Comment by kshatrea | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kshatrea | Hacker News Reader

All day I've been wondering when this or something like this would make it to HN. There's going to be polarization now - left wing or "secular" (believe me that is an overused term here in India) and so called liberals versus an opinionated group of people who believe in the Modi form of government and leadership. Not only is this not a good topic for HN - it is about as bad as saying "Pro big-government Obama wins" or "Right wing Conservatives take Britain by storm!" or "Abbott defeats the Labour Party!" or "Merkel gains at the expense of leftists!" or any other such article. Bottom line is: you can not be sure of what Modi or any other politician for that matter will do until he/she does it. Until today, we didn't even know he'd get such a landslide. As for the technological impact of Modi's win - he loves solar & infrastructure(so go long solar & infra stocks) and it is probable that the internet penetration in India will increase - although whether that is credited to him/his party or not is a matter of debate. This entire election is about a nationalist Indian party that has defeated a clutch of leftist parties (similar to other nationalist movements in many other nations) and there isn't a leftist versus nationalist debate in the world that deserves attention on HN.

For the record, I supported Modi's party in this election, so I maybe biased. Take with a pinch of salt.

EDIT: removed my comment about this not required on HN as in hindsight it seemed unimportant to me.

I've worked on many urban planning and transport infrastructure projects in India, since 2001, and have seen first-hand how the Congress government have sent the country into a mire in recent years (after what I regarded as a very promising start). Even when they were not actually corrupt, their decision-making processes became so poor that it was impossible to get anything done. I do have high hopes that Modi will change that.

At the same time, nationalism is dangerous in any form. I remember the last BJP government -- I was living in Ahmedabad in the run-up to the riots, and got out a few days beforehand, as it was increasingly clear that Something Bad was about to go down -- and I remember the way that Vajpayee would beat the war drums with Pakistan whenever anything he needed to divert attention from something on the home front. Hopefully Modi has learned that fanning the flames of communal and international tension is not, in fact, to India's benefit.

If Modi can stay focused on cleaning up the government, building infrastructure, and generally making the country a less difficult place to get things done, then India can resume its trajectory towards becoming one of the world's great powers. If, on the other hand, he goes for the cheaper and easier political points that one can score by slagging off Muslims, then I fear that India will tear itself apart, leading to far worse outcomes than Congress could have achieved. On balance, I'm optimistic that he will steer towards the former more than the latter, but I'll be watching carefully.

Our of curiosity, what do you think about the events in Gujarat in 2002?

It is deplorable and a very tragic set of events. I wasn't there, so I had to depend on the media for my consumption of news. The Supreme Court of India has declared Narendra Modi as legally not guilty of any crimes. From the news it certainly seems the Court has erred, although it is a constitutional body and as a citizen I need to abide by its judgement. There are of course Indian citizens who charge that the media is bought and paid for, just like other countries. If you're asking why I voted for the BJP, in my city the local BJP leader is very good and the other party leaders are very corrupt.

> The Supreme Court of India has declared Narendra Modi as legally not guilty of any crimes.

This is not true. SC has said in 'absence of sufficient proof' and such. Please do your homework.

And thus not guilty....

I understand, thanks for the answer.

The sad reality is: there are riots in India with depressing frequency. The riots in Gujarat were not an aberration; such things happen all over the place. That doesn't answer your question; but I'm laying the groundwork.

The Congress Party (which has been ruling India for the vast majority of the time since India became independent) realized, early on, that Modi was a threat and to counter this threat, they made every attempt to tar him with the guilt of 2002. No other Chief Minister of any other state has ever been held to such standards. Bear in mind: this is the same Congress Party whose members went on a rampage in 1984, killing/burning 4000+ Sikhs in Delhi when Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her bodyguards. They even came out and said, basically, "meh, bad things happen". The large number of Sikh deaths was _directly_ a result of their deliberate inaction. I know; I was in Delhi at that time. The Army was not called out for days, just so the bloodletting could continue. For this party to turn around and accuse Modi of orchestrating the 2002 riots is a sick joke.

> Please flag this off the front page - there are other more deserving stories.

I should learn not to upvote comments before I read them to the end. Oh well...

Anyhow, this election result isn't fascinating to me because he is or isn't right-wing/nationalistic/pro-business/whatever, it's interesting because it represents a very strong change of direction in the government. It looks like people were very dissatisfied with the ruling party/coalition, which is similar to what has been happening in some EU countries after the crisis (Hungary, Slovenia, Greece, ... - in some of these countries, like apparently in India, it was the Nationalist parties that gained most). To pull this off in a country with a billion people is even more fascinating. But at least democracy is working in the East, if not in the West (e.g. US).

An analysis of news reports suggests that you're mostly right, but there is a huge factor of the personal charisma of this man. Like Obama, he has played on the "hope & change" motto. Can he deliver, we will have to see.

You may downvote if you like, but I still do not see why this should be on the front page of HN!

kshatrea is correct: politics and mainstream news are generally off topic.

But at least democracy is working in the East, if not in the West (e.g. US).

This is a little snarky and off-hand for HN. There are threads seemingly daily to discuss how and why the fraction of the electorate represented by HN commenters is not getting its preferred policy outcomes. There's no need to pull threads on other topics into that morass.

I mentioned the US because it has only 2 political parties, which have quite similar political programs and even more similar (in the course of my lifetime) governing styles. It's not much different in Slovenia; same politicians for the past 25 years, with little change possible.

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