India’s prime minister focuses too much on appearances

THE change in mood is remarkable. Earlier this year Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, had an air of invincibility. His government, although more than halfway into its five-year term, seemed more popular than ever. In March his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the most lopsided electoral victory since the 1970s in the country’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh. In July he launched a reform that had eluded his predecessors for decades: a national goods-and-services tax (GST). Later that month he persuaded an ally of the main opposition party, Congress, to defect to the BJP’s camp, securing control of yet another state government.