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9th Anniversary: Free Tote & Mug

Narendra Modi has discovered that sometimes it pays to give in

Modi is shrewd enough to realise that anti-incumbency is setting in and the electorate wants a leader who at least seems responsive to public concerns.

Almost from the time he took office as Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has been lauded by his supporters for his unwillingness to backtrack on a policy or to give in because of public protests. Rare is the minister who has had to resign because of media criticism. And very few policies have been abandoned or even moderated because of complaints from those adversely affected.

Over the last month, however, there are signs that we are seeing a more accommodating Narendra Modi, a man who does not treat every agitation as a masculinity test and does not believe that listening to his critics is a sign of weakness.

The best example of this was the about-turn on the Jantar Mantar protests. The government followed its usual policy by first ignoring the protesters and their demands. When the protests gathered momentum across India, the government sent the police in with lathis and pellet guns to scare the protesters away. Judging by past experience, the stand-off between the government and the protesters would have persisted for several more days, until police brutality broke the students’ will.

This time around, confounding the predictions of friendly media and contradicting his own ministers and aides in their briefings to the press, the Prime Minister gave in. He agreed to sack Dharmendra Pradhan, the........

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