Triumph of a Free Society Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s victory is a tribute to India’s democratic reforms.

Both the elections in 2014 and the landslide victory last week of Narendra Modi signified India's distinction from China-it is a democracy, however imperfect, where people vote freely and enjoy freedom of speech and the press. In India, notes sociologist Ashis Nancy, "the cost of dissidence is zero"; in China, the cost is prison. China went from collectivism to personal enterprise only with the approval of the Communist Party, suggesting that the country could always revert to its past. In India, a free-market, open-borders economy resulted from debates in the public sphere, from media and universities to the political arena

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