Mr Modi's success lies in his persona as an ancient-yet-modern captain of an imaginary Team India
re-election campaign, an American president might thwack some balls down a fairway, or go shoot turkey with the boys. Narendra Modi is different. As India’s gruelling election marathon reached its seventh and final round of voting, leaving a break before the final tally on May 23rd, its prime minister headed instead to a hermit’s cave at the foot of a Himalayan glacier.
The image, half Olympian god and half kung-fu wizard, suits a man who appears to have pulled off a miracle. For such, in the permanent subtropical storm of Indian politics, is the rarity of two consecutive full parliamentary majorities. Aslooked set to boost its share of votes from 31% in 2014 to 40%, and to increase its number of seats in the Lok Sabha, or lower house of parliament. With plenty of smaller regional parties as allies, Mr Modi will enjoy another walloping majority.
But with his wagging finger and gravelly snarl, Mr Modi is also a vessel for anger. In speeches over recent weeks, one count showed he spent 53% of his time attacking opponents, a further 18% talking of national security, and only the remainder touting, or development—the central theme of his 2014 campaign.
Yet Mr Modi’s strutting, sneering nationalism remains only part of the story. His opponents aided their own defeat. As in 2014 they largely failed to form cross-party alliances, allowing theto win numerous three-way races with a mere plurality of votes. Congress, the only national rival amid a sea of regional parties, vainly tried to chip away at Mr Modi’s image, and to present itself as equally Hindu, but failed to provide a compelling new narrative.
Some of Mr Modi’s crucial support might not be described as voluntary. Conveniently, government statisticians tried to bury reports of a surge in unemployment before the vote. Just as helpfully, the Indian air force refrained from spoiling Mr Modi’s martial bombast, delaying the revelation that during February’s brief dust-up with Pakistan it had shot down one of its own helicopters.
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