HotSpot: The Modi moment
Narendra Modi comes with a clean slate as of today. The chalk is in his hands and he will have to do the writing. The past is another place and we cannot keep going back there. Move on.
The only two cautions one can give are bed-rocked in history. The first is from Napoleon’s grandson who said power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Tread lightly and treat success as an imposter.
The second is a little more practical. Surround yourself with giants, not sycophants, the Congress will tell you how dangerous it is to have kitchen cabinets and crooks in your bed, they are fleas. Do not allow the second raters to be your voice or the rabble rousers to speak for you. India does not want to see tawdry, mealy mouthed ugly politicians spraying piety and looting the till.Only make promises you can keep. And have a list of priorities. Do use India’s huge reservoir of brains and be seen to discipline those of your flock who try to ignite communal and other divisive feelings or raise tensions.
India’s biggest problem is a disaffected youth.Thousands of young men and women with half baked degrees and a tepid education that lifts them from their ordained position on the lower rungs of the social ladder but gives them no jobs or even the remote possibility of earning power. That is your first priority.
Go for it, Mr Modi, be the man they say you are and lead from the front. Don’t do a Kejriwal and betray the public trust for an agenda.
As any General will tell you winning the war is easier than keeping the peace after that.
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