Aabhas, a self-professed Marxist voted against BJP and Narendra Modi in 2014. This is the story of his journey of transformation from a Modi hater to a Modi supporter. In his own words- "I had both hearts at twenty and now have brain while I kiss thirty. This is a true story of the journey from being a 'Marxist' to an alleged 'Modi Bhakt.' I once saw Arvind Kejriwal as the savior of the realm and Modi as a mass-murderer."A study tour to Ajanta Caves began to shape a new Aabhas. He questioned the indoctrination into Communist ideology he got in college. "India leaped to become the third-fastest growing economy and its respect in the world reflects on the leadership of Modi. This is a New India, making alliances and friends, and willing to hit its enemies hard.
From the author of Where Power Lies and The Spin Doctor's Diary, comes a new book that tells the story of Narendra Modi's meteoric rise to power on the international stage, The Modi Effect: Inside Narendra Modi's Campaign to Transform India. With exclusive access to the architects of Modi's campaign, Prime Minister Modi and his current cabinet, Mr. Price has delivered an insider's account of this incredible political movement. In examining Modi's character and his position as leader of an increasingly powerful nation, Mr. Price explores the global impact of Modi's victory and its on-going transformation of international politics. On May 16, 2014, Narendra Modi was declared the winner of the largest democratic election ever conducted in human history. But how did this impoverished chai wallah, who sold tea on trains as a boy, rise to become Prime Minister of India? Political parties in the West pride themselves on the sophistication of their election strategies, but they all have a lot to learn from this election. Modi's campaign was a master class in modern electioneering. His team created an election machine that broke new ground in the use of social media, the Internet, mobile phones, and digital technologies. Modi took part in thousands of public events, but in such a vast country it was impossible to visit every town and village in person. How did he do it? Via "virtual Modi"-a life-sized 3D hologram-beamed to parts of the vast nation he could not reach in person. These pioneering techniques brought millions of young people-the holy grail of election strategists everywhere-to ballot boxes. Under Narendra Modi's leadership the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a crushing victory in the 2014 general election leaving the Congress Party of the Gandhi political dynasty in disarray. For the first time in the history of India, an opposition leader swept to power with an overall majority. Former BBC correspondent and political consultant Lance Price was granted exclusive access to Prime Minister Modi and his team of advisers to write this book. With complete freedom to tell the story as he found it, Price details Modi's rise to power, the extraordinary election victory, and its aftermath. The book examines Modi's rise, his unprecedented mass appeal despite the controversies surrounding him (including the West shunning him), and the pivotal role he will now play on the international stage. The Modi Effect exposes the changing landscape of electioneering in twenty-first century global politics through the story of Modi's campaign, when message management and technological wizardry combined to create a vote-winning colossus.
A riveting account of how a popularly elected leader has steered the world's largest democracy toward authoritarianism and intolerance Over the past two decades, thanks to Narendra Modi, Hindu nationalism has been coupled with a form of national-populism that has ensured its success at the polls, first in Gujarat and then in India at large. Modi managed to seduce a substantial number of citizens by promising them development and polarizing the electorate along ethno-religious lines. Both facets of this national-populism found expression in a highly personalized political style as Modi related directly to the voters through all kinds of channels of communication in order to saturate the public space. Drawing on original interviews conducted across India, Christophe Jaffrelot shows how Modi's government has moved India toward a new form of democracy, an ethnic democracy that equates the majoritarian community with the nation and relegates Muslims and Christians to second-class citizens who are harassed by vigilante groups. He discusses how the promotion of Hindu nationalism has resulted in attacks against secularists, intellectuals, universities, and NGOs. Jaffrelot explains how the political system of India has acquired authoritarian features for other reasons, too. Eager to govern not only in New Delhi, but also in the states, the government has centralized power at the expense of federalism and undermined institutions that were part of the checks and balances, including India's Supreme Court. Modi's India is a sobering account of how a once-vibrant democracy can go wrong when a government backed by popular consent suppresses dissent while growing increasingly intolerant of ethnic and religious minorities.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been known to be critical about India's policies in Kashmir. But when on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's birthday in 2020, Merkel sent him a note wishing him with the words Liebe Narendra (Dear Narendra), written in hand, one knew that Modi had arrived on the world stage. Modi 2.0: Beyond the Ordinary is an objective analysis of the prime minister, his struggles and achievements, his spiritual journey, the men and the women in his life, and his friends and enemies. It also doesn't shy away from discussing the difficult questions surrounding Modi-Godhra and his relations with India's Muslims. Self-confessedly, author Sunil Sharan was once critical of Narendra Modi but after carefully observing him for years, he realised that Modi is indeed a transformational man. Today, India stands rejuvenated, its prestige around the world high, the spirit of its people uplifted. Once the question used to be: Who after Nehru? Now the question is: Who after Modi? Modi 2.0 debates the possibilities.
The Opposition’s 26-party Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) aims to pose a serious challenge to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Despite the coalition leaders’ ideological differences and regional rivalries, their overwhelming intent is to prevent Narendra Modi from becoming the first Indian since Jawaharlal Nehru to win three successive five-year prime ministerial terms. The 2024 Lok Sabha election could prove historic. If Narendra Modi wins a third successive five-year prime ministerial term, he will be the first Indian leader to do so since Jawaharlal Nehru. In this sweeping account of events leading up to the 2024 General Election, Minhaz Merchant analyses how Modi has shaped Indian politics, economics and culture during his decade as prime minister. The book examines whether the Opposition’s strategy to present a united front can derail the BJP’s juggernaut. For example, can Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and regional satraps in Opposition-ruled states put aside their differences? Minhaz Merchant has met and interviewed Modi several times since 2012. The author analyses Modi’s policies across key domains: geopolitics, economics, technology and social reform. Broken up into ten broad sections and thirty-one chapters, the book decodes Modi’s evolution over the past decade from a regional leader to a global statesman.
