Gujarat's chief minister Narendra Modi waves as he stands beside the Tata Nano car during the inauguration ceremony of a new plant for the Tata Nano at Sanand in the western Indian state of Gujarat June 2, 2010.REUTERS/AMIT DAVE
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It has been a fine few days indeed for Narendra Modi, chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat.
Today's front pages are full of the news that a report to the U.S. Congress, and a number of Wikileaks cables from U.S. diplomatic staff, have tipped him as a likely prime ministerial candidate for India's main opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, in the next national elections in 2014.
The report, from the Congressional Research Service and not intended for public circulation, reportedly says that "perhaps India's best example of effective governance and impressive development is found in Gujarat, where controversial chief minister Narendra Modi has streamlined economic processes, removing red tape and curtailing corruption in ways that have made the state a key driver of national economic growth," Kolkata's Telegraph reported.
Controversial, of course, because Mr. Modi is tainted by his alleged complicity in the 2002 riots in Gujarat, in which 2,000 people, most Muslims, were killed while police and government officials stood by.
But Mr. Modi seems less tainted all the time: earlier this week, India's Supreme Court declined to comment on a petition that sought to include Mr. Modi, then the chief minister, as an accused in the riots case and said it would no longer monitor the investigation. The top court returned the matter to a Gujarat trial bench, and Mr. Modi made clear how he felt about that in a tweet (which increasingly seems the preferred method of communication of the Indian elite); he wrote simply, "God is great!" which suggests he does not feel he has much to fear from a bench appointed by his government. The BJP went further, saying the decision is absolution and "a moral victory."
Mr. Modi was denied a visa to the U.S. in 2005 because of his alleged role in the riots. The BJP has not yet commented publicly on the speculation in the diplomatic cables that he may be their prime ministerial candidate. He heads a BJP government in the state, and is expected to handily win reelection there next year, putting him a position to hand over to a successor before a national run in 2014.
Gujarat has posted explosive economic growth (over 11 per cent in the past three years) under Mr. Modi, and the state boasts a wealth of impressive infrastructure including ports and roads. He had a reputation for running a graft-free administration, which has clouded slightly in recent months, but is seen as honest and abstemious himself.
Mr. Modi is going to celebrate all this fine news by – not eating, which also seems to be in vogue (or more accurately, back in vogue) with Indian leaders of late; he has announced a three-day fast, beginning on his birthday, September 17, for the state's "environment of peace, unity and harmony."
The Indian Express said this could only be "an image-makeover exercise" and would be "seen by many in his startled party as the first signal of his intention to move out of Gujarat and on to the national political stage."
Mr. Modi's anti-minority image is far from entirely rehabilitated; his government faces four different cases of extra-judicial killings, most of them of Muslims; the Supreme Court is still monitoring nine other court cases related to the 2002 riots. Momentum, however, is certainly going his way.
Writing in The Hindustan Times, the widely read editor-at-large Samar Halarnkar speculated on an election showdown between Mr. Modi at the head of the BJP and Rahul Gandhi, scion of the dynasty, leading the Indian National Congress. It is Mr. Modi, he noted, who has shown the greatest talent for harnessing India's emerging nationalism.
"As the middle-class expands in number and aspirations – both material and political – its nationalism of self-interest will demand political subservience. Narendra Modi realized very early that the middle [class's]… soaring aspirations require good governance, and it will accept a strong, even autocratic, leader."