Is Narendra Modi India's Reagan or Nixon?

Modi, like Reagan, is a master of the personal anecdote, effortlessly tying individual stories to larger principles. And both have employed catchphrases to mock adversaries. Reagan frequently replied to Carter in the 1980 presidential debates with a head tilt and a well-rehearsed "there you go again" -- as if Carter kept repeating the same mistake. Modi refers to his main rival, Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party, as the "prince" -- a barb that stings because it's so true.

Similarities in style mask substantive differences, however. While associated with the religious right, Reagan was basically a centrist. Modi, by contrast, presents himself as a centrist, despite having spent much of his adult life with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, an organization whose divisive ideology promotes the idea of India as a Hindu nation. In 1990, Modi helped organize a notorious, religiously themed tour by BJP leaders through India's Hindu-Muslim flash points, which left a shameful trail of intercommunal violence in its wake.

Otherwise, much about Modi's early life remains hazy, partly due to a Nixonian preoccupation with secrecy.

This selective amnesia is classic Nixon, who talked up his humble Quaker roots only when politically convenient.

Like Nixon, Modi maintains a coterie of private-sector associates, some less savory than others. A 2012 report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, India's top accounting body, found that the Gujarat state government had engaged in a range of financial "irregularities," many of which provided "undue benefits" to favored firms, including the Gujarati-based conglomerate Adani Group. A study of special economic zones in Gujarat published in March and conducted by social researcher Manshi Asher, claims that the state government helped the Adani Group to obtain land at favorable prices and to violate environmental laws with impunity.

Even more Nixon-like, however, is Modi's effort to counter his image as the darling of India's richest industrialists by embracing a tired genre of cultural populism. Modi's surrogates frequently disparage the "Delhi-based intelligentsia" that has coalesced around the Congress party establishment. Substitute "East Coast" and "Ivy League," and you can almost hear Nixon speaking. Where Nixon loathed the Kennedys, Modi disdains the Nehru-Gandhi family, the dynasty that has dominated Indian politics for most of the nearly seven decades since independence in 1947.

Like Nixon, Modi is prone to bouts of self-pity. After losing the 1962 California gubernatorial election, Nixon famously informed his detractors that they would not "have Nixon to kick around anymore." Modi, who also occasionally refers to himself in the third person, recently stated that "Modi" should be "hanged" if found guilty of the main charge leveled against him: that as Gujarat's chief minister in 2002, he directed state police not to intervene as extremists burned, beat, and in some cases hacked to death approximately 1,000 Muslim residents. Yet Modi displays a hauntingly Nixonian persecution complex when journalists raise the substance of the accusations. In 2007, he walked out of a television studio when an interviewer persisted in asking about what happened in 2002.

Even more Nixon-like, however, is Modi's effort to counter his image as the darling of India's richest industrialists by embracing a tired genre of cultural populism. Modi's surrogates frequently disparage the "Delhi-based intelligentsia" that has coalesced around the Congress party establishment. Substitute "East Coast" and "Ivy League," and you can almost hear Nixon speaking. Where Nixon loathed the Kennedys, Modi disdains the Nehru-Gandhi family, the dynasty that has dominated Indian politics for most of the nearly seven decades since independence in 1947.

In 2013, an investigation ordered by India's Supreme Court found insufficient grounds to prosecute Modi. He says he has been given a "clean chit." That is an exaggeration. The investigation found damning -- if not criminally prosecutable -- evidence of questionable actions (and inactions) by Modi, as well as indications that crucial records had been destroyed.

Modi's lack of contrition for his government's failure to protect Muslims in 2002 is the clearest sign of his Nixon-esque penchant for denial. Nixon, likewise, never admitted his involvement in the Watergate scandal while in office and rejected claims that his administration violated international law during the Vietnam War, which he insisted had the backing of a "silent majority" of Americans.
Modi once compared his feelings about the 2002 violence against Muslims to the sadness anyone would feel if he or she accidentally ran over a puppy. His attempts to clarify this statement have not gone down well with his critics. Nixon fared much better with his own puppy story -- his famous 1952 "Checkers speech," which saved his political career two decades before the Watergate break-in ended it. Accused of corruption, Nixon said that the only gift he ever kept during his years in office was a cocker spaniel named Checkers and that he would not break his children's hearts by getting rid of the little pup.

India's strategic analysts have been asking whether Modi might end up as "Nixon in China" -- a leader whose hard-line credentials allow him to pursue a radical foreign-policy initiative, such as redefining India's relationship with Pakistan. My fear is not only that Modi is ill-equipped to pull off such a diplomatic coup, but that he will bring to India's highest office the worst elements of the Nixon package: the concealment, paranoia, sulking, denial, vindictiveness, and outsized sense of entitlement.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/04/29/narendra_modi_indian_elections_reagan_or_nixon

foreign policy.com founded by the pravda on the potomac and slate.com, 'nuff said. would be nice to wipe ass with the paper this 'opinion' is written on.

Propagandhi711 wrote:foreign policy.com founded by the pravda on the potomac and slate.com, 'nuff said. would be nice to wipe ass with the paper this 'opinion' is written on.

Agreed. Only faux & eenadu are authentic news sources.