India, Aug. 16 -- The Narendra Modi government converted an economically disastrous idea such as demonetisation into a political win. It dealt with a brutal Covid-19 pandemic that took millions of lives and devastated livelihoods, yet emerged politically unscathed. The Modi government played with fire on land acquisition and farm laws, yet pulled back without getting burnt. And despite its limited success in pulling off a manufacturing revolution to generate jobs on scale, it has remained politically dominant and maintained its multi-class and multi-caste alliance.

The Modi government confronted a serious national security crisis with a far more powerful adversary, China, and had to redefine the idea of normalcy for the sake of peace, ye...