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      Yogi Adityanath’s Election Win Raises His Profile Across India

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      Yogi Adityanath’s return as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh is fueling talk that he might succeed Narendra Modi as prime minister one day, and continue to advance their Hindu political movement.GORAKHPUR, India — The powerful chief minister of India’s most populous state woke up at a Hindu temple, fed cows sweet jaggery cakes, performed a religious ceremony for Lord Shiva, then hit the trail on the last day of his election campaign this month.This blurring of religion and politics is what some supporters love and some opponents fear most about Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the firebrand Hindu monk who won a critical state election and a second term this week in Uttar Pradesh.His election victory and continued popularity, despite a heavily criticized government response to the coronavirus pandemic and a rise in hate speech and violence against Muslims under his watch, have cemented him as one of the most galvanizing figures in right-wing Hindu politics, and increasingly as an heir apparent to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.With the opposition in disarray, and with the support of a fervent Hindu base that appreciates his us-or-them appeals, Mr. Adityanath’s election victory is widely being seen as evidence that Mr. Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party has continued to shift the electorate away from the country’s founding secularism.B.J.P. supporters turned out in great numbers to support Mr. Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesDespite the country’s growing economic woes and the poor state of public health and schools, Mr. Modi, Mr. Adityanath and the B.J.P. are succeeding in keeping the conversation focused on Hinduism in public affairs, bolstered by popular social welfare programs and a sophisticated mobilization of their supporters. And his election victory is likely to further raise Mr. Adityanath’s increasingly national profile.Though he came to public attention as the founder of a Hindu youth brigade and was once imprisoned for hate speech against Muslims, Mr. Adityanath has more recently followed Mr. Modi’s lead and somewhat moderated his tone — though without obscuring his Hindu-first message and policies to his right-wing base.In a TV interview in January, he cast the election in terms of “80 versus 20” — a thinly veiled reference to the rough percentage of Hindus in the state compared with Muslims.On Twitter, he railed against his political opponents as “worshipers of Jinnah” — a reference to Pakistan’s post-partition founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah — for whom the predominantly Muslim “Pakistan is dear.” He also posted pictures of a visit to New Delhi, strolling down a marble walkway with Mr. Modi embracing him like a beloved protégé.Since becoming prime minister in 2014, Mr. Modi has increasingly impassioned and emboldened far-right Hindus. And it is in this climate that Mr. Adityanath, 49, has found the ability to rapidly climb. His popularity largely derives from his ability to speak directly to his fervent base, whether in big public rallies or through his active Twitter account.Mr. Adityanath is seen by some as a potential successor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times“Whoever speaks the truth, people will stand up for him,” said Pinki Patchauri, among a group of women at B.J.P. headquarters in Lucknow on Thursday, cheering for Mr. Adityanath. “Yogi and Modi worked for the people,” she said. “That’s why Yogi is all over the place.”Indeed, pictures of Mr. Adityanath are plastered across Uttar Pradesh, from towering billboards on highways to the sides of tea shops in villages to the Gorakhnath Math Temple in Gorakhpur, where his political career took root.One of seven children born to a forest ranger, Mr. Adityanath, born Ajay Singh Bisht, found his vocation in college as an activist in the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a right-wing Hindu organization.He became a Hindu priest in 1994, as politics and religion converged across India. Gorakhnath Temple and other temples espousing right-wing Hindu nationalism produced a generation of activists dedicated to the rise of Hindu culture and increasingly focused on demonizing the country’s approximately 200 million Muslims.Mr. Adityanath won a seat in Parliament for the first time in 1998, becoming India’s youngest member of the national body at the time. From Gorakhpur, he founded the Hindu Yuva Vahini, a hard-liner youth group, delivering an incendiary speech in 2007 after a Hindu boy was killed, calling for his supporters to kill Muslims. He was briefly jailed in Gorakhpur.A painting featuring Yogi Adityanath with two previous temple leaders, including his guru, Mahant Avaidyanath, in the Gorakhnath temple. Before being appointed chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in 2017, Mr. Adityanath was the temple’s head priest, a post he continues to hold.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesTalat Aziz, a former leader of the opposition Samajwadi Party, has accused Mr. Adityanath of leading an attack on her political rally in 1999 during which her bodyguard was shot dead. A court dismissed the charge against Mr. Adityanath in 2019.“The plant which was planted in 1999 has grown into a massive tree. Now the hatred, the polarization, dominates everything,” Ms. Aziz said.During his first term as chief minister in Uttar Pradesh, antiterrorism, national security and sedition laws were increasingly used to jail critics and journalists. And the police have cracked down on dissent, fatally shooting nearly two dozen Muslim protesters during a demonstration in 2019 against a citizenship law that is widely seen as discriminatory.Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan, a constitutional lawyer and a minority rights activist, rose to prominence after leading protests against the citizenship law. He ran an unlikely campaign challenging Mr. Adityanath for the Gorakhpur seat, finishing fourth with less than 8,000 votes.“He always plays the religion card, and that’s why he wins,” Mr. Ravan said. “He is making a fool of people, and the country is suffering for it.”Yet voters’ perception that the streets of Uttar Pradesh have become safer, coupled with a bevy of social welfare programs and a clear commitment to Hindutva — a devout Hindu culture and way of life — have proved a winning combination.The opposition candidate Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan challenged Mr. Adityanath for his seat in Uttar Pradesh, but finished with less than 8,000 votes. “He always plays the religion card, and that’s why he wins,” Mr. Ravan said.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesMr. Modi greeted the election victory in Uttar Pradesh as a road map for the 2024 general elections.“When we formed the government in 2019, experts said it was because of the 2017 victory” in Uttar Pradesh for his B.J.P., he said in a speech Thursday. “I believe the same experts will say that the 2022 election result has decided the fate of the 2024 national elections.”The B.J.P. won four of five state elections in polls that stretched from the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand in the north to coastal Goa on the Arabian Sea.“The Hindutva appeal that the B.J.P. has been creating for the last seven years, this is really now come to stay,” said Arati Jerath, a political analyst.“Its strong Hindu leadership plus soft welfare measures combined really well to give the B.J.P. that sweeping edge over the other parties,” she said.Mr. Adityanath seems comfortable with being seen as a potential successor to Mr. Modi, who turned 71 in September.“This is the blessing of 250 million people of Uttar Pradesh,” Mr. Adityanath said at a victory speech at party headquarters in Lucknow, the state capital.“We accept these blessings, and as per the expectations of common people and with the mantra of together with all, development of all, trust of all and efforts by all, we will carry forward continuously.”Back in Gorakhpur on the final night of campaigning, the B.J.P. went all-out for Mr. Adityanath with an extravagant procession, including a brass band, a troupe of male dancers wearing bells around their waists and ankles, a truck full of cameras, and boisterous supporters moshing to bass-heavy dance music and snare drums.During his campaign, Mr. Adityanath cast the election as a matter of “80 vs. 20” — a reference to the rough percentage of Hindus in the state compared with Muslims.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesFrom the balcony of a medical practice in downtown Gorakphur, Dr. Sharad Srivastava and his family flung handfuls of marigold and rose petals on Mr. Adityanath, adorned in a saffron turban over his typical saffron robe, giving a regal wave from his perch atop an orange B.J.P. truck festooned with flowers.“We want to restore this type of nationalism,” Dr. Srivastava said. “We want to regain our heritage. Yogiji is not anti-Muslim. He’s against those who are anti-national.”The following morning, dozens of people waited at the Gorakhpur temple for a word with the “maharaj,” which means great king, but also refers to Mr. Adityanath’s post as temple president. They stood as he silently strode past with a large entourage of monks in saffron robes and security forces armed with machine guns.Karan Deep Singh More

