May 26, 2014

NARENDRA MODI SWORN IN AS INDIAN PM IN SPECTACULAR CEREMONY

Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Indian elite and Bollywood film stars among 4,000 guests at ceremony in Delhi


By Jason Bruke
Narendra Modi, standing centre, takes the oath of office in Delhi. Photograph: AP
Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist politician who won a landslide victory in India's general election this month, has been sworn in as the 15th prime minister of the world's largest democracy, in a spectacular ceremony in Delhi.

On a hot and dusty evening, with temperatures reaching 40C but with none of the rain that had been forecast, more than 4,000 guests watched Modi and his ministers swear their oaths of office before President Pranab Mukherjee.

Those assembled on the forecourt of the 340-room President's residence in the centre of the city included a tea seller from Modi's home state of Gujarat, the prime minister of Pakistan, several of India's richest business people, hundreds of parliamentarians, representatives of various religious communities, the elite of the bureaucracy, and Bollywood film stars. They were guarded by 10,000 security personnel, Indian media reported. Wearing his trademark long-tailed shirt with a pen clipped into the top pocket of his waistcoat, Modi arrived shortly after 6pm local time and walked past lancers in white uniforms and black turbans to sit on a dais alongside his ministers to be.

Fourteen minutes later, with no trace of the emotion he had shown last week when addressing parliament, the 63-year-old swore in Hindi to "uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India … and … do right to all manner of people in accordance with the constitution and the law, without fear or favour, affection or ill will."

Fifteen minutes later, a statement was posted on the revamped website of the prime minister's office, urging Indians to "dream of a strong, developed and inclusive India that actively engages with the global community to strengthen the cause of world peace and development".

Modi has already signalled the pace with which he hopes to implement change, and his timetable over the coming days reflects the sense of urgency. Directly after the inauguration, Modi was scheduled to attend a dinner for regional heads of state including the outgoing Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, and Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka, before heading to 7 Race Horse Road, the official residence of the prime minister.

The ceremony capped an extraordinary rise from humble origins in a provincial town in Gujarat, 600 miles from Delhi, through decades as an organiser with a hardline conservative revivalist organisation and then long years behind the scenes in the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), which he now leads. Modi, who ran Gujarat state from 2001 until a few days ago, had only recently been seen as a serious prime ministerial contender, and has long been considered a political outsider.

However, his resounding victory in the recent polls and the crushing majority now commanded by the BJP give Modi huge authority. The Congress party, which has dominated Indian politics since the country won independence from Britain in 1947, has been reduced to a historic low of 44 of the 543 seats in the lower house of parliament. The party's key leaders, including Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, attended Monday's ceremony.

Before the ceremony started, Manmohan Singh, the prime minister for a decade of Congress government, walked across the forecourt to greet the BJP senior leaders, who bowed their heads and put their palms together in the traditional sign of respect.

Although Modi is a controversial figure, especially overseas, many Indians are hopefulthat he will be able to boost a faltering economy, crackdown on corruption, halt price rises and create jobs. Swapan DasGupta, a rightwing commentator, said last week that Modi had "dared to challenge orthodoxy, conventional wisdom and social assumptions".

"If Modi is able to complement his electoral success with a government that unleashes India's full potential, he will have forged a new Modi consensus that is more in tune with the 21st century," DasGupta wrote in Open, a local news magazine.

Critics fear that Modi may exacerbate sectarian cleavages in India and tensions in the region. He has been accused of allowing, or even encouraging, mob violence in Gujarat in 2002. About 1,000 people, mainly Muslims, were killed in rioting that followed an arson attack on a train in which 59 Hindu pilgrims died. Modi, who had been appointed Gujarat's chief minister the year before, has denied any wrongdoing.

Indian media reported that police fired teargas to break up clashes between Hindu and Muslims prompted by a car accident in the city of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, on Sunday night.

Modi's decision to invite regional leaders to the ceremony surprised many. Nawaz Sharif, elected prime minister of Pakistan for the third time last year, was among eight leaders of the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) invited to attend. Analysts hailed a bold step to launch a policy of regional engagement.

"It's a great moment – a great opportunity. This is a chance to reach out to each other. Both governments [of India and Pakistan] have a strong mandate," Sharif told NDTV, a local channel.

The invite had posed a dilemma for Sharif, who leads the conservative pro-business Pakistan Muslim League, as many in the country and elsewhere in the Muslim world see Modi as a hardliner who harbours sectarian prejudices. Sharif was the first premier of Pakistan to be present at an inauguration of an Indian prime minister. The pair shook hands at the end of the ceremony.

Repeated attempts to improve relations between the two states, which both have nuclear arsenals and have fought four wars, have failed, though there have been incremental gains over the last decade. Modi and Sharif will meet on Tuesday. Modi will spend the morning in a series of conversations with his counterparts from the region.

Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh's prime minister, said she could not attend the inauguration due to a commitment to travel to Japan, but sent a representative.

Relations with Sri Lanka are also complex, and contentious within India. Senior politicians in southern India, where there is a substantial population with ethnic and religious links to minority communities in the island state, reacted angrily after President Mahinda Rajapaksa accepted Modi's invitation. Jayalalithaa Jayaram, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu state, refused an invite to the ceremony.
There was febrile speculation about the composition of Modi's cabinet.

The incoming prime minister had repeatedly signalled that he wanted to reduce the number of ministers and to group ministries dealing with related issues to streamline decision-making.

Arun Jaitley, a senior BJP leader deeply involved in the recent electoral campaign, will be joint finance and defence minister, while Rajnath Singh, president of the BJP and a key supporter of Modi's prime ministerial candidacy, will be home minister. Several key figures of the BJP appear to have been sidelined.

The new cabinet is about half the size of that of the outgoing Congress government, which had more than 75 ministers.