Concerns About PM Modi

HOW much better can things get for India’s prime minister? Narendra Modi won a massive electoral mandate in May and he has just marked a wildly successful 100 days in office. The domestic press swings mostly from enthusiastic to fawning. Foreigners cheer, too, noting he is far more assertive than his predecessor. Certainly he puts on a much better show. This week he and Shinzo Abe, Japan’s nationalist prime minister, indulged in a bromance of happy joint statements, skipping from tourist sites in Kyoto to Tokyo. That, in part, was a signal to China that the Indo-Japanese courtship is growing.

Mr Modi’s style is triumphal; it casts his peers, in all parties, in the political shade. As a public speaker he is gifted. Last month’s Independence Day address won plaudits from every political corner; he was passionate yet moderate, and took on difficult subjects such as the curse of religious violence. He is helping to spread confidence, which may in part explain why the economy (notably industry, which he vows to promote) shows renewed vim: it is growing at 5.7%, the fastest in two years. And his reputation as a disciplinarian cheers those who yearn for an authoritarian ruler. When Mr Modi talks of his dismay at too many power-centres in government, he reflects his supporters’ belief that only one man should have any. He lets rumours circulate to show what a firm grip he has on subordinates. According to one, Mr Modi was tipped off that a minister en route to the airport was too casually dressed, so ordered him home to get changed.

Colleagues may bristle, but voters warm to his self-promotion. They loved his intensely personalised election campaign, when crowds chanted his name and he bragged that as a strongman, with a mighty “56-inch chest”, he would get results. In office it is he, not his ministers, who launches big policies. Take his promise late last month to sign up an extra 75m households for bank accounts (plus insurance cover) by February. That is an excellent ambition. Rural Indians, especially, are woefully underbanked. If they save at all, they often do so with gold. Accounts would help the government distribute welfare benefits in cash instead of by subsidising daily necessities.

Yet Mr Modi’s very popularity contains the kernel of future disappointment.

link.