US-INDIA GLOBAL REVIEW JUL-SEP 2020

50 percent. So Morning Consult may have reached the ‘balcony- owning’ Indians,” Prakash con- tended. When News India Times asked Morning Consult if it could inter- view someone about the India survey, the company responded, “We won’t be able to accommo- date an interview, but appreciate your interest in our world leader data.” Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Indiana University in Bloomington, Sumit Ganguly, says the Morning Consult survey may be skewed in favor of the middle class in India, but Modi’s rising popularity is also true. More so, because “The opposition has not come out with a set of alternatives except the obvious,” during the pandemic. “The Gandhis are going to ruin the country, they will not give up their privileged position in the party, and yet are inept. Under these circumstances, the populari- ty of Modi will be there, regardless of the quality of the poll,” Prof. Ganguly maintained. Jayashree Joshi Eashwar, an environmentalist, a pioneering organic farmer in close touch with grassroots rural community of India, concedes there is the “rally round the flag” syndrome that has helped Modi’s approval ratings in several polls. Also, “It must be noted that a threat perception has always helped Mr Modi who is seen as a strong and no-nonsense leader. He is also a mobilizer who seems to know how to channelize the emotions of his people and bring them to focus on national macro issues rather than the micro aspects that trouble or hurt them,” she said. However, the jury is still out on Modi, as the nation waits for the lifting of the emergency in June, she added. (In the interest of full disclosure, Joshi Eashwar is known to this writer for many years). After the candle-light vigils and banging of pots and pans, there is the massive migrant labor crisis that Joshi Eashwar says will affect that popularity rating in light of “unsatisfactory redressal” and “systemic cracks” that “have become apparent” even in the relief package announced for the poor. Parth Parihar, a PhD scholar in economics at Princeton, has been studying the numbers closely. His area of study is the nexus between economics and politics. Parihar says the poll is as accu- rate as can be. He looks at the beginning and end of the months covered by this and other polls on Modi’s popular- ity and approval ratings. The Morning Consult poll results show all the world leaders experienced an initial bump when the COVID threat loomed in January. And as the virus spread, the approval rating for many either stayed constant or rose. But for some, the numbers went down as the virus infected num- bers rose. The latter happened with leaders like Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Trump. “So the initial reaction was to rally round the flag; then as time goes on, people tend to get fatigued, and to look more closely at what is happening, as in the U.S.,” Parihar said. “In the Indian context, that drop hasn’t hap- pened. Why? Because even with the limited resources, India has managed the crisis reasonably well,” he says. Modi’s 76 percent popularity rating in January as shown in the Morning Consult survey, is close to that in other polls with a wider reach, The “high-quality IANS-CVoter survey conducted in late January found that Prime Minister Modi had an 82 percent approval rating, adding together ‘satisfied’ and ‘very much satisfied’ responses,” Parihar says. A March 26-27 survey conduct- ed by CVoter’s Coronavirus track- er showed 66.4 percent of respondents “strongly agree” and 17.1 percent “agree” with the Modi government’s handling of the cri- sis, The Quint reported. That equals 83.5 percent popularity rat- ing, almost identical to that of Morning Consult’s March 31 rat- ing of Modi which stood at 80 per- cent. As India slowly relaxes the lock- down with an eye to a possible resurgence, the nation and the world is looking to see if Modi will maintain his position as the most popular leader, or, one of the most popular leaders, in the world. The Indian people, the large majority of them, have paid heed, and they are showing that under strong and steady hands they are ready to be guided. 30 US-INDIA GLOBAL REVIEW JULY-SEPTEMBER 2020 Ela Dutt | Editor, Parikh Worldwide Media