Victorious pm modi did well to embrace inclusion

Victorious pm modi did well to embrace inclusion

It is wholly welcome and appropriate that Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the high moral ground in his victory speech on the eve of Holi, delivered from the BJP party office. He stressed inclusion, political morality, nation-building and national progress, hard work and his own personal dedication to these goals. The only social division he spoke about was in terms of class — the poor and the middle class.
The poll-time rhetoric of his predecessors having laid waste to the nation over the preceding decades since Independence gave way to respectful acceptance of their contributions. The PM did not deign to name his opponents, but managed to make them look small, anyhow, setting them against the backdrop of his grand vision for his party, to flourish as the largest in any democracy, and for the country, to build a New India.
The political messaging for the BJP is twofold. At an organisational level, rally behind his own alter ego, Amit Shah, the only BJP leader’s name Modi took in the course of his speech. At the level of ideology, shed its rough edges.
Those who voted for the BJP or did not vote for the BJP are all citizens, for whose service people join the BJP, said the prime minister. As the leader of the nation, he would not discriminate against those who hold a view different from his own. All this is wholly welcome. Yet, it would be disingenuous to read into Modi’s speech total removal of any room for confrontational politics.
The nation is to be the new rallying point. Implicit in this single-minded dedication to national glory is the rejection of those who stand in the way or are deemed to stand in the way, or dare to see the nation differently from what the majority does. We urge the prime minister to use the enormous political capital he has acquired to tackle immediate economic challenges, such as restructuring the banking system, without which the economy cannot step up investment and grow, while pursuing a political path of inclusion. Magnanimity in victory should elicit cooperation from political opponents as well.