Will India Get Back to Normal After Modi?
Will things return to normal once Modi is gone? The answer is no. Modi is a symptom of the malignancy affecting India, not the disease itself.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has received significant bad press during the last seven years. There are multiple reasons for his sinking image. Modi has transformed India from a relatively secular democracy to an increasingly majoritarian autocracy. He has curtailed civil liberties, shackled the press, and intimidated or co-opted global social media companies. He has subdued the judiciary, removing the critical system of checks and balances. Modi has systemically targeted Indian Muslims, who make up one-sixth of the Indian population. More recently, his botched response to the COVID-19 pandemic killed hundreds of thousands of Indians. All these factors make him a perfect villain. Will things return to normal once Modi is gone?
The answer is no. Modi is a symptom of the malignancy affecting India, not the disease itself. “It is happening because of Modi” is a problematic refrain. Things will largely remain the same if the root cause is not addressed. The core problem is the pervasive radicalization of the Hindu majority, which is only getting worse.
Modi’s Rise
Modi represents the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is the political face of Hindu extremist organization Rashtariya Swayamsevak Singh (RSS). Modi volunteered for the RSS during his youth and rose through the ranks of the BJP to first head the wealthy state of Gujarat – where he oversaw anti-Muslim pogroms that killed thousands – and then clinched the nomination for the premiership. He won in a landslide in 2014, running on an agenda of development and anti-Muslim rhetoric. Post-elections, the violence against Muslims quadrupled. BJP cadres and sympathizers were encouraged to attack and lynch Muslims, accusing them of cow slaughter, eloping with Hindu girls in what the BJP calls “Love Jihad” and simply for practicing their religion. There was implicit and explicit state support of this violence.
Modi’s development agenda derailed due to ill-conceived economic measures, but he remained popular. A Pew Research Center survey conducted prior to the 2019 elections found roughly two-thirds of Indians worried about poor progress on key issues but still appeared satisfied with the direction of the BJP government. Roughly the same number of people expressed concerns over immigration, and up to 76% of respondents saw Pakistan as a major threat to India. Despite a faltering economy, Modi capitalized on anti-Pakistan and anti-immigrant sentiment to easily win a second term.
Modi did follow through some of his promises. He ended the special autonomous status of Kashmir, the only Muslim majority state, and put its 10 million residents in a brutal lockdown. He enacted a discriminatory legislation that granted citizenship to all refugees, except Muslims. And he encouraged the cadres to intensify their anti-Muslim violence.
Is Modi a Fluke?
Counterfactually, Modi is not a fluke when it comes to discriminatory policies. There is a deep-rooted antagonism towards Muslims. The alternative to BJP is the liberal Indian National Congress (INC), which enjoyed unobstructed rule for fifty years. The same period saw anti-Muslim violence and systemic exclusion from jobs and employment. A 2006 official commission found Muslims were faring worse than Dalits, who themselves are at the bottom rung of social hierarchy. INC also oversaw anti-Sikh pogroms, brutal repression of insurgencies in Kashmir, Punjab and the northeast, and midwifed Hindutva nationalism. The INC leadership thus laid the groundwork for the repression that Modi has perfected. And there is little course correction.
While BJP fields only a handful of Muslim candidates during general elections (none won), the INC does not fare any better. In the landmark 2014 elections, the INC fielded Muslim candidates in just 31 of the 464 electoral districts it was contesting. In 2019, it fielded 32 Muslim candidates. Muslim leaders literally beseeched the INC president Rahul Gandhi to give at least one ceremonial ticket to a Muslim candidate from Delhi (which has a sizable Muslim population) but to no avail.
Muslims have thus become irrelevant to Indian electoral calculus. BJP proved this point by coasting to a decisive victory in Uttar Pradesh, a mammoth state of over 200 million people, without having even a token representation of Muslims. Even though Muslims are one-fifth of the population. While Muslim candidates did contest from the INC and other platforms, their numbers were still disappointing.
Rightward Traction of Indian Electorate
This reflects a global trend of enduring populism, with iconoclast leaders projecting themselves as saviors of the majority. Anti-minority sentiment has penetrated the Indian society. The BJP has invoked Hindu nativism and nationalism to satisfactory results. This right-wing orientation is also visible in other parties’ discourse, including those claiming to be centrists. Anti-Pakistan sloganeering, which inadvertently casts Indian Muslims as ”anti-nationals” also helps the cause. This was evident during the 2019 elections, when some wary voters changed their minds after Modi ordered airstrikes on a Pakistani target.
The BJP has also made significant inroads into the Dalit community and other backward castes, winning roughly four out of ten votes during the 2019 elections. Overt nationalism, scapegoating a heavily marginalized minority and drowning voices of dissent with state oppression appears to be the golden formulae for victory. While Modi will eventually fade away, his successors from the BJP – who appear even more radical – or those from the so-called centrist parties, will have to listen to the electorate, which has shifted rightward.
The latest Pew survey confirms these trends. Nearly two-thirds of Hindus think being Hindu is key to being a “true Indian.” An even larger share of respondents think someone eating beef cannot call oneself a Hindu. There was also significant support for caste segregation and opposition to inter-faith marriages.
In sum, the rot in Indian society goes beyond the BJP and Modi. They only represent the aspirations of a large chunk of the Hindu electorate. And alternatives to BJP also harbor similar extremist agendas. Unless there is a grassroots campaign to address rifts in the Indian society, things will continue to worsen.
Photos by Arti Agarwal from Pexels; Suhail Suri and Sandeep Darji from Pixaby.