Time magazine does an about-face: From 'Divider in Chief' to 'Modi has united India'

Weeks after Time magazine featured Narendra Modi on the cover of its international edition with a controversial headline, it has now run an article that says no prime minister has united India in decades the way he has done.

The article titled ‘Modi Has United India Like No Prime Minister in Decades’ is written by Manoj Ladwa, founder and chief executive of the India Inc Group, a London-based media organisation.

The article comes just days after BJP secured a landslide victory in the country's general elections, winning 303 seats in the 542-member Lok Sabha.

Watch: 'Modi united India like no PM in decades'

“Despite the strong and often unfair criticisms levelled at Modi’s policies both throughout his first term and this marathon election, no Prime Minister has united the Indian electorate as much in close to five decades," Ladwa writes.

Ladwa, who in 2014 had led the Research Analysis and Messaging division of the Narendra Modi for Prime Minister campaign, further writes that Modi won a massive mandate as he managed to transcend India’s greatest fault line: the class divide.

The article is published in the Time Ideas section, which the publication said: “hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture.”

The article is in stark contrast to the the magazine's cover story done on Modi earlier this month titled ‘India's Divider in Chief’, written by Aatish Taseer, son of Indian journalist Tavleen Singh and late Pakistani politician and businessman Salmaan Taseer.

As Modi enters his second term as leader of the world’s largest democracy, Ladwa writes that he still has work to do.

“Having plugged some horrendous holes in India’s notoriously inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy in his first term, he will now need to focus much more ruthlessly on reforming those institutions and make them fit for the coming decades. This will require him to remain the pragmatic politician he is, and continue to shun the temptations of populism as he sets out his stall for a second term."

While all achievements of the Modi’s government are still “works-in-progress”, Ladwa said that its efforts have been recognised by virtually every single global institute of any standing, including the World Bank, the IMF, and the UN, and “Modi’s India is finally progressing at a rate worthy of its size and potential.

“Modi may have been criticised for remaining silent during incidents of social unrest. But his work has been given the thumbs up at the ballot box by the Indian voters for directly addressing the root causes of some of India’s divisions. For them, the Modi dream of a New India remains very much intact,” Ladwa added.