Otherwise, they have to rely on the empty promises, symbolic gestures, and Modi-bashing fulminations by run-of-the-mill politicians and token Muslim leaders — the stock-in-trade of "secular” parties ranging from the Congress to the Samajwadi Party of the Mulayam Singh parivar. The economic reforms P. He was particularly impressed by the small industry-driven Ludhiana, which he suggested was the free-market model of raw muscularity which, if followed, would fast-track India into the industrial age.Nations on the march, or those in the dumps, have sometimes found great leaders to lift their spirits, offer a guiding vision, fuel ambition and help them leap forward. A down and out China found Deng Xiaoping, a fast-declining Britain got Margaret Thatcher, and a de-spirited America had Ronald Reagan. A man of uncommon common sense, Xiaoping, who was once paraded with a dunce cap conical twin screw barrels Manufacturers during the Cultural Revolution in the Sixties, waded through the shallows in the still ideologically treacherous Maoist China by "feeling the stones with his feet” (as he put it). Free enterprise and state capitalism were given free rein and, as part of the 1979 "Four Modernisations” programme, the Chinese military was frogmarched into self-reliant modernisation.V. Who should the people trust to deliver the goods The writer is a professor at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. But his overwhelming desire to realise the aspirations of downtrodden masses for a better life while ensuring the country packed big guns — in line with Mao’s dictum that power flowed from the barrel of a gun — did the trick. The Gram Jyoti programme epitomises his innovative thinking. But lacking hands-on experience of managing under-performing institutions, Rajiv was consumed by the system; his tenure is remembered for the iconic Bofors corruption case (the model, incidentally, for defence scandals in the current Congress rule). Atal Behari Vajpayee could have but didn’t push the pedal, and the economic liberalisation that Manmohan Singh has overseen assumed a pedestrian pace, even as an unending series of scams using the vestigial socialist state machinery, unspooled. So confident is Mr Modi of his outcomes-based policies and programmes that, not too long ago in a closed forum, after articulating his own he asked the Prime Minister point-blank: "What’s your vision ” and received the usual blank Dr Singh stare.

But which leader is best placed to tackle it The choice is stark. He has relied on the same bureaucratic structure that proved hopeless elsewhere and, with his can-do attitude, problem-solving mindset, no-nonsense managerial methods, and fixing of responsibility, transformed it into a well-oiled machine. Narasimha Rao began in the 1990s, while not comprehensive, were irreversible. This two-pronged policy has restored to China its lost greatness. India has yet to find such a helmsman to set it on the course of self-belief and glory in the 21st century. Post-1947, this system at the Central, state and local levels has evolved into a mechanism to exempt its handlers from accountability, leading to politicians and those on the public payroll milking it for all it’s worth while not being answerable for anything they did. Except that elections over the years at all levels in Gujarat have shown that his record of good governance — a hafta-free life and hassle-free delivery of services and benefits to all the people — has trumped bad memories and can, in significant measure, win over Muslim voters. Indira Gandhi had her moment in 1966 when, with the economy plummeting, she contemplated freeing it from its socialist thrall, but ultimately chose to remain within her comfort zone and tighten the state’s grip on it, instead. Importantly, Mr Modi is the first leader to trash public sector enterprises — the biggest drain on the treasury, saying "government has no business to be in business”. No high-sounding ideals or straitjacketing ideology animated him.They brightened the material prospects of the countries they led, of course. With Mr Modi decreeing a binary feeder mode, the state electricity board now has power coursing to villages through a 24-hour line, and for agricultural use at nights and non-peak periods. But, more vitally, they imbued the people with a sense of national mission and pride that transcended the circumstances their countries found themselves in. Nations on the march, or those in the dumps, have sometimes found great leaders to lift their spirits, offer a guiding vision, fuel ambition and help them leap forward.

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