Not just Modi, Indian democracy gained the world’s confidence to the extent that in 2019, US magazine Foreign Policy even said Indian democracy “is the silver lining, even golden lining of democracies” in the world. In 2014, when Narendra Modi won an absolute majority after 30 years, the paradigm shifted and stunned the world. Result, a whole generation of Indians had lost hope that India could ever have a stable government with absolute majority under a strong leader, like say Indira Gandhi. How long would the 10 Indian governments that ruled between 19 last in office was always a question.

But according to Sanjaya Baru, Dr Manmohan Singh’s media advisor, Singh was just a proxy for Sonia Gandhi who exercised real power. Vajpayee, who had better control over his coalition, had earlier even boldly opted for the Pokhran II explosion. Things did improve for India between 19 when India had multi-party coalition governments for full terms. Would the West look at India, the duration of whose governments were measured in months and days, instead of China, which was firmly under one man, Deng Xiaoping? Hoping to make the stable China a democracy rather than attempt to make the Indian democracy stable, the US began “positive engagement” with China in 1993. In 10 years, 1989-1999, when globalisation was opening the lucrative Western markets to the rest, India saw four parliamentary polls and as many governments with seven prime ministers. For 25 years (1989-2014) India had only rickety, compromising coalitions, which had debilitated the economy. But the magazine missed the wood for the trees. Why, then, wouldn’t China fly over just growing India, asked Forbes. Democratic India’s Narmada Dam took five times longer to build compared to autocratic China’s. In 1999, the Court lifted the stay, limited the dam height to 88 metres, but later over 19 years, raised the height in five painful instalments - in 2000 to 90 metres, in 2002 to 95 metres, in 2004 to 110 metres, in 2006 to 122 metres, and in 2019 to 139 metres, its full capacity.

The NBA moved the Supreme Court, which stayed construction in 1995. The World Bank agreed to fund it in 1985, but went back after Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) began its agitation. But how long did India take to complete the Narmada Dam? 48 years! Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation for it in 1961. And displaced less than 1/10 of the people the Chinese dam had.

In contrast, the Narmada Dam flooded no city. The Three Gorges Dam flooded 13 cities, 140 towns, 1,350 villages and displaced 1.2 million people.

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