A Modi victory would bode ill for India, say Rushdie, Kapoor, Khan, Bhabha et al. in The Guardian - A Rebuttal

The One Factor: Fear of Mr Modi

The 0, invented in India, has changed the world, but almost parallel to 1 God influencing mankind media, of late, seems to be abuzz with India invoked number 1. This is because the talk is about one person Modi, one incident Gujarat riots 2002, one accusation of him not controlling the riots, one election of him getting chance to rule India and one fear of a divided India under his rule.
Seeing leftist Indian media 'making a living' out of misreporting and creating stories against Modi although right wingers reserved the hash tag #paidmedia for it, forced possibly more by the rise and rise of Modi it has toned down its rhetoric. Almost as a foreign aid or admonition or an answer to a call like 'workers of the world unite' western media including The Economist, Guardian and even the BBC have come up with the single chorus 'Say not to Modi' to amplify the one. Although by no means of media but by all means people successful in their own fields, a group ‘led’ by ones with blood from the East e.g. Salman Rushdie, Homi Bhabha, A Kapoor etc. by publishing a letter against Modi in The Guardian even added spice to the ‘one’.
Although by no means by the international community or by governments (USA's U turn) and not even by the West, but western blood in the list (F Mactaggart, H Kennedy etc.) almost made the effort a united socialist reaction. At least through the eyes of the socialist world fear of the one is seen.
Almost saving the conscious world from a unidirectional monotonous mode, spokesman for Modi's party BJP at last caught the other end of the spectrum and said no to the view and made the number binary. Using a reciprocal freedom he even called the successful accusers ‘pathological’.
Although even majority belief doesn’t make things true or right, logics given below suggest BJP wasn't entirely wrong. And the freedom of expression used by the thinkers, which is so important for progress, unfortunately fails short in terms of its effectiveness, correctness and danger prediction.

 Modi's Involvement in The 2002 Hindu-Muslim Riots

Modi's Involvement in The 2002 Hindu-Muslim Riots

Not being present then to directly asses him, and court of law alone deciding guilt or innocence in a civilized world, accepting the court's verdict is a must for all of us - irrespective of any dislikes. Disregarding the verdict but punishing the assumed guilty, isn't part of civilization, and is called taking law into one's own hands. Same goes for Tony Blair and George Bush. And threat by Iran against one of the signatories wasn’t right either.
If the thinkers strongly feel that he is guilty, the correct thing would be to fight him in the Indian court, or to help the one who did so. With that not done, and India's regional court acquitting him and its supreme court's committee not finding a case against him, continued blame on him simply becomes a blame game. It also means less respect for the Indian judicial system. Not being indicted by the court in Hague, nothing else can be done.
Irrespective of the verdict, almost as an out of court settlement, if his 12 year tenure was filled with further killing of Muslims, as expected from a Muslim hating killer, it would be very logical to fear him. My full support would have gone for the thinkers then. Not being so, their assertion shows disregard for the legal system, and the democracy that has elected him few times. A democracy in which, they themselves must have voted, before migrating to the West.
Far from instigating riots, his regime even saw riots that were routine, now stopped. While this itself is commendable and not seen in other states, with Muslim migration out of his state Gujarat not seen but the seen facts being the rapid growth of Hajj goers (sign of Muslim affluence), ordinary Muslim voters voting for the BJP and frustrated Muslim stalwarts from other parties joining BJP leadership, the fear of him being anti Muslim is unfounded in practice. In fact, his stopping of routine riots, development work in his state and united vision for all Indians has never united India so much. No wonder, even in the troubled Muslim state of Jammu and Kashmir there is a talk of a Modi wave.
With him ruling under India's constitution and international regulations, and working under international glare that even stopped theIndo/Pak war, he can’t divide India. Besides, a globalized world with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc.,in addition, making millions of reporters, persecution of minorities is hardly possible. Incidentally, unlike before, videos of incidents have brought powerful Congress leaders down.

The Wise Men's Mistake

All respected thinkers take facts into account and asses future effects. Not having taken the above clearly discernible facts, these wise men of the East living in the West do not bring the sweet smell of Frankenstein as the ones who met Jesus did. With Indian media making a living out of vilifying him till late and as suggested by 'If he divides, he divides people into those who follow media hype and those who do research', these thinkers have sadly fallen prey to the media hype.

Much Larger Implications

Ruling most of the post-independence period through slogans alone, Congress has produced a corrupt India that needs western aid to feed its frustrated poor. Giving endless chances to the Congress, should these well off wise men disregard the sufferings of the poor?
In fact, while he being a member of the ruling dynasty makes the tilt a support of a dynasty, his inexperience and inactive record as an MP makes him ruling over the largest democracy on earth, a bit scary. Even if not of underage, while him being pushed into politics just 6 months ago makes his mother, Ms Sonia Gandhi, a de facto regent (one power center faced also by present PM Dr Singh as per Mr Sanjay Rara's book) him sharing national secrets with her for help makes it dangerously unconstitutional.
Even if that is accepted, not done by his predecessors before and living amidst today's corrupt, expecting this novice to remove corruption from India is naive. In addition, with the 1st family itself been accused of corruption, corruption removal would need putting his family members in jail. That isn't possible.
Far from just corruption issue, a Congress victory in this election has a major implication to India and the world. Unlike a BJP's win that could deal with the corrupt - including bringing home cash stacked in foreign banks, a Congress's win makes the BJP a 'never winning party' and the Congress 'invincible'- even if corrupt. Beyond this converting this country into a de facto one party state, added dynasty almost makes it monarchical. Furthermore, with the corrupt being unpunished and thus becoming untouchable, it would only mean skyrocketing of corruption and India’s poverty. The future of democratic India would thus be bleak, and future of the UN and the West will see resources drained into feeding of Indians.

More Mistakes

Sadly their mistakes do not end there. They continue.
Although, dutiful orchestration by the Indian media made their message penetrate the educated, the wrong timing (in the eve of election) has given little chance for the rest to reflect and vote accordingly. It thus has only made international headlines for the signatories.
In addition, almost like an unplanned 'We want to get rid of the king' revolution inviting a counterrevolution, their 'no to Modi’ does not include yes to someone else. With post victory BJP leader other than Modi not being practical (chaos by the cheated) as asserted in the rebuttal to The Economist, and the 3rd front not yet born, both by stronger logic than their assertion and by default a support for Rahul Gandh as PM is clear. Unmentioned support for Rahul thus gets mentioned and analysed below.
With both western and Indian analyst predicting a victory for Modi, this default support for a losing candidate Rahul, can’t be said to be prudent. More than not tracing the wise aphorism 'If you can't beat them join them' or the USA's recent u-turn, it also fails to see the much larger implication of the assertion (not the act).

The Enigma

Although sales do affect media, not seeing discernible cash, what made them do so is an enigma. With the fear of Modi to India, thus not supported by logics and appearing scaremongering, and fear of Him being the 'Indian Putin' to the West being supported by more logics, their attempt could be explained by 'They do not know what they are doing' or a Lenin's 'useful idiots' or something else.
These thinkers will very soon be proved wrong. Thinkers of that calibre being proven wrong will indeed be sad.