M K Bhadrakumar — Delhi gives warning to Premier Modi

India PM Narendra Modi's honeymoon with the voter is over. That didn't last long.

The election results of the Delhi poll last week were keenly awaited. Delhi has a larger-than-life significance in India's national politics. If a ruling party at the centre cannot win in Delhi, it somehow gets to be taken as a warning that the national mood disfavors it. Delhi is a microcosm of India, and the crushing defeat that the ruling party at the centre, Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP], has suffered in Delhi - winning just three seats out of 70 - ought to ring alarm bells in the mind of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.…

…the recent period witnessed a high level of intolerance toward minority communities on the part of the right wing nationalists who form the bedrock of the Modi government. Scores of Christian churches have been vandalized and mass ‘conversion' of people from other faiths to Hindu religion is being arranged. But the government has not done anything to stop these outrageous happenings and authorities are passively acquiescing with the rising curve of Hindu fundamentalism.…

Most certainly, it is about time to rein in the Hindu zealots since he has promises to keep. They have caused enough desecration in the holy grounds of the nation's secularism. The Delhi results underscore that the people reject the politics of polarization on religious lines.

In fact, Modi's mandate in 2014 was not a mandate for Hindu fundamentalist ideology, and a big majority of Hindu resent that the so-called "Sangh Parivar" (right-wing Hindu nationalists) has arrogated to itself the right to speak and act on their behalf. People elected Modi under the impression he had a development agenda and a capacity to deliver good governance. The Delhiites' vehement rejection of Modi, bordering on condemnation, should remind him of it.  

Asia Times Online
Delhi gives warning to Premier Modi
M K Bhadrakumar | retired career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001)