya Janata Party of Hindu nationalists, some Muslims here said they were worried that their place in India could become even more tenuous,” Harris wrote. The Washington Post wrote an opinion piece that carried this headline – “Will Narendra Modi’s era be marked by an economic boom or derailed by nationalism?” It asked “whether Mr. Modi will be the Deng Xiaopeng of India or its Vladimir Putin—a leader whose economic ambitions are derailed by nationalism and authoritarian temptations.” In the UK, the Guardian’s Jason Burke defined Modi as “the controversial embodiment of a changing India”. Burke deemed Modi’s journey to the Prime Minister’s office “long and unlikely”. Caution was the watchword for the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal. The journal’s article—“Be choosy when riding Modi wave”—focused on the dilemma of global investors who might be interested in investing in India. The Financial Times wrote: “Doubts persist about his attitude towards the country’s 175 million Muslims. Tragic memories linger from 2002 when, as chief minister, he failed to prevent a pogrom in Gujarat in which 1,000 people, many of them Muslims, were murdered.” It offered some advice to the would-be Indian Prime Minister. “Mr Modi’s duty is to govern in the interests of all Indians, in word as well as in deed. There is still time to express remorse for the events in Gujarat. He should brook no hint of Hindu triumphalism nor veer from the country’s secular principles,” it added in an editorial.
Posted on: Mon, 19 May 2014 06:40:10 +0000
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