India, April 9 -- Four years ago, on a reporting trip during the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections to a predominantly Dalit settlement in Mirzapur district on the state's southeastern border, this writer met a poor middle-aged Dalit man who was a committed voter of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). He reiterated his support for the BSP but added that his vote would go to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in a national election. Why? The Narendra Modi government has added to the country's standing in the world, that is why, said the man.

Prodded, the man came up with specifics. When the (Russia-Ukraine) war erupted, the government was able to get the war stopped and extract our students. Even superpowers such as the US and China were not ...