'Modi in a commanding position, could become most important Indian PM since Nehru': Fareed Zakaria at WEF 2024

Narendra Modi has the real chance to go down as the most important Indian prime minister since Jawaharlal Nehru, foreign policy expert Fareed Zakaria said on Monday. "He (PM Modi) has a chance to go down as the most important Indian prime minister since Nehru. I think it would be hard for him to overtake Nehru because Nehru was India's first prime minister. And that gives him a kind of unique status as the man who established modern India and particularly modern Indian democracy. But he has the chance to leave a very powerful legacy," Zakaria said while speaking to Business Today's Executive Director Rahul Kanwal at the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2024.

Zakaria, however, listed what he expects Prime Minister Modi to do in his third term. He said he wants Modi to solidify reforms as there are still areas where India is a very difficult place to do business by global standards. "It's very protectionist. Labour laws are very tough, and land acquisition laws are tough. Modi tried to do something about some of those things. Maybe the third term will allow him to do this."

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The geopolitical expert said that all these reforms will help the average person because the big conglomerates and the big houses love having complicated regulations and tariffs. "It protects them (big conglomerate) from foreign competition. It protects them from domestic competition. They can manipulate the system. The more you open the economy the more the average person benefits, the more you open, the small entrepreneur benefits. So one thing would be to try and create a more of a level playing field in the Indian economy."

Zakaria also said that there was a need for India to solidify its alliance with the United States. He said it was in India's strategic interests not to be sitting on the fence, not to be playing footsie with the Russians. "India would benefit dramatically by having a generational alliance with America. It doesn't have to be formal. What I mean is a generational level of commitment that there's going to be cooperation, dialogue, cross fertilisation of economics, trade, technology, education."

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When told that it was already happening, Zakaria said it was not happening. "Take something like education. I was on the Yale board, so I know this a little bit. We tried desperately to do more in India. It's incredibly hard. India has so many backward post-colonial regulations that are suspicious of foreign universities and foreign NGOs. What's happening, honestly, is that a chattering class level. There's a lot of CEOs going back and forth praising each other." He said that tariffs are still very high and India is the most protectionist large economy in the world. "So all that needs to change."

Fareed Zakaria on the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections

When asked about Modi's prospects in the upcoming elections, Zakaria said: "They (prospects) are very bright. Modi is in a commanding position. I think he probably is in the most commanding position in all these elections around the world." He said India is doing well and some of that is because of Modi and his policies, "and you have to give him credit for that."

He said Modi is very charismatic and has his pulse on certain kinds of Indians in a way that very few people have in India. "He comes from outside the elite. He may be the first real non-elitist Indian Prime Minister. If you think of Nehru, Narasimha Rao, and Manmohan Singh, they all by education, if not birth, came out of a certain kind of elite background. Modi doesn't. And there is a sense in which the aam aadmi relates to him and he understands the Hindu pride, the ordinary Hindus pride."