So this election is significant, because it also bears on what is arguably the greatest threat to India’s stability: the specter of massive and sustained violence pitting Muslims against Hindus, who constitute 80 percent of the population. Such an outcome could prove calamitous, which is precisely why the specter of a Prime Minister Modi occasions anxiety—and not merely among India’s Muslims. There has been much speculation about which Modi we will see as Prime Minister. The Hindutva firebrand tied to RSS discourse and in thrall to Hindutva? Or the manager-professional of the campaign season determined to build on his record as the architect of Gujarat’s economic success?

The answer matters—both for India’s stability and its prosperity. Despite the advances in education, the boom that began in the early 1990s and the global success of India’s companies (Tata, Mahindra, Infosys and others), India has a poor economic record. It places 102 out of 132 on the Social Progress Index, a composite measure of how countries fare in meeting people’s essential social and economic needs. India’s poverty is so pervasive that forecasts that trumpet its emergence as a global power seem surreal. Whether it’s the quality of schools, access to clean water and health care, the proportion of those living in poverty (nearly a third of India’s people live on $1.25 a day in purchasing power parity terms compared to 13 percent in China), or infant mortality, India’s leaders have failed their citizens.

It’s often said that the Congress Party will lose this election for lack of a compelling leader. True, Rahul Gandhi’s campaign performance gives new meaning to the phrase “a deer caught in the headlights.” Milling with the hoi polloi and delivering stump speeches (which he does badly) is not his thing. But Congress’s real problem is that Indians are fed up with the accumulation of problems and blame the ruling party, which can’t duck responsibility, having dominated politics for so long. Even its record of having overseen a long spell of rapid economic growth hasn’t helped. So now it’s Modi turn at the tiller, and he has promised to create the “Gujarat Miracle” on a national scale. He has his work cut out for him.

If Modi becomes mired in the muck of an anti-Muslim millenarianism, the result could be political chaos. The managerial skills he touts won’t matter much then. The betting is that he is savvy and understands this, that the responsibilities of governing a nation of multiple faiths and cultures will moderate the man. Here’s hoping.

India’s election has also garnered attention because of its foreign-policy implications. Modi markets himself as a business-friendly, pro–economic growth administrator, and a doer, but he also trades on his reputation as a nationalist and tough guy. To the delight of the RSS faithful, he declares that India is destined for greatness and that its leaders have been pusillanimous toward the outside world, particularly Pakistan and China. He promises to turn the page. Heady stuff, this—and dangerous, too.

Yet Modi’s bark will be worse than his bite if only because India holds a weak hand, certainly relative to China. China’s GDP is valued at $8.4 trillion, India’s at $1.9 trillion. China’s per capita income is $10,900 (113 in rank) in purchasing parity terms; India’s is $5,000 (151 in rank). China leads the world in foreign exchange reserves, with $3.8 trillion in the bank; India has $295 billion, comparable to the stash of tiny Singapore. China sold the world $2.2 trillion of goods and services in 2013 and has racked up steady surpluses. India has a long record of negative trade balances, which have gotten worse in recent years. Its exports totaled $313 billion in 2013—19 in rank, just ahead of Switzerland’s. The gap in military power is similarly stark. China’s 2013 defense budget was $126 billion (and probably larger), while India’s was $46 billion. China is also ahead in military modernization and indigenous armament production.

I could offer more such statistics but the picture should be clear by now: China surpasses India in the indices typically used to gauge national power. Whatever Modi’s dreams, he’s fated to deal with China from a weaker position.

Could an alliance with the United States help reduce the imbalance? To a degree; and military cooperation between India and America has increased substantially during the past two decades. Yet while the BJP’s nationalists are hardliners on China, the party also contains leaders who oppose an alliance with the United States on the grounds that it will foster dependence, reduce autonomy, and connote weakness. Besides, because India and the United States were often at loggerheads during the Cold War, there remains apprehension, on the right and the left, about America’s reliability and its apparent reflexive attachment to, and naïveté about, Pakistan. India and America are said to have a natural affinity as fellow democracies. (Never mind that the two countries were at odds during much of the Cold War and that India’s most reliable partner was the Soviet Union.) What’s overlooked, but was illustrated during the recent kerfuffle over the nanny problems of a New York-based Indian diplomat, is that democratic kinship sometimes makes it harder to contain controversies.

Disagreements can’t be bottled up. They get played out in the public square, igniting passions.

So don’t expect big changes from Modi on policy toward the United States. The manager in him will seek more trade with, and investment from, the United States, but the impediments to these transactions include India’s cumbersome bureaucracy and antediluvian infrastructure, neither of which can be fixed quickly. Then there’s the enduring suspicion, on the left and the right—including in the BJP, often simplistically seen as the free-market party—toward economic globalization, especially its threat to India’s farms, shops, and industries.

Pakistan is a different story. Don’t expect conciliatory moves from Modi on Kashmir. Do expect India’s rhetoric toward Pakistan to get more heated and the reaction to terrorist attacks, especially on the Indian heartland, to be tougher than it has been under Congress-led governments. The United States was able to restrain India when terrorists that New Delhi insisted were tied to Pakistan attacked the national parliament (Lok Sabha) in December 2011. Modi will be harder to hold back if there’s a comparable incident. Yet his ability to punish Pakistan will be limited by the risks of initiating a spiral toward nuclear war.

An India-Pakistan competition is already underway in Afghanistan and will intensify as foreign forces depart that country. Terrorism against India’s embassy and consulates and the abductions and killings of Indians will continue to be part of the efforts by the Taliban and the Pakistani intelligence services to raise the costs of New Delhi’s quest for influence in Afghanistan. The ripple effects of rivalry in Afghanistan could create crises between New Delhi and Islamabad. We’ll know then whether Modi’s persona and worldview matter. I suspect that there will be more changes in style than substance given the strategic realities, particularly nuclear weapons and Pakistan-China alignment. Beijing has shown that it can create plenty of problems along the 3,400-kilometer Sino-Indian frontier.

India has much to be proud of as it ends its latest election. Still, it faces massive challenges—above all, providing basic necessities to millions of its people. If Narendra Modi wants to transform India, this should be his priority. Yes, he must safeguard national security and conduct an effective foreign policy; but he can do both while resisting great-power fantasies and the concomitant blustering and posturing. They will not benefit India, at home or abroad.

Rajan Menon is the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor of Political Science at the Colin Powell School, City College of New York/City University of New York, and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council.

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