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      What to Know: India’s Local Elections

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      What to Know: India’s Local ElectionsHari Kumar📍Reporting from Punjab, IndiaSaumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesIf challengers such as the Aam Aadmi Party, which runs on an anti-corruption platform and is currently in power in India’s capital, Delhi, wins in Punjab, it will embolden other regional parties to push for toppling Congress as the natural leader of the opposition. More

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      India Disappoints Its Friends and Admirers

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      India’s abstention in a recent vote at the UN Security Council over Russian threats to Ukraine raises serious questions over India being a key ally of the West in the years to come. Indian leaders failed to stand up for Ukrainian sovereignty because of India’s close relations with Russia, a major supplier of military equipment.

      For anyone who wants to explain away India’s conduct at the United Nations as an act of national interests, there is more to consider. India is sliding deeper into Hindu — as opposed to a diverse Indian — nationalism, diminishing its ability to be a long-term partner for Western nations.

      Modi’s India Is Becoming a Farce

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      India’s slowing economic growth, declining investment in its military capabilities and social unrest have prevented the country from modernizing its army and fulfilling its strategic goals. But it is the ideology of its current leaders that is jeopardizing the notion of India as a dependable partner of the US in the Indo-Pacific region. 

      Instead of investing in human capital and health care, the focus of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been on rewriting history through crowdsourcing. Instead of further opening the Indian economy through policies and reforms that would boost growth, protectionism and regulatory policies are rising. India is slipping on the global freedom and democracy indices, with Freedom House downgrading it to “partly free.”

      “Undivided India”

      Leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) continue to mobilize India’s majority Hindus to vote for it by targeting religious minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians. They describe Hinduism as an Indian religion, while Islam and Christianity are denigrated as “foreign” faiths transplanted onto India’s soil. Extremist Hindu leaders, including some from the ruling party, have even gone so far as to call for genocide against 200 million Indian Muslims. 

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      A 2021 Pew Survey on “Religion in India” demonstrated that tolerance for other faiths remains strong within Indian society. But a larger number of the majority (Hindus) now see religion as the core of their identity and support calls for a Hindu rashtra (state). This creates a dilemma for relations between India and other countries.

      For example, Pushkar Singh Dhami, the chief minister of the state of Uttarakhand, which borders Tibet and Nepal, was embroiled in controversy for something he posted on Twitter six years ago. The tweet showed a map claiming South and Southeast Asia as part of an “undivided India,” known as Akhand Bharat. In December 2021, an Indian broadcaster showed the entire region from the Middle East through South and Southeast Asia as belonging to Akhand Bharat, representing the reunification of territories influenced by India during ancient times.

      This undermines India’s projection of itself as a pluralist and open society, where minorities were respected, not just tolerated. For six decades after independence in 1947, India’s pluralism created a groundswell of respect, goodwill and admiration throughout the free world. Even India’s non-alignment during the Cold War did not interfere with its positive image. Most Americans appreciated Indian democracy and diversity and showed understanding when poverty-ridden India preferred not to side with the United States against the Soviet Union.

      Things Have Changed

      But things have changed since the end of the Cold War. India has made significant progress in reducing poverty. For two decades, there has been talk of India as a rising power. Americans have expected India to boost its economic growth, modernize its military and play a bigger role in confronting China. In 2010, President Barack Obama declared relations between India and the United States as the “defining partnership of the 21st century.”

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      That desire keeps getting thwarted by India’s leadership, particularly Prime Minister Modi and his allies in the BJP. Thus, India’s economic growth has slowed down, even before the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and is unlikely to recover quickly. More significantly, India continues to expand trade with China, reaching $125 billion in 2021. This is despite China’s military pressure on India along their disputed border. That should lay to rest the expectation of India confronting China anytime soon.

      Moreover, the commitment to democracy, human rights and liberal values, which made India a natural Western partner, appear under increasing threat.

      Americans who have spent the last few years praising India also need some appraising of India. It might be time to acknowledge that India’s performance has been underwhelming to merit the kind of expectations that have formed the basis of recent US policy.   

