28 March, 2024

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India Makes Modi, First Without Equals

By S. Sivathasan

S. Sivathasan

S. Sivathasan

My Predictions in Colombo Telegraph

April 12, My Prediction for Lok Sabha. NDA 305, BJP 280

May 16, Actual. NDA 335, BJP 282

 

April 12, My Prediction. UPA 105, Congress 90

May 16, Actual. UPA          Congress 44

 

Earliest query on January 2nd 2014,

Any reason why BJP cannot go to 280 or more?

Any reason why Congress cannot come to 100 or below?

 

February 4, My Prediction. AAP, Single Digit.

My prediction of a precise and firm 280 for BJP was perhaps the closest of all to the actual. While Chanakya’s was the best at 340 for NDA, mine was among the few above 300. As early as on January 2nd, I suggested obliquely in CT that BJP can go to 280 or more and that Congress can decline to 100 or less.

In many of my articles in CT I alluded to the subterranean surge that Modi wave and then the storm was causing. To me more real was the iceberg itself rather than the tip that many a poll had sighted.

Now we have to await the outcome for five years, which too can be foreseen. As for now just one observation. In Modi is a  synthesis of Patel’s grit, Nehru’s balance and Bose’s charisma. Behind him stands the idealism and super confidence  of Vivekananda. Moving him is the thought of Bharathi though he might not have studied the words. “Bharath is ancient and great. Let us sing in praise, we are without peer”.

Modi’s Prescience and Preparation

With a feeling of self-assurance Modi asserted that even as elections were announced, result too was pronounced. Enthusiasm and confidence never flagged since, whatever the number of aspirants for the highest post. Results now are better than as foreseen.

The niche that Modi has assiduously carved out for himself is to stay preeminently first, with none to equal. This he achieved in 2014 and it was conveyed to the world on 16th May. What for? To mould India in the image of his thinking. Such an approach casts responsibilities infinitely greater for him to bear than for others to share with him. He has exhorted the Indian electorate to give him 60 months to accomplish what Congress has not achieved in 60 years. Certainly a worthwhile target of aiming at the stars. Indian electorate marshalling its collective intelligence has responded in full measure by giving the PM and the NDA an  absolute majority.

When racing against time one is reminded of Lord Mountbatten’s specially printed Calendar to Independence Day 1947, of some 60 days as a daily reminder of timelines. Matters of priority concern will feature in the Modi calendar as in people’s expectations from May 16. Some concerns may aim at assuaging neighbourly anxieties not through shibboleths from India but with proactive reciprocity coming from the neighbours themselves to India’s initiatives.

JR and NaMo

JR Jayewardene when he assumed leadership of the UNP in early seventies, was all too swift in showing the stuff of which he was made. Around 1975 when lightweights in the party tried to throw their weight about all he said at a party conclave was, “Most of you owe your position to me, it is unwise to forget it”. Everyone came to know where to stand. Keeping a 4/5th majority in tow thereafter was never a problem.  Getting ensnared in his strategem was the error of striking public servants and the country learnt what a no-nonsense government meant. Around mid-eighties when Israeli Interest Section was mooted and Muslim parliamentarians made their disquiet vocal, he said those opposed to it can get out and oppose. That was the end of all protests.

Modi is now primus without pares. Moving ahead with a cohesive 336 MPs can never be difficult as most of the 282 owe their position to the Modi storm. For the great promises that Modi has made from where comes the strength needed to fulfill them? It flows from the mandate of 336 seats and a vote share of 38%. Both are unprecedented for BJP for 30 years. This steel frame for successful governance has been secured through massive labour.  Among the many points that Narendra Modi (NaMo) has made strikingly clear since December 2013, the salient ones stand out.

Reordering investment magnitudes, mobilizing financial resources, attracting FDI, stimulating Diaspora flows, ferreting out hoards of black money and scaling down financial profligacy (wasteful freebies and avoidable subsidies) are likely to feature prominently. When hopes are raised of early and ever widening employment opportunities, massive public works programmes are likely to claim immediacy and sustained attention. Strong administration, iron handed stoppage of terrorist activities and repatriation of intruders are already announced publicly.

Pronouncement apart, delivery is paramount to establish credibility and to honour his word. The most challenging is to excel previous records of past governments. To execute all what are mentioned, India has sufficient strength of economists, major construction firms and capable administrative cadres. Ever since independence Indian armed forces have built up a tradition of implicit loyalty to the state. A blessing for a Head of Government unlike as in countries where the reactions of the forces have to be factored in like in Egypt or Pakistan. There is hope aplenty.

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Latest comments

  • 4
    0

    Well done Sivathasan.

    I thought of your articles when the results started trickling in.

  • 3
    0

    Mr. Sivathasan,

    Modi’s win had as much to do with the image of a silent, depressed Manmohan Singh playing second fiddle to Sonia Gandhi while there was plenty of corruption all around him, as with Modi’s own strategies.

    Indian youth wanted an assertive leader who could project India as a power to reckon with. They don’t even want an ‘effeminate’ Mohandas Gandhi to be their icon–as some of the Indian youths in the US told me– let alone the Singh/Sonia duo, or a dynastic succession within the same party via Rahul Gandhi.

    I haven’t very closely read your analyses on Indian elections, but it seems to me that you haven’t mentioned this aspect.

    • 1
      0

      !!Indian youth wanted an assertive leader who could project India as a power to reckon with.!!

      reason can dream what dreams cannot reason.

      60% literate, 70% of the voting population living in villages and folk living on $1 per day does not connote what you are presuming.

  • 3
    0

    Good Prediction Mr Sivathasan. Well done!

    On a different note, I would like to see an article from you of people comparing NaMo with Mara. Its really stupid and also hilarious to caompare these two extemes. Not that those regime bone licking writers don’t know its funny but its purely to please Mara or as per Mara’s instructions/advise they write these articles to fool the peasants and also to show that Modi would closely work or associate with Mara thus showing bogusly to the world that Mara is very safe and sound.

  • 3
    0

    Forecast & wrote with truths.

  • 5
    0

    Mr. Sivathasan

    I hope you reach out to the Narendra Modi administration and link the Sri Lankan Tamils with the new leadership in Delhi. The GTF and the TGTE are incapable of forging that link given their time warp, outdated thinking and pro LTTE sycophancy. Only Wiggie and you can.

    Lets not forget that with the exception of the AIADMK, all Dravidian parties were wiped out in Tamil Nadu. The caste based parties in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar (RJD, SP, BP) were wiped out as were the Marxists outside of Kerala. Muslims in North India voted for Narendra Modi. People were simply fed up with the Ma beta party.

  • 4
    0

    Mr. Sivathasan:

    Can you give us an assessment of how the “scientific” polls did in predicting the outcome of the Bharat election? Did you do better than any of the national polls? If so, how did you do it?

    I am now reading Bhagavad Gita. I suspect that Modi is an avatar of Arjuna. In what form did Lord Krishna appear on this occasion to advice Arjuna?

    • 2
      0

      VGG

      In the first para of 3 lines are a request and 2 probing questions. My attempt at an answer is getting rather long. I shall reply soon by way of an article.

      SS

    • 2
      0

      As always one specific Indian poll survey did it spot on-Chanakya exit poll.

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