The End of Karma by Somini Sengupta

Author:Somini Sengupta
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

In 2005, the government of the United States, in a most unusual step, barred Modi from visiting the United States in connection to his role in the Gujarat violence.13

The visa ban had no impact on Modi’s political fate. He was easily reelected as Gujarat’s chief minister. As I wrote in the Times in 2007, it seemed as though his “charismatic, often pugnacious,” style of politicking would be “a force to be reckoned with in the future.”14

I trailed him again eighteen months later, when he was campaigning for his party in the 2009 national parliamentary elections. His supporters had gathered on a sports field, and hundreds of them had covered their faces in Modi masks. It was as though Modi were every man, everywhere.

Modi electrified audiences. He spoke without notes. He was brash and confident. His jokes could be snide. At one rally, he compared the ruling Congress party, the nation’s oldest political group, to an aging woman. At another, he mocked Manmohan Singh, the incumbent prime minister, for reaching out to the American president for help in staunching terrorist networks that operated in next-door Pakistan.

“O-baaaa-maaa,” Modi shouted, in a whining child’s voice. “O-baaa-maaa. Our neighbor has come and attacked us. Do something!”

The crowd laughed and hollered. Soon, the entire field of supporters was crying, “O-baaa-maa.” All bearing Modi’s face over their own.15

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