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      India’s Congress Party Faces a Test of Survival as Punjab Votes

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      A defeat here, one of the few states where the once-dominant party still retains power, would be a major blow.ATTARI, India — Charanjit Singh Channi, the chief minister of the Indian state of Punjab, has many of the elements to mount a successful election campaign in India’s politics.He is from the state’s dominant party. He has doled out last-minute sweeteners, by waiving utility bills and reducing prices on necessities like fuel. And he has captured the imagination of India’s raucous television scene, offering viral moments that depict the 58-year-old chief minister, a former handball player, as a man of the people: breaking into bhangra dance routines at debate events; stopping his official convoy to help an injured biker; congratulating a newly married couple on the road.Yet when this state of 30 million votes on Sunday to elect its new government, Mr. Channi is an underdog. Not only are the opposition parties trying to dislodge his Indian National Congress party from one of the last states where it remains in power, but his own ranks have also been unraveling amid messy infighting.The vote in Punjab is shaping up as a broader test of whether Congress, which governed India for the majority of its history since independence from British rule, can arrest its steep national decline in recent years following the rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. At the national level, Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has established itself as such an undisputed force in consecutive national elections that India’s democracy increasingly feels like a one-party rule, analysts and observers say.Mr. Channi, in an interview between campaign rallies, acknowledged the pressures of his situation in a race with a significance to Congress beyond just Punjab, adding that he was focused only on what he could do. “I work hard, with dignity and effort, and the rest is up to the public.”The Congress party, run by members of the Gandhi family at the top, is a shadow of its former self, with less than 10 percent of the seats in the Parliament and leading governments in just three of India’s 28 states. The party has won some victories in local elections, but not enough to fuel a national revival. Other regional parties that have been trying to form coalitions to challenge Mr. Modi have expressed frustration with what they see as Congress’s sense of historic entitlement, despite its shrinking numbers.Police officers inspecting the venue for a Congress party event on Thursday in Attari, India.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesSeveral parties, including Mr. Modi’s B.J.P., are trying to gain seats when the votes for the Punjab assembly are tallied next month, along with the results of ongoing elections in some other states. In Punjab, an agrarian state struggling with rising farmer debt and unemployment, the main challenger is the Aam Admi Party, which is trying to expand nationally after sweeping to power in the capital region on an anti-corruption protest movement.“There is a new game that has started among India’s opposition parties — to cannibalize on Congress,” said Rahul Verma, a political scientist at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi.Mr. Verma said Congress’s woes were such that even a win in Punjab would not translate to broader momentum. If Congress loses, the damage could be more lethal — the party would struggle to justify clinging to the role of what he described as “the natural leader of the opposition.”“If Channi succeeds to pull through, it is positive morale boosting,” Mr. Verma said, “but it doesn’t mean Congress can improve its situation drastically nationally.”The Congress’s victory in Punjab in 2017 followed major defeats, including in the 2014 national elections when Mr. Modi first came to power. The party’s leaders wanted their victory in Punjab to be seen as the impetus for a national comeback.Supporters of Mr. Channi in Attari. He is the first Dalit, from a community at the bottom of India’s caste system, to hold the position of chief minister in Punjab.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times“Congress will revive from here, get energy from Punjab, and spread,” Rahul Gandhi said after that 2017 victory. “Mark my words.”That did not happen. The party endured another sweeping defeat at the hand of Mr. Modi in the 2019 general elections, its position so reduced in the national Parliament that it did not have enough seats to claim the title of the leader of opposition.Its government in Punjab was marred by mismanagement, as discontent grew over pressures on farmers, rising prices, and worsening unemployment. Amrinder Singh, the chief minister, was seen as so disconnected that he started facing revolts from within his government.Months before the assembly elections, the Congress leadership replaced Mr. Singh. But the shake-up, and the jockeying over his replacement, divided the party’s ranks. Amid the friction, Mr. Gandhi, who along with his mother and sister have been running the party in recent years, made what was lauded as an inspired choice. He selected Mr. Channi as the new chief minister, making him the first Dalit, from a community that occupies the bottom of India’s caste system, to hold the position in Punjab.“I started crying,” said Mr. Channi, whose father ran a small shop renting out wedding tents, about receiving the call that declared him chief minister.Manish Sisodia from the Aam Admi Party greeting supporters in Amritsar, India, on Friday. His party has been trying to position itself as the answer to Punjab’s woes on health and education.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesMr. Channi, previously a cabinet minister under Mr. Singh, had about four months to correct some of the damage before Sunday’s elections. But other party leaders continued to see him as a stopgap solution who could be elbowed out.Just two weeks before the vote, Mr. Gandhi reaffirmed that Congress would fight the Punjab election with Mr. Channi as their leader.After his ouster as chief minister, Mr. Singh quickly formed his own party and teamed up with Mr. Modi’s B.J.P. to create a coalition. The Congress party has been trying to blunt some of the anti-incumbency sentiment in Punjab by blaming Mr. Singh. For his part, Mr. Singh has been criticizing Congress in terms that amount to attacks on his own record.“Everyone in Punjab knows that the Congress has done nothing in the last five years but make money,” Mr. Singh said in a recent interview with Indian media.The Aam Aadmi Party, or Common Man Party, founded by an anti-corruption crusader, has been trying to position itself as the answer to Punjab’s woes on health and education. Their members point to their record of improving government schooling in Delhi. In a “road show” on the final day of campaigning in Amristar, a convoy of hundreds of cars, trucks, and motorcycles wove through the streets urging voters to “give one chance” to the party.Mr. Channi stopped for some soccer between rallies on Friday.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesAt one of Mr. Channi’s rallies outside the city, thousands of people who had streamed in — on tractors, buses and motorcycles — waited for about four hours, entertained by a live band, before the chief minister arrived.Jagroop Singh Sandhu, a 33-year-old farmer in the crowd, acknowledged the fatigue with Congress’s mismanagement and infighting. But Mr. Channi’s ability to connect with people, he said, was making the race about him rather than the party.“There is a Channi wave,” Mr. Sandhu said. “It will be about what he has shown in his three months.”Driving between rallies on Friday, Mr. Channi stopped his convoy when he saw a group of children playing soccer and ran to the field. The children swarmed around him excitedly. He took turns taking penalty shots at the goal, and then playing goalkeeper — the skill which had won him scholarships during his high school and university days when he played handball — as the children took shots.His media team quickly posted a video on his Twitter account, edited in a way that showed Mr. Channi as both shooter and defender of the same shot — an apt metaphor for his party’s race. More

