Modi 3.0: Continuity in Policy and Prejudice

This article was published in The Diplomat on August 24, 2024.

It has been eight weeks since Narendra Modi began his third term as the prime minister of India but with a diminished status. He is now head of a coalition government unlike in the past two terms when his party enjoyed an absolute majority.

Many observers, including yours truly, felt that perhaps with less power would come some change in the substance and style of his governance. But it seems things are back to business as usual. Modi is back to his old ways, traveling abroad (already two trips to Europe, Italy and Austria, and one to Moscow), busy attending lavish parties with India’s super rich, and as usual, has no time for the two Indian territories — Manipur and Kashmir — embroiled in civil war and terrorism.

In the first two terms, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party enjoyed an absolute majority, and his word was literally law. He ruled like an imperial president. He had rendered his own Cabinet, his party, and the Parliament itself moot. This approach also shaped his re-election campaign as evident in the main campaign slogan of his party: “Vote for Modi’s guarantee.” Not the BJP’s guarantee, or the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)’s guarantee. They didn’t matter; it was all about Modi. Opposition party members felt that they were running against Modi in every constituency.

In the recent general election, he prevailed in only 240 of the 543 constituencies and now must contend with the demands and challenges of coalition partners: Chandrababu Naidu, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh whose regional Telugu Desam Party has 16 seats, and Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar, whose Janata Dal (United) won 12 seats.  Together these two partners have 28 seats without which Modi’s coalition, the NDA, will lose its majority in parliament.

The principal cast of key Cabinet ministers — the home, defense, finance and foreign ministers — remains the same. Modi also managed to get a member of his own party — Om Birla, who was the speaker of the Lok Sabha in the previous government — elected as speaker again. The return of Modi’s core Cabinet team and Birla’s election as speaker is the biggest signal that despite the lack of majority in the Parliament there will be no change in policies. Continuity is the norm. More importantly, the BJP’s coalition partners, known for their fierce independence and maverick politics, are having no impact on Modi’s governance.

The price that Modi paid for retaining his freedom to govern as usual was revealed this week via the national budget. A disproportionately large share of the budget has been earmarked for the states of Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, for building a new capital city in the former, and roads, bridges and power plants in the latter. The total outlay for this fiscal year is $5 billion with more promised in the coming years.

For ten years Modi ruled without a leader of the opposition since no single party other than Modi’s BJP had gotten 10 percent of the seats in the Parliament in 2014 or 2019, a number necessary to warrant a leader of the opposition. But that too has changed this time. An opposition leader with parliamentary powers can make governance more democratic for the nation and more complicated for Modi.

Rahul Gandhi is now the opposition leader, and he is trying to make the Parliament more relevant by challenging Modi. Gandhi also visited Manipur to bring attention to the plight of the people there and is trying to highlight critical issues like unemployment. His speeches in the Parliament are scathing and challenging.

But the mainstream media too is back to business as usual and is more interested in glorifying Modi and marginalizing Gandhi and the issues he raises. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni taking a selfie with Modi gets more coverage than Rahul Gandhi meeting with victims of dreadful violence in Manipur and their tragic stories.

Indian Muslims: From Demonization to Exclusion

While the new-old Cabinet indicates continuity in policy, it appears that prejudice and antipathy toward Muslims also persist. Many human rights organizations, U.S. State Department reports, and the U.N. secretary general have repeatedly expressed concern about hate speech against Muslims and the systematic violation of their basic human rights under the Modi government. In his third term Modi seems to show no softening of his posture toward Indian Muslims. The hate speech he resorted to during the election campaign has now metastasized into exclusion at the government level.

After a low voter turnout in the first two phases of voting, Modi resorted to demonization of Muslims, fear-mongering and dog whistling. He called Muslims “infiltrators” (ghuspitayas), and tried to generate panic about the high Muslim birthrate (which is declining faster than the Hindu birthrate). He incited hate and anger by alleging that the opposition, if elected, would take away Hindu wealth, including the jewelry of married Hindu women (mangalsutras), and give these heirlooms to Muslims. He also insisted that if Congress was elected it would take away the reservations in academics and jobs from backward classes and extend them to Muslims. He tried to revive his electoral prospects by creating a zero-sum scenario between Muslims and Hindus to garner Hindu women and backward caste votes by generating fear and anxiety.

Many experts attribute the failure of the BJP and Modi’s guarantee to win a majority — the prime minister had bragged that this time his party would win 400 of the 543 seats — partly to his demonization of Muslims. In more than one interview, Prashant Kishor, a sought-after political strategist and commentator, made contradictory claims. He claimed that Modi’s anti-Muslim rhetoric was used not because it would generate new voters (incremental votes were his exact words) but to mobilize the core Hindutva voter. But then he added that the prime minister’s use of such rhetoric did not sit well with many of his diehard supporters.

Mohan Bhagwat, the chief of the BJP’s ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, complained in a thinly veiled speech about the lack of decorum displayed in the election campaign. I am persuaded that Bhagwat too is tired of the demonization of Muslims. He wants to win over Muslims not alienate them. And his criticism was clearly directed at Modi’s campaign rhetoric.

One would have thought that becoming only the second prime minister of India to win a third consecutive term would bring out the best in Modi. But unfortunately, his antipathy toward Muslims is not strategic; rather it is characteristic. His new Cabinet of 72 ministers has included representatives from different states, religious communities, and castes, but 14 percent of the nation’s population – over 200 million Muslims – have found no representation. This is the first time in the history of independent India that a Muslim was not included in the new Cabinet after elections.

Compare this with the new government in the United Kingdom. Muslims constitute about 6.5 percent of the British population and they won a lower percentage of seats in the Parliament, 25 out of 650  than in India (24 out of 543). Still, a Muslim, Shabana Mahmood, holds the key Cabinet position of lord chancellor or minister of justice of the U.K., but there is no Muslim face in the Indian Cabinet.

On the issue of a Muslim-free government, Modi’s proxies are arguing that since Muslims do not vote for BJP, they should not be demanding a role in the government. This specious argument ignores the fact that Narendra Modi is the prime minister of all of India not just non-Muslim Indians or only those who voted for BJP.

First, they are wrong about Muslims not supporting the BJP. According to the highly regarded post-poll survey of the Lokniti project at the Center for the Study of Developing Societies, 8 percent of Muslims, mostly very rich and very poor Muslims who benefitted from BJP’s business-friendly policies or their welfare giveaways like free rations, voted for the BJP. I interviewed Dr. Hilal Ahmed who is one of their principal researchers, and he agreed that if Modi had not resorted to hate speech against Muslims in the election campaign, BJP would have won a greater share of the Muslim vote. The strategy of anti-Muslim rhetoric that was used to mobilize the base also prevented the BJP from making inroads into the Muslim vote.

Second, one of Modi’s regular political mantras for several years has been Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas — Everyone Together, Everyone’s Development, meaning none will be left behind. But unfortunately, Modi chose to send the message that the prejudice that he displayed during the election campaign is difficult to discard. Islamophobia will remain an outstanding characteristic of his legacy. It is a pity that in spite of the constraints — a coalition government and a formal opposition leader with parliamentary powers — in Modi 3.0, both policy and prejudice enjoy continuity.