DENTING MODI 1000-YEAR-OLD REICH – Newspaper

Indian voters did for Indian democracy what the country’s electoral commission and judiciary failed to do: they disciplined and rebuked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for trying to turn Hindus and Muslims against each other and for his close ties to big business – whose questionable donations fueled government policies that increased inequality and anxiety.

After 10 years in power, Modi has lost the parliamentary majority enjoyed by his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and will now run a minority government with the support of coalition partners, some of whom are notoriously fickle.

It doesn’t help that he himself has never led a real – not a fictional – coalition. Three years ago, when the Shiromani Akali Dal challenged him over his controversial farm laws, he remained unmoved and it was the Akalis who had to go. But allies whose Indian voters have already taken him from him will not quietly take theirs away yo and leave. They will be able to overthrow his government.

Putting on a brave face, Modi hailed his return to power for a third time as a “historic feat.” The truth is that this result represents a stunning personal defeat for a man so convinced of his invincibility that he began to claim divine origins.

The politics of hatred, division and stark economic inequality championed by Narendra Modi and the BJP have been dealt a punishing blow by the Indian electorate, which has delivered a verdict for the ruling coalition that has fallen far short of the expected landslide. Has Indian democracy been brought back from the brink, or will this humiliation put Modi on his heels?

“While my mother was alive,” he told a journalist during the election campaign, “I had the feeling that maybe I was born biologically. But after her death, looking at all my experiences, I became convinced… that God had sent me. The energy I have does not come from a biological body.” The electorate brought this self-proclaimed messenger of God down to earth with a bang.

Muslim scapegoat

Incidentally, Modi’s claim to divinity came in the same interview in which he lied about a campaign speech he made at the beginning of the campaign. In Banswar, he unequivocally called Indian Muslims “infiltrators” and people who have “more children”.

Modi not only abused Muslims, but also tried to arouse irrational anxiety among Hindu voters in India because he was the only leader able to stop the opposition from seizing their property and assets and handing them over to Muslims.

Modi repeated this accusation, with minor changes, at subsequent rallies. His party created nasty cartoons intended to scare Indians into believing this absurd claim. In another interview, he distorted the dubious results of a widely publicized study by researchers in his own office – published in concurrence with the anti-Muslim electoral narrative he was promoting – to convince Hindus that India’s Muslim population was growing so rapidly that it would soon be swamped.

Why is Modi so obsessed with Muslims?

First, it is part of his political DNA. His career began in the BJP’s parent organization – the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) – and was based on the RSS’s belief that India was a Hindu nation that had been enslaved by Muslims for 800 years. Modi believes that today’s Indian Muslims – statistically one of the poorest groups in the country – are in fact “privileged” and enjoy greater rights and benefits than Hindus, and that India cannot achieve true glory as long as the “appeasement” of Muslims continues .

But there is a second reason for the recent increase in his anti-Muslim statements. When you go into elections with nothing to show for your actual achievements – rural unemployment and despair are widespread, and 800 million Hindus survive on free food grains provided to them by the government – it helps to distract voters with heavy doses of Muslim Beating. This is what Modi and his party did.

WE PUT ON THE BENCH, BUT WE WILL STILL LOSE

It is an open secret that campaigning for the vote based on direct or indirect references to religion is illegal under our electoral laws and can result in a politician being banned from running for office for six years. Modi, however, correctly calculated that the three election commissioners who are supposed to enforce this law (and whom he personally chose for the position) would not say anything.

When some citizens approached the Delhi High Court seeking a direction to the Election Commission to file a case against Modi for his hate speeches, they were sent back and told that they had to trust the Election Commission. The latter, of course, did nothing, and when the Chief Electoral Commissioner was asked (after the end of voting) why he had not taken action, he replied that the courts had rejected applications asking the Electoral Commission to take action.

Perhaps the courts and the Election Commission shared the responsibility among themselves and did nothing, but unfortunately for Modi, enough Indian voters saw through his game and decided that they were not going to trade their concerns about the here and now for social conflicts, which the Prime Minister clearly he insisted on it.

In Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, the BJP’s vote share declined. Even Ayodhya – which has been given a special place in Modi’s chauvinistic politics – decided to dump him. In Rajasthan and Haryana, rural voters angered by Modi’s anti-farmer policies backed the opposition. Across India, as many as 22 sitting ministers – roughly a quarter of his ministerial council – lost their seats.

But thanks to an electoral battlefield skewed by the BJP’s money power, big media bias and his own willingness to use state coercion against the opposition, Modi managed to limit his losses and unsuccessfully ran to the finish line with the help of the coalition.

On Sunday, June 9, he was sworn in for the third time. The fact that he has been weakened is good news for Indian democracy, but to the extent that he remains unpunished, it is fair to ask what his priorities will be this time.

WHERE IS MODI GOING NOW?

Do his electoral defeats mean that he will no longer be able to implement his Hindu chauvinist agenda? Will he now have to soften his attempts to suppress dissent and undermine press freedom? Will he decide it’s time to be less lenient towards big business? Or will it actually double its current program?

A Turkish friend reminds me that situations can become especially dangerous when a strongman feels weaker. This was the experience with Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, and there is no reason to expect Modi to be any different.

In his second term, Modi has begun to tighten the screws on India’s feisty digital media, which remains operational and reaches millions of readers and viewers despite threats and adulation that have turned India’s traditional media into a national embarrassment.

In his third term, Modi is likely to be more aggressive in using legal remedies against the media. Similarly, he will attempt to again use government law enforcement to thwart the opposition by prosecuting individual leaders.

If Modi continues on the path he has chosen so far, it will be up to his coalition partners and the judiciary to intervene. The fact that Modi is numerically vulnerable increases the likelihood that he will encounter some resistance from these parties, but there is no guarantee that this will happen.

During his first two terms, Modi used the support and goodwill of foreign powers, especially the United States and Europe, as a force multiplier to strengthen himself politically. This won’t necessarily change either. Once back in power, he will surely use the lure of lucrative business opportunities for Western companies and the deepening rift between the United States and China to assuage any sensitivities resulting from his overt Islamophobia and authoritarian tendencies.

Indians breathe easier today, confident that they have brought Indian democracy back from the brink. They also know that it won’t take long for Modi to return to his divinely programmed factory settings. Support for the BJP’s anti-Muslim policies may have peaked in India’s north and west, but the president wants to expand its reach in the south and east.

This is a man who boasts that he has a 1,000-year plan for India – a techno-corporate variant of the destructive RSS vision – and he is not going to abandon it so easily. The last world leader who dreamed of a millennium for his Reich ended up destroying his country and much more. Indian voters dealt a blow to Modi’s “vision”, but the truth is that he is back.

Indians who love and value their constitution – their rights, their civilization and their brotherhood – will have to prepare for a more decisive round that will surely come just around the corner.

“Chalay chalo,“, as Faiz Ahmed Faiz wrote about the search for a new dawn, “ke woh manzil abhi nahin aayi“. The safe haven is still far away.

The author is the founding editor of The Wire. He was previously editor of The Hindu magazine and winner of the Shorenstein Journalism Award and the Ramnath Goenka Journalist of the Year Award.

By arrangement with The Wire

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 16, 2024