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      India’s Highway Construction Is in the Fast Lane

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      When experts look back at the early 2000s, they will observe that India embarked on a construction spree to develop its transport infrastructure. The country is emulating what the United States and Europe did in the previous century and what China and East Asia have done more recently. Traditionally, India focused on railways. For the last 20 years, roads have been the priority. Now, the country is also focusing on its 116 rivers and long coastline to develop commercial waterways. 

      As is well known, various factors contribute to a nation’s development. The most fundamental is the availability of food and water for the population. Here, India has had some success since its independence in 1947. In health care and education, India can and must do better. India also needs to improve safety and security for its citizens and improve the rule of law. The factor most important for India’s development is perhaps transportation because it has the greatest multiplier effect on the economy. As a result, transportation has the greatest potential to improve the lives of ordinary citizens.

      360° Context: The State of the Indian Republic

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      Transportation infrastructure, such as railways, roads, air traffic and waterways, are the arteries of a country’s economy. The German economy was built on the backbone of an outstanding railway system and the legendary autobahn. The US is knit together by a crisscrossing network of freight trains, interstate highways and airports. Advanced economies like Japan, South Korea, Switzerland and the Netherlands are known for their evolved infrastructure.

      In recent years, China has set the standard for implementing infrastructure at a scale and speed unprecedented in history. Most economists credit spectacular rates of economic growth to Chinese investment in infrastructure. India is betting that building good infrastructure will boost growth, create jobs and raise the standard of living for hundreds of millions.

      Railway and Highway Infrastructure

      According to a 2018 report by NITI Aayog, the premier policy think tank of the Indian government, 59% of all freight in India is transported by road, 35% by railways, 6% by waterways and less than 1% by air.

      On March 31, 2020, India’s railway track length stood at 126,366 kilometers and, on March 31, 2019, the length of national highways was 132,500 kilometers. Per 100 square kilometers, India has more railway tracks and highways than countries like the US and France. This does not necessarily mean India is doing well. South Korea and Japan have over four times the highway length per 100 square kilometers.

      Instead of the density of infrastructure per unit area, density per population size seems to be the more accurate metric. When it comes to infrastructure per million people, India fares very poorly. For instance, Indonesia’s population is merely 20% of India’s, but its highways are twice as long as India’s. South Korea’s population is a tiny 4% of India’s, but its highways are thrice as long as India’s. The top two stars on the infrastructure front are the US and Australia, followed by Japan and France.

      India’s highway network is inadequate for the country’s needs. Highways comprise 1.94% of India’s total road networks but carry a staggering 40% of total road traffic. This means that not only do they suffer high wear and tear, but transportation continues to be a big bottleneck for the economy. It is little surprise that India is finally investing in transport infrastructure.

      After independence in 1947, India underinvested in infrastructure. Two centuries of colonial extraction had left the country with limited resources and almost unlimited public needs. In its early years of independence, India struggled to feed its masses. There was little money to build railways, roads, ports, airports and transport infrastructure.

      India also lacked the expertise to build such infrastructure at scale. Planners, engineers and skilled labor were all in short supply. The nation did not have enough knowledge of transport technology either. There was another challenge in a densely populated democratic country. Infrastructure projects result in the displacement of large numbers of people. Many resist, others negotiate hard and still, others approach their local politicians who start resisting these projects to win votes.

      India’s varied geography also imposed daunting challenges for developing infrastructure. Largely flat countries like Australia and France could focus on railways, which run twice as long as their roads. Mountainous countries like South Korea and Japan have built more roads than railway lines. While plains and plateaus in India are crisscrossed by railway lines, roads are the means of transportation in its extensive mountainous regions.

      A New Focus

      Over the last 20 years, India’s focus has shifted to roads. This began under the coalition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Although this government lost the 2004 election, NDA’s vision set in motion transport infrastructure development. In 2014, the BJP-led NDA returned to power and accelerated the building of highways across the country.

      NDA-initiated highway construction was kickstarted by the Golden Quadrilateral, a project connecting India’s four biggest cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. This boosted economic growth. Since NDA returned to power, India has embarked on Bharatmala Pariyojana, an ambitious project to connect the entire country through a network of highways like the fabled interstate highway system of the US. Even remote regions such as the northeast and Jammu and Kashmir will be covered.

      In the past, India did not measure highways as per international standards. This meant their growth could not be measured and compared easily. To quote management guru Peter F. Drucker, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” Since 2018, the measure of highway length in India has been aligned with international standards. While impressive figures on the growth of national highways have been published, their interpretation now is clear and consistent.

      There has also been a steady increase in highway construction rates. In March 2021, it reached 37 kms/day. For the 2020-21 financial year — India’s financial year begins on April 1 and ends on March 31 — road construction averaged 29.81 kms/day. In 2014-15, the rate was 16.61 kms/day. Six years on, the road construction rate has almost doubled and is the fastest India has achieved since independence. The credit goes to Nitin Gadkari, the minister for road transport, one of the star performers of the NDA cabinet. In March, he claimed that India had secured the world record for fastest road construction.

      India’s Evolving Waterways Make a Big Splash

      The oldest civilizations have originated and flourished near major rivers for a simple reason. They provide fresh water, a fundamental human need. Rivers also provided an easy way to travel and transport goods before the advent of roads and railways. Even today, commercial transport of goods via rivers, lakes and oceans continues to cost less than via land. While container ships regularly carry goods across the high seas, most countries no longer use their rivers very well. The US, Australia, Japan, Russia and China are among the few countries that use their rivers and inland waterways well. 

