NEW DELHI: Narendra Modi will be sworn in on Monday as prime minister at a glittering ceremony that will be as much a show of his determination to be a key player on the global stage as a celebration of his stunning election victory.

For the first time in India’s history, a clutch of South Asian leaders will be among the guests watching Mr Modi’s inauguration at the presidential palace in New Delhi, including Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies swept India’s elections this month, ousting the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty in a seismic political shift that has given his party a mandate for sweeping economic reform.

Mr Modi’s decision to invite Mr Sharif for his inauguration and bilateral talks came as a surprise and raised hopes for a thaw in relations between the two countries, particularly frosty since 2008 Mumbai attacks.

In a goodwill gesture, Prime Minister Sharif on Sunday ordered the release of 151 Indian prisoners. The Pakistani leader’s attendance will be a first in the history of the two neighbours which remain divided over the disputed region of Kashmir and other issues.

“Pakistan has always held that the issue of prisoners in our respective countries is a humanitarian one and should be taken in that spirit,” a senior Pakistani official said.

India’s foreign ministry said Pakistan had notified New Delhi of its intention to free the prisoners as a “goodwill gesture”.

“Modi has already displayed his political dexterity and diplomatic skills in inviting Nawaz Sharif, among other leaders, to his swearing in,” wrote columnist Prashant Jha in the Hindustan Times.

“But will he be able to stay the course? What happens after the first terror attack?”

Vikram Sood, former head of India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, said that inviting all the leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation was “an astute” diplomatic gesture.

“This augurs well for the region, and an improvement of relations all over the region is possible if these moves are followed by other steps, bilaterally and multilaterally,” he said.

Even before his inauguration, Mr Modi made waves on the global stage, where once he was treated by many with suspicion — and by some as a pariah — for a rash of Hindu-Muslim violence that erupted 12 years ago in Gujarat, the state he ruled.

Mr Modi, 63, has spoken with the presidents of the United States and Russia, and he has become one of only three people that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe follows on Twitter.

The US administration denied Mr Modi a visa in 2005, but President Barack Obama has now invited him to the White House.

Many supporters see Mr Modi as India’s answer to the neo-liberal former US president Ronald Reagan or British leader Margaret Thatcher. One foreign editor has ventured Mr Modi could be so transformative he turns out to be “India’s Deng Xiaoping”, the leader who set China on its path of spectacular economic growth.

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2014