Source: The UnPopulist
by Raghu Karnad
“The cult of personality built around Narendra Modi now aims to make him seem immortal. That he is too strong to beat in a national election, is mundane; instead, Modi now seems permanently appointed, a figure fixed in the longue durée of India’s governance. In his own recent speeches, Modi has placed the country and himself at only the start of a new era. The next quarter century, which he has dubbed the Amrit Kaal (the ‘Elixir Age’) will ‘decide our direction for the next one thousand years,’ he said. This January, after Modi led inaugural rituals at a new temple in Ayodhya, one built over the rubble of a mosque razed by a mob in 1992, his ministers — calling themselves ‘the Cabinet of the Millennium’ — praised him in terms once reserved for kings.” (04/16/24)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/can-indias-liberal-democracy-recover