Dear Narendrabhai: Hearty congratulations on becoming the 14th prime minister of India. And many more for creating history by leading your party to absolute majority on its own in the Lok Sabha. It’s a feat no other leader—not even Atal Behari Vajpayee—and no other party has been able to achieve since 1984. In achieving this, you have also achieved something unimaginable: you have brought the coalition era to an end at the Centre. The fact that you have still chosen to lead a government of the NDA is reassuring: Indian democracy and centre-state relations are strengthened when smaller, reg­i­­­o­nal parties have a share in governance at the national level.

No less towering than your electoral achievement has been the mountain of hope and expectations, comparable only to Mount Everest, which your victory has created. It’s a good thing. A nation living on low levels of hope gets habituated to low levels of achievement. And even though India’s achievements since Independence have been impressive, they still constitute...