New York sources reported that Time magazine, which published a cover story before the Indian election calling Prime Minister Narendra modi the “Divider in Chief”, has in a quick about-face run report with a headline, “modi Has United india Like No Prime Minister in Decades”. The article with that headline published on its website on Tuesday, asked “How has this supposedly divisive figure not only managed to keep power, but increase his levels of support?” and answered: “A key factor is that modi has managed to transcend india’s greatest fault line: the class divide”.
The writer, Manoj Ladwa, credited modi’s emergence as a unifier to his origins in a backward caste a factor missed or deliberately omitted by Western media obsessed with what they call upper caste domination. Reportedly “Narendra modi was born into one of india’s most disadvantaged social groups,” he explained. “In reaching the very top, he personifies the aspiration working classes and can self-identify with his country’s poorest citizens in a way that the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty, who have led india for most of the 72 years since independence, simply cannot.”
He said “Yet despite the strong and often unfair criticisms leveled at modi’s policies both throughout his first term and this marathon election, no Prime Minister has united the Indian electorate as much in close to five decades,” referring to indira gandhi’s massive 1971 victory.
