The saffron factor

[unhappycamper]

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2014/March/opinion_March5.xml§ion=opinion



NEW FACE OF INDIA… A Bharatiya Janata Party supporter wears a mask of prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi at a rally in Kolkata.

The saffron factor
M.J. Akbar (BYLINE) / 3 March 2014

THE NEWS item flickered warily somewhere in the middle of NBC’s morning bulletin on Friday, almost as if the editors were wary of including it. A dead man had come alive. A major channel such as NBC would not have used “dead” without checking, or “alive” without confirmation. Mourners were taking the corpse to its destination when it began to kick within the coffin. The anchors, who looked as astonished as the mourners must have, described it as a miracle, and then quickly moved on to the comfort zone of the weather: Icy winds in minus zero temperatures under blue, sunlit skies. No miracle has been hailed with such embarrassment.

But there is a moral to this story. Never give up hope until the body is buried. Relations between India and America have slipped into a coma, but there is a long way to the graveyard. A small but determined lobby within American academy and media, which influenced attitudes if not policy towards India, is at long last beginning to accept that Narendra Modi’s march towards Delhi cannot be stopped or sabotaged. One of its achievements was the continued denial of a visa to Modi. It never raised any questions about a visa to Sonia Gandhi, although she has been indicted by an American court for an alleged role in the 1984 riots.

The extensive opinion poll done by the American organisation, Pew, has been a crucial input. The results have just been published, but data had begun to filter into conversation over the last few weeks. This poll gave Modi an unprecedented 63 per cent support against 19 per cent for Congress. Washington trusts the integrity of Pew.

Then there was the growing evidence from the inclinations of small parties in the Indian electoral mix, who by themselves could not achieve much but whose vote shares make a winning difference when attached to principal magnets. Big boys can be wrong, inflated as they are in ego and self-worth. Small parties cannot afford to err.