Ed Luce: prediction

Transcript context

…Because the situation of women in India is headed toward long‑term improvement, wealth is rising every year. India’s proven actually, remarkably stable. It’s still quite democratic, ‑‑ albeit in a funny way ‑‑ with a very disconnected sense of accountability. If it simply keeps in motion, won’t you get over the medium‑ to long‑term, say, at least a third of India, looking a bit like Malaysia, Gujarat having infrastructure, being developed, people having richer, freer, more diverse lives. Not all of India, but the [inaudible] , they’re still better off. Rural India moving more to cities, which is the single biggest liberalizing development you could imagine in a life. And thus, political headlines aside, India as a whole will be much more liberal 10 or 15 years from now, or no? Am I looking at the wrong indicators? Modi, I think of him as a Jekyll and Hyde figure. The Jekyll figure, the good part, is that he’s a fanatic. He believes what he believes, and he’s therefore not in politics for business. He’s not in it for corruption or personal enrichment, and he doesn’t tolerate people around him who are. That’s an extraordinarily refreshing and important change from the Congress government that he booted out three years ago. The Jekyll is not actually a sort of classic laissez‑faire liberal. It’s a China model of development. He’s a project executor. He believes in infrastructure that’s built and on time, and that works, and God knows, India needs that. If Jekyll‑Modi succeeds, it will be a positive liberal event, because more people will be lifted out of poverty, fewer people will be illiterate, and women, as you say, will be prime beneficiaries of this. But remember, he’s also Dr. Hyde. This guy is a fascist, and if things go wrong, and Jekyll can’t deliver, and he faces reelection two years from now and the possibility of losing the majority… He’s a master, bar none, of whipping up Hindu sentiment and to override caste divisions. That’s always the key is, “How can you unite Hindus beyond what divides them?” Because in India, you don’t cast your vote. You vote your caste. China had a Communist revolution, a cultural revolution going back earlier, the Taiping Rebellion. At least on the surface, partition aside, India appears much more stable than China over the long term. At least that’s the cliché. Is it true, and if so, why is India so apparently stable?…

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