There is a great, virtual storm blowing through India today, and the most frantic people in the country seem to be those trimming their sails to it.
I refer to the shrewdly concerted campaign to make Narendra Modi seem like India's natural and inevitable leader — a veritable miracle worker who, emerging triumphant in elections due by May, will raise despondently low growth rates and restore the country's pride and international reputation.
The chief minister of Gujarat is trailed by accusations of his complicity — and that of his closest aides — in the massacre of hundreds of Muslims in 2002, and barred, consequently, from travel to the U.S. It is far from clear if Modi can jettison India's unique model of collaborative capitalism and unleash entrepreneurial energies in the stagnant manufacturing sector, let alone push through much-needed investments in infrastructure and agriculture.