Jakarta, IO – I must start off this exposition with so many caveats, principally that this is a brief observation by a non-political science expert, but rather a Monetary Economist with interests in International and Development Economics and the International Political Economy.
As we are well aware, Prime Minister Rajendra Modi has been at his post as Prime Minister of India, the biggest democracy in the world, for close to ten years, and he now looks most likely to gain his third five-year premiership, as no one has ever succeeded in doing before. And this is India, with close to a billion registered voters, the largest electorate in the world, with the BJP party registering around 180 million, according to a report. There have been a number of writings on these remarkable political achievements by a former Chief Minister of Gujarat, 2001- 2014. PM Modi has recently been considered as the leader of the most effective political party and government of the most populous country in the world. At the same time, some have started to see him as becoming more and more authoritarian, which might not really surprise us. And as an Indonesian, I could easily claim to see a similar phenomenon taking place in our country.
I myself am not ready to present my own characterization of a PM Modi leadership style, since I have not studied him and his works closely enough to pass any meaningful judgment, even as a casual observer. Nevertheless, that should not dissuade me from writing about his admirable achievements as a world leader.
As a sign of how highly countries recognize his accomplishments, the reader might note that he is one of the few world leaders, if not the only one, who before he assumed his premiership was banned from entering the US, as a result of his conservative views on religion and women. Yet in his first term of premiership, he was honored by being invited to address a joint session of Congress, including the House of Representatives and the Senate, not once but twice. It may be that only Israel’s PM shares the same honor – clearly because it is known to be the closest ally of the US. PM Modi is also criticized for being too fanatic in his Hinduism.
It is said that for him everyone in India is free to choose any religion, but at the same time every Indian is a Hindu. The minority of Indian Moslems, numbering around 160 million, may harbor feelings of being discriminated against, and more than once his speeches are viewed as having hurt Indian Moslems’ religious feelings.
In any case, his Bharata Janata Party (BJP) has been considered the most effective political organization in the world, while PM Modi himself is seemingly becoming more and more authoritarian. Well, one surely cannot have every benefit in politics, I suppose. As all of us realize that we cannot have our cake and eat it too.
However, one cannot help concluding that PM Narendra Modi and Indian democracy are amazing to observe. A country with the biggest population in the world, and practicing democracy – even if not yet a champion of democracy. It is also interesting to observe that studies indicate that in most countries surveys report that men more and more lean to right views, while women tend to the left. But, in India the reverse is true, according to similar studies.
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I cannot understand the justification, yet that seems to be the way it is. Something new about India to me as well. It is fascinating nonetheless, don’t you think? The biggest country in the world population-wise, the biggest country practicing democracy, and its people are having these interesting characteristics, distinguished from others.
The political cloud of India in the global political environment is still not commensurate with its population. Global politics is still under the aegis of two superpowers – the US and China – while India’s role is certainly important among the association of middle-income countries like Brazil, India, South Africa, Mexico and Indonesia (BRICS), and in global groupings we no longer talk about G7 and the Emerging Countries, but the two groups forming the G20. Economy-wise, the grouping is different: we have the Advanced Countries, the Emerging Market Countries and the Developing Countries. These are all the groupings that I can recall.