On
May 12 India completed national elections that saw the ruling party in national
government change. The Bharatiya Janata
Party won enough seats in Parliament to make one of their own, Narendra Modi,
Prime Minister. According to the Financial Times, the BJP did not gain
enough seats to form a majority government, and had to form a coalition, but
Modi gets to be Prime Minister. Modi
himself is a colorful figure. A former
candy-maker turned politician, he campaigned on the promise of “toilets, not
temples,” meaning he intends to focus policy on economic and infrastructure
development rather than the Hindu identity that has long defined his party. A politician like Modi does need to make that
distinction. Bharatiya Janata was
founded in 1949 in response to the secular National Congress Party. BJP is Hindu Nationalist in ideology, and now
they have the advantage of having been out of national power long enough to avoid
associations with problems of corruption and inefficiency, like their archrivals
the Congress Party.