      India has 116 rivers. Potentially, these could provide 35,000 kilometers of waterways and should be tapped. The government set up the Inland Waterways Authority of India in 1986 for “development and regulation of inland waterways for shipping and navigation.” In spite of tremendous cost advantages, waterways’ commercialization received little attention over the next 30 years. In 2016, the NDA declared 111 rivers across India as national waterways, a quantum leap up from five. By 2020, the government operationalized 12 of these waterways. The journey to suitably develop the remaining 99 will be a long and expensive one. However, this investment will cut logistics costs tremendously in the long run and boost India’s competitiveness.

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      Gadkari points out that the cost of logistics in India is 18% of the total cost of production. For China, this figure is 8-10%. Notably, waterways account for 47% of total transportation in China, compared to 3.5% in India. As waterways develop, so will commercial activity along their banks and lead to job creation.

      India has another major underutilized natural resource. It has a long coastline of 7,500 kilometers spread across 14 states. To develop ports and coastal transportation, the government has launched the Sagarmala project. This could achieve what the Golden Quadrilateral did for roads in the past. By 2025, the government aims to increase the share of waterways transportation from 3.5% to 6%, reducing logistics costs, boosting exports and generating 4 million new jobs.

      The Road Ahead

      About 53% of India’s population is under 25 years of age and many of them need jobs. Employed young people are more likely to send their children to school. They are likely to eat better and live longer. So far, India’s growth rate has not exceeded the job creation rate. For social and political stability, the government needs to create jobs. 

      While India’s economy continues to grow, the pace of growth does not match the employment needs of India’s young population. Building infrastructure is one of the best ways to generate employment because of its massive multiplier effect in an emerging economy like India. The country needs competent ministers and bureaucrats with domain expertise such as Gadkari. Key ministries overseeing power and finance in New Delhi and India’s state capitals should emulate this model.

      Along with building infrastructure, India must reform its arcane laws of colonial and socialist heritage to boost economic activity. The government must also reform education and vocational training in collaboration with industry to raise the skills of the workforce, improve employability and increase productivity. This is a tall order, but if India can get its house in order, then domestic and foreign investment would flow in. Then, the country would finally be able to join the Asian tigers as one of the world’s fast-growing economies.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Modi’s BJP Lost to Mamata’s TMC Because of Bengali DNA

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      In early May, the eastern Indian state of West Bengal went to the polls. The state elections attracted global attention. The BBC’s analysis of the election was headlined, “West Bengal Election: Modi Loses a Battle in the ‘War for Indian Democracy.’”

      Such attention to a state election is surprising. West Bengal is not the richest, the largest or the most populous state in India. Yet it has always been an important part of the country. The British started the colonization of the Indian subcontinent by winning the Battle of Plassey in 1757. Calcutta, or Kolkata as it is now called, was the capital of British India for more than a century. Of course, West Bengal did not exist then. Bengal was the name of the British province and included modern-day Bangladesh, Bihar and Orissa then.

      History Matters

      It was Bengali intellectuals such as Raja Rammohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Swami Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore who led the first Indian cultural renaissance. The founder of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, the forerunner of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was Syama Prasad Mukherjee, a Bengali. Manabendra Nath Roy, the founding father of Indian communism and the founder of the Mexican Communist Party, was Bengali too. So was Subhas Chandra Bose, India’s iconic freedom fighter who defeated Mahatma Gandhi’s candidate, in the party elections of the Indian National Congress.

      India Is Slowly Evolving Into a Market Economy

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      Suffice to say, Bengal has played a larger than life role in the political and cultural life in modern India. Yet it is important to remember that this region has always sung to its own tune. Whenever a Delhi-based empire weakened, Bengal was the first province to sound the bugle of independence. Since independence, West Bengal has continued this timeworn tradition. Iconic chief ministers of West Bengal, such as Bidhan Chandra Roy and Siddhartha Shankar Ray, dealt with powerful Indian prime ministers such as Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi as equals.

      The first sustained challenge to the Congress party came from West Bengal. It was here that the communists won a historic electoral victory in 1977 and remained in power until 2011. Bengal has thrived on an us-versus-them mindset vis-à-vis the national capital, New Delhi. Bengalis believe they have been wronged by New Delhi and have to retain their independence from India’s overbearing capital. In this narrative, West Bengal is the last bastion standing against the invaders from the north, and this is the essence of Bengali pride.

      Mamata Banerjee overthrew the longstanding communist government in 2011 and has been in power since. She is a feisty leader whom her admirers call “Didi,” a Bangla word for elder sister. This spinster in Kolkata has taken on the bachelor in New Delhi and won. Fittingly, a meme doing the rounds on social media adapts Asterix to Indian political lore: “One small state of Ben-Gaul still holds out against the invaders. And life is not easy for the Gow-Man believers who make the camps of Fascism, Hindutvam and Religious Extrememum…” Other variants spoke about Ben-Gaul holding out against the all-conquering North Indian invaders and their emperor, “Modius.”

      How Ben-Gaul Knocked out the BJP?

      Before the election, many deemed Banerjee’s victory in West Bengal unlikely. Two BJP members of parliament confidently told one of these authors that their party was headed to a victory. Banerjee’s All India Trinamool Congress, abbreviated as TMC, was facing local anger. Many accused the TMC of “misgovernance — including corruption, nepotism and high-handedness— seemed” to have put the party in peril. The BJP was promising Bengalis rapid industrialization and high growth after years of economic stagnation.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Banerjee’s right-hand man, Suvendu Adhikari, decamped to the BJP, as did many other key party members. In fact, Adhikari went on to defeat Banerjee in Nandigram, her own constituency. When the dust settles, it is clear that the BJP had reasons to be confident. Yet India’s ruling party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was stung by Didi’s ferocious counterpunching and was eventually knocked out. What happened?

