evidence: In a leaked U.S. government cable from 2006, written as it became clear Mr. Modi was a potential future national leader, Michael Owen, the then-U.S. consul general in Mumbai, said Mr. Modi had "successfully branded himself as a non-corrupt, effective administrator, as a facilitator of business in a state with a deep commercial culture, and as a no-nonsense, law-and-order politician who looks after the interests of the Hindu majority."