Narendra Modi’s overwhelming victory in India’s elections is an extraordinary personal achievement. It confirms Mr Modi’s ascendancy over the world’s second most populous country and largest democracy. It confirms the marginalisation of the Congress party, which had dominated Indian politics for most of the years after independence in 1947. It confirms the rise of Hindu nationalism as an increasingly dominant ideology, in place of the secularism promulgated by the founders of independent India.
This is all very important. But what might this election mean for the economy and economic reform? Will we see the reformist Mr Modi unleashed, or more of the same? The answer is likely to be the latter. Alas, that may be a disaster.
It is rare for a leader to be more radical in the second term than in the first. It is normal, too, for the traits of self-confident and charismatic leaders to become more pronounced. Indeed, as we have seen with Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, they tend to become more autocratic. Will Mr Modi prove to be another of this kind? He is an autodidact who mistrusts India’s western-educated policy intellectuals. He is a centraliser and has proved to be an interventionist more than a pro-market reformer. But he is also prepared to take gambles. Given his political success, it is hard to believe these traits will not become even stronger in this term.