      First, the BJP did not announce a local chief ministerial candidate. It did not promote any “son-of-the-soil Bengali leader” and even mighty Adhikari was left to play a supporting role to Modi. In India’s largest state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), this strategy had worked. In West Bengal, the strategy backfired. The mother of one of the authors grew up in Kolkata and presciently remarked that Modi’s speeches in Hindi would not go down well among a people with immense linguistic pride. Modi did not even use an interpreter to translate his speeches into Bangla. Banerjee portrayed herself as the local Didi and slammed the BJP as outsiders insulting Bengali pride and even identity. It turns out that her narrative resonated with the voters.

      Second, the local BJP leaders acted sycophantically. This was not in keeping with the Bengali traditions of local leaders acting as equals of leaders in New Delhi. Bengalis feared that the BJP would reduce West Bengal into vassal status. The historic suspicion of Gujaratis and Marwaris, the trading castes who once collaborated with the British, also kicked in. Modi and his chief aide, Amit Shah, are both Gujaratis. When local leaders invoked the two national leaders repeatedly as Modiji and Amitji, they offended Bengali sensibilities and triggered old suspicions.

      Third, the BJP failed to take into account the legacy of India’s first cultural renaissance. This intellectual, social and cultural movement that began in the late 18th century and continued till the early 20th century continues to shape the Bengali ethos. It challenged pernicious customs such as caste, dowry and sati, the burning of wives on their husband’s pyres. Inspired by secularist, modernist and humanist ideals, Bengali intellectuals set out to modernize not only Bengali but also Indian society. Middle-class Bengalis have long seen themselves as “bhadralok,” well-mannered persons. Modi himself constantly pays homage to Swami Vivekananda, a charismatic Bengali spiritual figure. Yet he was unable to appeal to the bhadralok legacy of West Bengal. Too many Bengalis saw Modi as peddling a revanchist version of Hinduism that they had fought hard to reform.

      A case in point is the BJP’s crusade against the consumption of beef. Unlike much of India, meat eating has never been taboo in the Bengali tradition. Even saints have not ordained against eating meat or fish. West Bengal remains one of the few states where beef is freely sold. The BJP used strategies that worked elsewhere in states like UP and Bihar. The party failed to keep its finger on the unique Bengali pulse that beats to a more self-proclaimed liberal rhythm. The caste-based politics by the BJP had limited success, as did the specter of moral policing as under UP’s hardline Hindu chief minister, Yogi Adityanath.

      Fourth, the BJP’s narrative of local Hindus getting subsumed by Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants failed against the TMC’s narrative of New Delhi reducing Kolkata to feudatory status. Under Banerjee, Bangladeshi immigration has increased and caused unease among many voters. Yet there is a strong linguistic and regional identity in West Bengal. The partition of 1947 has not cast such a bitter memory as in Punjab. Bangladesh itself broke away from Pakistan in 1971 on linguistic grounds. Bengali pride trumped Hindu identity at least this time around.

      Fifth, Banerjee deserves much credit for campaigning with great energy and a clear message. West Bengal has done well in reducing poverty and achieving higher agricultural growth than in the rest of the country even if overall economic growth has been low. Also, Banerjee’s schemes for the rural poor and women have won her much support. Modi has won a majority of the women’s vote because of his last-mile welfare programs. Here, Banerjee won most of the women’s votes in a fundamentally matriarchal society that worships the goddesses Durga and Kali. 

      Finally, there is a politically incorrect point that analysts often overlook. One of the authors is Bengali and can attest that bhadralok culture has prized learning over wealth. In part, this might have been a defense mechanism to cope with the poverty the British inflicted on this part of the world. In part, this might be a reaction to the Marwari pursuit of wealth by collaborating with the British. To this day, many Bengalis distrust Gujaratis and Marwaris, whom they see as money-grubbing soulless creatures. The older generation still professes wistful love for the old multinational firms that dominated Kolkata till the 1970s such as Burn Standard, Andrew Yule and Balmer Lawrie. 

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      Arguably, the Bengali distrust of money has led to low growth in the state. The Bengali diaspora around the world wax lyrical about the preservation of their distinctive “Bangaliyana” and how they are culturally different from the rest of India. Yet, unlike Gujaratis, very few Bengalis invest in their home state. They invest in West Bengal only when they return to retirement in Kolkata. Like many cities in Italy, Kolkata is becoming a city of geriatrics with the young leaving in droves for jobs elsewhere.

      Even in 2021, Bengalis tend to be employees, not entrepreneurs. They flock to all parts of India and indeed much of the world to work as doctors, lawyers, accountants, academics, administrators and more. In the last few years, startups have taken off in India, including economic backwaters like Kerala and Odisha. Yet West Bengal still lacks any meaningful startup culture.

      The BJP’s constant championing of development, industrialization and growth might have rubbed off this deep-seated suspicion of entrepreneurship, business and wealth in the Bengali psyche. It did not help that Modiji and Amitji were Gujaratis spouting Hindi in a state that is proud of its distinctness from India. As mentioned earlier, the province of Ben-Gaul has historically been the first to secede from pan-North Indian empires. No wonder Didi beat Modi.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      I Know What It Takes to Defeat Narendra Modi

