Religious riot deals a blow to India's star reformer

The sudden eruption of religious violence last week in the southern city of Hyderabad, a major centre for the multi-billion dollar software industry, has dramatically underscored a question frequently asked in India today: Is the modernising campaign of reformist Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu coming unstuck?

The Hindu-Muslim riot occurred as the state of Andhra Pradesh, of which Hyderabad is the capital, is reeling under an intense heat wave that has killed more than 1,300 people.

Ever since the mid-90s, when he came to power after unseating his father-in-law, the sandal-clad, scruffily bearded Mr Naidu has been a poster boy for India's determination to energise its civil service and reform its moribund economy.

He set about restructuring the state-run power sector, privatised badly managed government-owned companies, used information technology (IT) to make the administration more responsive, courted investors around the world, and introduced a slew of development schemes aimed at the rural poor.

In a country where populist politicians think nothing of wasting state funds on unproductive subsidies - cheap electricity, water, fertiliser - Mr Naidu declared that he wanted to 'change people's minds, and make them think about development'.

His role model, he said, was Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, a startling statement in a country whose politicians have long pretended to be anti-capitalist to garner votes from the poor.