How did a 'chai wallah' who sold tea on trains as a boy become Prime Minister of India? On May 16, 2014, Narendra Modi was declared the winner of the largest election ever conducted anywhere in the world, having fought a campaign unlike any before. Political parties in Britain, Australia and North America pride themselves on the sophistication of their election strategies, but Modi's campaign was a master-class in modern electioneering. His team created an election machine that broke new ground in the use of social media, the Internet, mobile phones and digital technologies. Modi took part in thousands of public events, but in such a vast country it was impossible to visit every town and village. The solution? A 'virtual Modi' - a life-size 3D hologram - beamed to parts he could not reach in person. These pioneering techniques brought millions of young people to the ballot box - the holy grail of election strategists everywhere - as Modi trounced the governing Congress Party led by the Gandhi dynasty. Former BBC correspondent and Downing Street communications expert Lance Price has been granted exclusive access to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his team of advisers. With complete freedom to tell it as he finds it, he details Modi's rise to power, the extraordinary election victory and its aftermath. The Modi Effect: Inside Narendra Modi's campaign to transform India lifts the lid on a whole new box of tricks, where message-management and IT wizardry combined to create a vote-winning colossus of awesome potency.
States today are far more engaged in diplomacy than ever before, actively building relations with other states to harness their mutual commercial and cultural strengths. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s outlook to global affairs is no different, yet there is a nuanced approach in linking India’s foreign policy to domestic transformation. While on the one hand, his policies seek to attract foreign capital, technology and open foreign markets for Indian products, on the other, they are geared towards regional stability, peace and prosperity. All events are texts to be analysed and the authors in this volume do so but emphatically underline that India’s diplomacy under Modi has got a go-getting edge, that it is no longer foreign anymore but a matter of public affairs and that with Modi at the helm, India is set to leverage its role and make itself a ‘diplomatic superpower’. The nuanced and thought-provoking essays, by some of the most well-respected analysts and practitioners of diplomacy, make this book a must-read for not just professionals and serious readers but for the uninitiated as well.
Narendra Modi’s energetic personal diplomacy and promise to make India a ‘leading power’ surprised many analysts. Most had predicted that his government would concentrate on domestic issues, on the growth and development demanded by Indian voters, and that he lacked necessary experience in international relations. Instead, Modi’s first term saw a concerted attempt to reinvent Indian foreign policy by replacing inherited understandings of its place in the world with one drawn largely from Hindu nationalist ideology. Following Modi’s re-election in 2019, this book explores the drivers of this reinvention, arguing it arose from a combination of elite conviction and electoral calculation, and the impact it has had on India’s international relations.
India has fallen far and fast from the runaway growth rates it enjoyed in the first decade of the twenty-first century. In order to reverse this trend, New Delhi must seriously reflect on its policy choices across a wide range of issue areas. Getting India Back on Track broadly coincides with the 2014 Indian elections to spur a public debate about the program that the next government should pursue in order to return the country to a path of high growth. It convenes some of India's most accomplished analysts to recommend policies in every major sector of the Indian economy. Taken together, these seventeen focused and concise memoranda offer policymakers and the general public alike a clear blueprint for India's future. Contents Foreword Ratan N. Tata (Chairman, Tata Trusts) Introduction Ashley J. Tellis and Reece Trevor (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) 1. Maintaining Macroeconomic Stability Ila Patnaik (National Institute of Public Finance and Policy) 2. Dismantling the Welfare State Surjit Bhalla (Oxus Investments) 3. Revamping Agriculture and the Public Distribution System Ashok Gulati (Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices) 4. Revisiting Manufacturing Policy Rajiv Kumar (Centre for Policy Research) 5. Generating Employment Omkar Goswami (Corporate and Economic Research Group) 6. Expanding Education and Skills Laveesh Bhandari (Indicus Analytics) 7. Confronting Health Challenges A. K. Shiva Kumar (National Advisory Council) 8. Accelerating Infrastructure Modernization Rajiv Lall and Ritu Anand (IDFC Limited) 9. Managing Urbanization Somik Lall and Tara Vishwanath (World Bank) 10. Renovating Land Management Barun S. Mitra (Liberty Institute) and Madhumita D. Mitra (consultant) 11. Addressing Water Management Tushaar Shah (International Water Management Institute) and Shilp Verma (independent researcher) 12. Reforming Energy Policy and Pricing Sunjoy Joshi (Observer Research Foundation) 13. Managing the Environment Ligia Noronha (Energy and Resources Institute) 14. Strengthening Rule of Law Devesh Kapur (University of Pennsylvania) and Milan Vaishnav (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) 15. Correcting the Administrative Deficit Bibek Debroy (Centre for Policy Research) 16. Building Advanced Technology Capacity for Competitive Arms Acquisition Ravinder Pal Singh (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) 17. Rejuvenating Foreign Policy C. Raja Mohan (Observer Research Foundation and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
