It's still possible for one to be infected with the kind of unjust hatred that turns one into a bad or wrong kind of person. Perhaps our collective consciousness tells us that is not possible anymore--we are not really persecuting witches, anabaptists, the poor, racial minorities, etc, etc. It's deceptive because there's truth we have made lot of progress there. But what is still true is that these human behaviors that made all of this constantly possible throughout history are still a part of us. Hatred and wrongness is extremely infectious under the right circumstances and you would be amazed by how many people immediately conform to that, no matter how unjust, rather than at least ask questions. In that way the shadow of our unacceptable past still lives on in the present.
If it were not for this experience, I believe I would be ignorant of this and unbelieving in it: that the willingness to conform to unjust authority--perhaps the vital ingredient in all of the mass injustices in the world--is still something that most of the human population possess, not unlike in our past. Which is really scary. I hope I'm just particularly unlucky and wrong about this conclusion.
So why is Modi winning then?
What do you mean by "progressivism" here?
The BJP is doing the bidding of a colonial master that is now long gone, using brown-shirt mentality. So who exactly is importing "blight from the West" here?
All repeals are acts of Parliament. However, Acts are essentially diffs to the existing body of law. If you read one you'll see they're full of "insert paragraph X after paragraph Y" type language. An act that repealed a law would just be an act that stated such-and-such a paragraph in the law was to be erased.
The reason I ask is that I'm not at all convinced that it is that meaningful as a political term. For example, I believe that many problems have and can be solved by technical progress. Depending on the nature of technology involved, this position has been defended by conservative politicians (e.g. nuclear power, space race) and by liberal politicians (e.g. stem cell research, solar power). Hence, no political position corresponds to this aspect of 'being progressive'.
At the same time, what one group of people considers a genuine progress in the social domain, e.g. international human rights laws and conventions, is not considered progress by other groups of people.
So it seems after all to me that the term 'progressive' does not describe a group of people with very homogeneous political views. This is also a critique on the author of the essay who seems to identify 'progressive' with 'left-wing views', as is usual in US politics.
To give another example, in one sense of the word establishing a new Space Command is certainly very progressive. It may be a colossal waste of money, but that doesn't mean that it's not progressive.
That's just a minor semantic quibble, I do admit that in the US 'progressive' basically means 'left wing, leaning towards policies of the Democratic Party'. My point is just that it's misleading and confusing terminology, like most political terms in the US. (e.g. liberal != classical liberalism in the US, another weird naming tradition)
"not being a progressive makes you a cretin" is not a good argument, maybe you should look at yourself to see why Modi is winning. This notion that progressivism is inherently and unquestionably good is a blight that comes from the West and has to stop.