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      KOLKATA, India — I am a member of the Indian Parliament, and on Sunday, the political party I belong to, the All India Trinamool Congress, defeated the party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in elections for the West Bengal State legislature. Our party and my leader, Mamata Banerjee, the only female chief minister of a state in India today, showed what it takes to defeat Mr. Modi’s divisive, misogynist politics.Out of the 292 seats in West Bengal’s state legislature, Mr. Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party won 77. We won 213 seats. But we weren’t simply fighting to form a state government. We were fighting to stop Mr. Modi’s centralizing, authoritarian juggernaut, which seeks to destroy India’s federalism and its secular character, and transform our country into an autocratic Hindu state.Mr. Modi and Amit Shah, India’s home minister, have systematically hollowed out the institutions that India held sacred and trusted. During the course of the West Bengal election, I witnessed how they reduced the once-respected Election Commission of India, a supposedly independent body that conducts state and national elections, to an errand boy serving their political agenda.On Feb. 26, when the second wave of Covid-19 was rising in India, the commission announced that elections in West Bengal would be conducted in eight phases staggered from March 27 to April 29. Four other Indian states were also going to polls, but the commission restricted them to one or two phases.By scheduling the West Bengal election in this way, the commission made it possible for Mr. Modi to campaign extensively in West Bengal. Indian elections are energetic, festive and crowded affairs. Our party protested and petitioned the commission to limit the election to fewer phases, as a dangerous second wave of Covid-19 had set in. The commission refused to listen.Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah, whose ministry is responsible for disaster management in the country, held numerous public meetings in West Bengal. Both men often appeared unmasked in the public rallies, setting a terrible example for the tens of thousands who attended and the millions who watched the widely televised events.Mr. Modi’s government did absolutely nothing to prevent religious gatherings such as the Kumbh Mela, a festival in Haridwar in the northern state of Uttarakhand, where millions of Hindus gathered for a dip in the Ganges River.On April 17, when India was reporting more than 250,000 new Covid-19 cases, Mr. Modi made a mild and vague appeal to the pilgrims at the Kumbh Mela, asking them to consider going home, and suggested that the festival should be “symbolic.” Yet by late afternoon on that day, Mr. Modi attended a public meeting of over 50,000 people in West Bengal. “Wherever I look, I just see people,” he gloated.The election was turning out to be a super spreader of coronavirus infections. The commission continued ignoring us while the second wave was battering India’s health care systems. The craven dereliction of duty compelled the Madras High Court to remark that the commission “should be put up on murder charges probably!”Mr. Modi prioritized pursuit of political power above Indian lives. The vital first three weeks of April, when the prime minister and his cabinet should have been working on ramping up critical health infrastructure and coordinating with state governments to prevent our catastrophic situation, were lost.India’s women will also remember Mr. Modi’s campaign in West Bengal for its brazen misogyny and toxic masculinity. On April 1, while at a public rally at Uluberia, a city in the state’s Howrah district, Mr. Modi referred to Ms. Banerjee, the leader of my party and the chief minister of West Bengal known affectionately as Didi, as “Didi Ooo Didi!” — to stupendous applause from crowds of men. He continued using that tone and phrase in other public rallies.To my ears, the tone and phrase were ominously close to what a neighborhood cat-caller may call out to girls walking past. To the Bengali middle class, the prospect of handing over the reins of the state to someone who openly endorsed a practice so much at odds with their sensibilities was frightening. Female voters in West Bengal, who make up 49.1 percent of the state’s electorate, cringed. A majority of women voted for our party. They did not allow such misogynist politics to win the day.A supporter of Mamata Banerjee, the leader of the All India Trinamool Congress, which supports a secular, inclusive ideology.Rupak De Chowdhuri/ReutersAnd culture matters. Mr. Modi and his B.J.P. hoped they would win by equating Bengali identity with Hindu culture. They failed to understand that Bengali culture is not a monolith; it combines secularism with non-vegetarianism and a strong contrarian instinct.We joke that laid-back middle-class Bengalis are content with three things: educating our children, the matinee on Saturday (“shoni bar e matinee”) and a mutton curry on Sunday (“robi baar e mangsho”).At the very least, the Bengalis reject anyone who wants to control what we eat, whom we love and what we wear.The Bengal experience has demonstrated that the B.J.P. is not invincible, that all Indians are not attracted to the idea of a majoritarian Hindu state and that Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah are not the master election strategists they are made out to be. Despite their huge financial resources, their misuse of federal investigative agencies to target opponents and accusations that they have been buying off opposition politicians, the B.J.P. can still be defeated by a focused regional party that stays true to its grass roots and a secular, inclusive ideology.It took a catastrophic pandemic for even Mr. Modi’s supporters to see they need oxygen cylinders more than they need a Hindu state. And it took the Bengal election for the rest of India to realize they don’t need toxic machismo. What India needs in a leader is a heart and a spine.Mahua Moitra is a member of the Indian Parliament from the All Indian Trinamool Congress.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      A Fierce Election Tests Modi’s Campaign to Remake India

