Today, Sunday, June 9, the leader of far-right radical Hinduism, Narendra Modi assumed his third consecutive term as Prime Minister of India. The ceremony tasted, however, like failure. Very far from Modi’s calculations, a significant number of voters did not vote for him and exposed him to unprecedented political weakness.
During the election campaign, the prime minister boasted that his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, People’s Party), was going to crush the entire political arc and obtain 400 of the 543 seats in the Indian parliament. Your bad. The reality is that he obtained only 240 deputies (63 less than in 2019) far from the majority of the 272 necessary to govern alone. As explained below, India has a parliamentary regime and, therefore, to be re-elected, Modi needed, on this occasion, to appeal to the votes of the legislators of the other 15 parties in his coalition, the National Democratic Alliance (ADN).
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In contrast, the opposition led by the historic Congress Party (center-left), which had been going downhill in recent decades, rebounded. This implies a new political scenario in a country like India that today is one of the important global players. The Congress Party led by Rahul Gandi (53) almost doubled its number of seats (from 52 to 99) and with its coalition, India (acronym in English for the Inclusive National Alliance for the Development of India), made up of 30 parties , managed to have 234 deputies out of the total of 543.
“He changed the course in favor of the Congress Party and the India Block. The people have saved the Constitution and democracy. The poor and dispossessed population has decided to protect their rights,” Rahul Gandhi said in a press conference after learning the results. Rahul is the great-grandson of the independence leader and first Indian president, Jawaharlal Nehru, grandson of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and son of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the last two assassinated while in office.
The electoral result produced a parliament with much more balanced forces than those of the last decade. The republic is governed by the parliamentary regime (a legacy of British colonization such as the use of the English language). This system is indirect: the people vote for the legislators and they, by majority, elect the prime minister. Voting is not mandatory, however, as always in India, the presence of citizens at the polls was massive: 66.3% (642 million people of the 970 million eligible) participated in these elections divided into seven phases. over six weeks.
In these elections, although Modi won office for the third consecutive time, unlike his two previous mandates (2014 and 2019), he had to request the votes of his allies in the coalition. His aura as an invincible leader has vanished and his style of strongman who does not concede, does not negotiate and who rules without consulting has crumbled. The coalition partners will undoubtedly demand their share of power in the new government.
When analyzing the result obtained by Modi, Indian journalism speaks of a “punishment vote” and assures that unemployment and growing economic inequality – in a country that registers one of the highest rates of child malnutrition, according to the UN – has eroded its popularity. Today India is the fifth largest global economy and is close to surpassing Germany (fourth) and Japan (third). The far-right BJP government managed to grow the country at an average of 7% annually. The last decade was the fastest growing economy on the planet. However, the distribution of wealth remained highly unfair.: The richest 10% own 77.4% of the national wealth while the poorest 60% own just 4%.
From secularism to radical Hinduism
Modi’s program and his far-right party are based on three premises: neoliberalism (adjustment, privatization, liberal flexibility, etc.); increase in national defense and security and, third, ethnonationalism, that is, the glorification of Indian civilization, a current that was a minority in the country and that Modi reinvigorated. His political strategy focused on exacerbating the historical rivalry between Hindus and Muslims.. When, in 1947, harassed by the powerful Indian independence movement, the United Kingdom was forced to abandon its most precious colony, it left the region a poisoned gift: it divided the territory into two – India (mostly Hindu) and Pakistan ( Muslim) – in addition to leaving disputed areas without resolution, such as Kashmir, where there are still confrontations today.
The novelty in these elections is that the incentive of xenophobia and religious intolerance did not produce the good results of the past and the electorate valued the deteriorating economic reality more than the ethno-nationalist fervor. Modi, like all BJP prime ministers, is a member of the fundamentalist paramilitary formation “National Volunteer Association” (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sang, RSS), founded in 1925 in the image and likeness of European fascist and national-socialist organizations. The RSS is known because one of its members was the assassin of pacifist leader Mahatma Gandhi. The BJP is made up of extreme nationalist organizations that defend radical Hinduism – Hinduness or Hindutva – as a socio-religious identity.
Instead, The opposition Congress Party or Indian National Congress (CNI, center-left), which governed much of the 77 years that India has been independent from the United Kingdom, systematically defended the historical principles of democracy, socialism, unity and secularism. The CNI is a social democratic and secular party, which sought to unify the country while respecting multiethnic, multicultural and religious diversities (79.8% Hindus, 14.2% Muslims, 2.3% Christians, 1.7% Sikhs, among the main ).
During the Cold War, India, governed by the Congress Party, was very close to the Soviet Union, was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement and greatly influenced anti-colonial efforts in Asia and Africa. During the Modi government, on the other hand, alignments were avoided: the country is a member of both the BRICS along with China and Russia and the QUAD – Quadrilateral Security – a military alliance of four countries, led by the United States, which also includes Japan and Australia.
For the next five years, Modi promised to boost production in the defense sector, promote jobs for young people, increase exports and help agriculture, one of the most powerful sectors of his economy. He said nothing about a better redistribution of wealth in a country with 1.4 billion inhabitants. At the foreign policy level, his ambition is to turn India into one of the powers with a say in global decisions. A challenge for which the country seems to be prepared in the current stage of hegemonic transition.
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