The defining political image for me of the year just ended is Narendra Modi striding into BJP headquarters after the Bihar victory, smiling triumphantly and waving a Bihari scarf over his head. What struck me was how much his body language had changed. Gone was the humility we saw after he failed to win a full majority in the Lok Sabha election in 2024. He had boasted of winning more than 400 seats and ended up without a simple majority. He managed to become Prime Minister for a third time, only with the help of allies. He appeared to sense that India’s voters had sent him a message. They had. They saw him as a better man to lead India than Rahul Gandhi, but seemed to warn that the autocratic tendencies he showed in his first two terms was something they did not approve of. There was even an unsubtle dressing down from the head of the RSS.
So, Modi seemed to become a new, humbler man. Now the old Modi is back, with knobs on. For this, he has Rahul Gandhi to thank.

After he was able to win enough seats for the Congress party to become Leader of the Opposition, there was a moment when it seemed that India would finally have an Opposition in Parliament that would act as a check on the government’s power and enable parliamentary........

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