Modi: The man who got India and Indians to think big
The PM is undeniably the tallest leader of India since Independence. In the arena of politics and statecraft at least, there is no one to match his achievements.
Celebrating a landmark birthday of a public figure is never a quiet, private occasion. It invariably spills over into exaggerated pageantry, some impressive in its choreography and others that occupy the twilight zone between ritualism and flattery. The commemoration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 75th birthday is likely to follow the same trajectory, and more so because the man who will be showered with adulation is undeniably the tallest leader of India since Independence. In the arena of politics and statecraft at least, there is no one to match his achievements.
An alternative way of honouring the man who has become only the second Indian PM after Jawaharlal Nehru to win three straight terms as PM — entirely on the strength of popular mandates — is to soberly, and without the hyperbolic excesses that often mark popular discourse, reflect on the India he inherited in 2014 and the India he will bequeath to a generation who will not have known of any Prime Minister other than Modi.