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      The prime minister’s party is vying to dethrone a powerful politician in West Bengal. Even a close race could demonstrate the growing reach of his Hindu nationalist movement.NANDIGRAM, India — The challenger arrived with police vehicles, a band of drummers and the backing of the country’s powerful prime minister. The crowd joined him in full-throated chants of glory to the Hindu god Ram: “Jai Shree Ram!” He brought a warning: If Hindus did not unite around him, even their most basic religious practices would be in danger in the face of Muslim appeasement.In another part of town, the incumbent took the stage in a wheelchair, the result of what she said was a politically motivated assault. Though her injuries kept her from stalking the stage in her white sari and sandals as usual, she still regaled the audience with taunts for the opposition. And she had a warning of her own: Her defeat would be a victory for an ideology that has no place for minorities like Muslims.The monthlong election unfolding in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal is deeply personal. Mamata Banerjee, the state’s chief minister for the past decade, is facing off against her former protégé of 20 years, Suvendu Adhikari. He and dozens of other local leaders have defected from her party and are now allied with Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister.But the heated vote could indicate something broader: whether anybody can stop Mr. Modi’s movement to reshape India’s secular republic into a Hindu-first nation.Mr. Modi’s campaign is growing beyond its base in northern India, bringing him national and state victories. His Bharatiya Janata Party has reduced the main opposition group, the Indian National Congress, to a shadow of its past glory, pushing the country toward becoming a one-party democracy.West Bengal represents a test of Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalist reach. The state of 90 million people remains deeply proud of its Indigenous culture and tolerance of minorities. It is run by a strong regional leader with the heft and profile to challenge Mr. Modi directly.Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister for West Bengal and the Trinamool candidate, took the stage in a wheelchair, the result of what she said was a politically motivated assault. Dibyangshu Sarkar/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesEven if the B.J.P. loses when results are announced on May 2, a strong showing would help Mr. Modi signal that his party could be nearly unstoppable, said Vinay Sitapati, a professor of political science at Ashoka University who has chronicled the rise of the B.J.P.“They would have shown that the B.J.P. is an all-India party, that our Hindu nationalism is capable of vernacular adaptation,” Mr. Sitapati said. “And that is a powerful symbol.”Mr. Modi has put his brand front and center. He has traveled to West Bengal about a dozen times for packed rallies even as coronavirus cases rise. His face is all over the place, leading one B.J.P. worker to joke that he seems to be running for chief minister.Mr. Modi and his lieutenants paint Ms. Banerjee as someone who has appeased Muslims, who make up about a quarter of the state’s population, at the expense of the Hindu majority. If she is re-elected, they say, she will turn West Bengal into another Bangladesh or Pakistan, where Hindu minorities are increasingly persecuted.“If you don’t stamp on Lotus,” Mr. Adhikari said at a recent rally, referring to marking the logo of the B.J.P. on local ballots, “how will we be able to even celebrate the birth of Lord Ram here?”Ms. Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress party has tried to frame the B.J.P. as outsiders who do not understand her state’s rich culture and have come to sow division. Her campaign slogan: “Bengal chooses its own daughter.”Suvendu Adhikari, center, a former protégé of Ms. Banerjee. He is now facing off against her as the candidate of the B.J.P., run by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesMuch of her campaign is built on her reputation as a tart-tongued political street fighter. Sympathizers with the local Communist Party once even beat her head with metal rods. She trounced the Communists in elections nevertheless.Last month, in the midst of a jostling crowd, a car door slammed on Ms. Banerjee’s leg. She declared the incident a politically motivated attack, a contention her opponents have questioned. Still, her party has made her cast a symbol of a leader putting her body on the line for her cause.To counter her star power, the B.J.P. has courted celebrities, including Mithun Chakraborty, a Bengali actor famous for movies like “Disco Dancer.”“I am a pure cobra,” Mr. Chakraborty told one recent rally, referring to a famous line from one of his movies, as B.J.P. leaders behind him applauded. “One bite, and you will be at the cremation ground!”Ms. Banerjee’s iron grip over state politics looms over the vote. The B.J.P. is trying to ride anti-incumbent sentiment fueled by her party’s corruption scandals and the way its members have used extortion and violence to keep power.But Mr. Adhikari and many of the B.J.P.’s local candidates for the state’s 294-seat local assembly were themselves, until recently, members of her party. After decades of heavy-handedness by the Communists and Ms. Banerjee, Mr. Modi’s party began actively expanding in West Bengal only after he became prime minister in 2014, though its infrastructure is still lacking. One joke in the state holds that Trinamool will win a third term even if the B.J.P. prevails.Children wearing Modi masks while waiting for Mr. Adhikari to arrive at a rally.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesMs. Banerjee’s success could depend on convincing voters that her party’s bad apples now work for the B.J.P. The B.J.P.’s dependence on Trinamool defectors has also led to a revolt among local Modi supporters who saw their presence as an insult to their years of work in the face of intimidation by the same people now chosen to represent them.One defector, an 89-year-old assembly member named Rabindranath Bhattacharya, said he had switched parties only because Ms. Banerjee didn’t nominate him to serve a fifth term.“I changed my party, but I am not changed,” Mr. Bhattacharya said in an interview at his house. Trinamool flags still hung from the trees and gate.His candidacy moved hundreds of B.J.P. workers and supporters to pressure Mr. Bhattacharya to step aside. They went on a hunger strike, painted over party signs and ransacked the home of the local B.J.P. chief.“We started here when no one dared speak as a B.J.P. member,” said Gautam Modak, who has worked for the B.J.P. in the district since 2003. “He got the party ticket three days after joining the B.J.P.”Mr. Adhikari has said he defected from Ms. Banerjee’s camp because she and her nephew and heir-apparent, Abhishek Banerjee, use other party leaders as “employees” without sharing power. Still, in recent rallies he has put greater emphasis on identity politics, ending with chants of “Jai Shree Ram!”Rabindranath Bhattacharya, once a member of Trinamool, is now running for the local assembly as a member of the B.J.P.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesVoting took place on Saturday in the town of Nandigram, a lush agricultural area, and both candidates were there. At rallies, crowds energized by their moment of power over sometimes abusive politicians braved the heat to listen, cheer and support. Turnout totaled 88 percent.Satish Prasad Jana, a 54-year-old B.J.P. supporter at Mr. Adhikari’s rally, said he mainly supported Mr. Modi. He had no dispute with Ms. Banerjee except that she couldn’t control the abuse of her party workers, and he knew that some of those same people now work for Mr. Adhikari.“I have 90 percent faith in Modi, 10 percent faith in Adhikari,” he said.Hours later, a large rally of Ms. Banerjee’s supporters took place in a school courtyard surrounded by coconut trees. Women in colorful saris outnumbered men. They praised Ms. Banerjee’s government for paving the road that led to the school, for distributing rice at low prices and for making payments to families to keep their girls in school and prevent child marriage, among other initiatives.But the energy was focused squarely on teaching Mr. Adhikari a lesson.“You said Mamata is like your mother. The mother made you a leader, a minister, and in charge of the whole district,” said Suhajata Maity, a local leader, addressing Mr. Adhikari.“Then, you stabbed the mother in her back.”To resounding applause, she ended her speech with a call to the mothers in the crowd: “Will you teach him such a lesson that he abandons politics all together?”The heated vote in West Bengal could indicate something broader: whether anybody can stop Mr. Modi’s movement to reshape India’s secular republic into a Hindu-first nation.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesChandrasekhar Bhattacharjee contributed reporting. More