Nobody expected this, not even the totally demoralized and nearly decimated opposition Congress Party. Did not Indian voters hand Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a once-in-a-generation mandate for change and economic revival in last year's general elections? In the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won 282 seats on its own. The party-led alliance — National Democratic Alliance (NDA) — has 336 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament. Election results gave the BJP more than five times as many seats as the ruling Congress. It was not a landslide victory in the familiar sense. Rather, it was a total transformation of India's political landscape. How then would anyone expect disillusionment to set in within one year of Modi assuming office? But the BJP headquarters and the ruling party lawmakers were in sombre mood last week as the BJP went ahead with elaborate arrangements to celebrate Modi's one year in office and showcase his achievements. Last year's euphoria and arrogant triumphalism seemed a vanished dream. Modi, who was elected chief minister of Gujarat thrice, entered the national scene promising to replicate his Gujarat model of development (free-market economics and an “open for business” sign for private investment) across the whole of India. Many questioned his claims about Gujarat's “smashing success”. Even those who believed him doubted whether “what Modi did in Gujarat in improving the business environment can be scaled up now to all of India” as World Bank President Jim Yong Kim hoped. There were many promises: New jobs, revived growth, lower inflation and an end to corruption and cronyism. Modi also vowed to bring back the illicit wealth accumulated by wealthy Indians in foreign bank accounts. His record on all fronts has been patchy at best. It is natural the Modi administration should want to spin its achievements at the first year milestone, but it has been a year of flowing rhetoric at home and photo-ops abroad. So, what went wrong? Some attribute the dissatisfaction with Modi's performance to the outsize expectations he gave about sweeping away constraints to growth in India, like stringent laws governing labor and land acquisition. This is only partly true. Expectations were outsize not only in relation to India's formidable problems but also in relation to Modi's track record as an administrator. Added to this is his style of governing. There is too much concentration of power in the prime minister's hands, leaving very little or no freedom of action to ministers and officials. This is one reason why the cabinet appears to be lackluster. If the limited reform measures Modi introduced — on land laws and increased foreign investment in the insurance sector — have been blocked in the upper house of Parliament, which the BJP does not control, this again has to do with Modi's personality. Unlike his predecessors, the prime minister does not know how to engage the opposition and build a working relationship with them or is unwilling to do so. India's social cohesion, never strong, has been steadily weakening after BJP came to power. Modi and his supporters should realize that any sign of communal strife or political unrest would frighten investors, domestic as well as foreign. What is at stake is not one particular leader's reputation, but the future of the country.
