The World’s Biggest Democracy Crisis

How is Narendra Modi transforming India? Omair Ahmad on the rise and reach of Hindu nationalism. Recently at The Signal: Natan Sachs on [what the war in Gaza means for Israel at home and abroad](. Today: How is Narendra Modi transforming his country? Omair Ahmad on the rise and reach of Hindu nationalism. Also: Anatol Lieven on Vladimir Putin’s theories on Russian history. Ruler of All India Rupinder Singh Last year, India surpassed China as the world’s biggest country, now with a population of more than 1.44 billion. For most of the last decade, the Indian economy has been thriving, with a growth rate of around 7 percent annually. And since gaining independence from Britain in 1947, the country has been the world’s biggest democracy. From April through May, it will hold national elections in which [more people are expected to vote than ever before](. When it does, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party appears certain to hold on to power. The BJP is India’s Hindu-nationalist party—and ruling party since 2014. Despite modern India having been founded as a secular democracy, Modi’s and the BJP’s approach to governing is centered on cultivating Hindu nationalism—which in practice means rhetorically, and sometimes physically, attacking minority groups and often denying them established civil rights. Just this January, Modi inaugurated a temple to the Hindu god Ram in the city of Ayodhya, at a high-profile ceremony attended by Bollywood celebrities and BJP dignitaries. The site is sacred among Hindus, who believe Ram was born there. But it was also the location of Babri Masjid, a mosque that dated back to 1527—only to be torn down by a mob, spurred on by the BJP, in 1992. The destruction of Babri Masjid triggered riots, killing thousands, mostly Muslims. On February 9, government officials demolished a mosque and adjoining school in the town of Haldwani, claiming they’d been built illegally on public land. Local Muslims protested, burning cars and clashing with the police. Four people died. Hundreds were injured. The demolitions belong to a national pattern of local BJP-led governments leveling Muslim homes, businesses, and places of worship. What’s it mean for India that this party has now controlled it for 10 years—and will likely continue controlling it after the elections this year? Omair Ahmad is an Indian journalist and novelist, and a contributing editor with The Signal. To Ahmad, Modi and the BJP have undermined India’s political system so thoroughly that it’s become a democracy effectively in name only. India’s democratic institutions are still formally in place, but, Ahmad says, the BJP holds them in such a tight grip that they no longer represent real checks on the government. Opposition parties haven’t been able to stick together long enough to challenge BJP supremacy. And the country’s major news media have essentially submitted to the party’s agenda, abandoning their own role as a democratic check. In the meantime, any foreign leaders who might have held Modi to account for his party’s abuses are far more interested in courting him as a strategic ally. All of which has put Modi and the BJP in such comprehensive control that it would seem nearly impossible for anyone to dislodge them. Michael Bluhm: How did Modi and the BJP become so dominant? Advertisement Omair Ahmad: There are at least four answers to that question. One is money. There’s very little transparency to campaign finance in India. Parties get most of their donations through what are called electoral bonds, and how much each party gets isn’t intended to be public information. But journalists have found that more than 75 percent of these donations go to the BJP. And India’s dozens of opposition parties end up fighting for the remaining 25 percent. So the financial scales are heavily tilted. A second answer is that the BJP has taken control of state institutions, especially the judiciary, and uses them quite ruthlessly—not least, to persecute its opposition. An example would be the way the BJP exploited a provision that Supreme Court nominees have to receive government approval. The BJP cabinet has just sat on those appointments for months—in some cases, years. No judge gets promoted unless the BJP wants them promoted. Another example would be the way the judicial department overseeing financial crimes has, under the BJP, almost exclusively investigated cases against opposition figures. And if someone under investigation then joins the BJP, surprise, the case is dropped. A third, I’m afraid, is the Indian media. Almost all major television stations are owned by tycoons who are friendly to Modi, like Gautam Adani. Modi often uses Adani’s private jet to fly to campaign rallies. Indian TV devotes a lot of political coverage to holding the opposition to account for its actions—and very little to holding the government to account for its own. But the fourth answer is that Modi and the BJP speak to popular Hindu-nationalist aspirations for India that were latent across the country before the party came to power. The BJP and Hindu nationalists talk about overcoming 1,000 years of Hindu servitude, whether to the British or to Muslim and Sikh rulers. They talk about making India great again—a kind of rhetoric that’s become common among populists around the world. And these Hindu-nationalist aspirations are widespread—among political donors, state officials, and members of the media as well as the general public. The Kremlin, Ivy Dale More from Omair Ahmad at The Signal: “For centuries, Hinduism has accommodated a wide range of views. Not all Hindus are vegetarians, for example. But now the BJP says, If you’re not a vegetarian, you’re not a Hindu. And if you’re not a Hindu, you’re not really a citizen of India. But around 20 percent of India’s population isn’t Hindu. That’s about 280 million people. The BJP and its supporters don’t really see non-Hindus as legitimately belonging to the Indian public. They don’t represent non-Hindus. They see non-Hindus’ political aspirations as alien—as aspirations that should be suppressed.” “The BJP has installed loyalists across the top of the state bureaucracy, whether in law enforcement, election administration, or the courts. They’ve done this by extending favored officials’ tenures by months and years, despite the Supreme Court declaring the practice illegal. And with that, the government has amassed so much power that there’s now just very little institutional pushback against it.” “They’ve always been anti-democratic to the core, and they’ve made no bones about it. The BJP grew out of a Hindu nationalist paramilitary organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which was originally inspired by Italy’s Fascists. M.S. Golwalkar, who was the head of the RSS from 1940 to 1973—and who Modi considers a guru—wrote in 1939 that the Nazis were a great example of how to do things, and their treatment of the Jews was a great example of national pride. The RSS didn’t distance itself from that book until 2006. I’m not sure how you might represent more of a threat to democracy than by praising the Nazis for their treatment of Jews? Still, the BJP likes to maintain a democratic bearing. There’s still a Parliament, but it’s now an institution that spends every day trying to hold the opposition to account and taking it easy on the government. The media does the same thing. So this is where we are: India has a democratic form, emptied of democratic content. It looks like a democracy, but it works in opposition to democracy.” [Members can read the full interview here]( Enjoy The Signal? Send this newsletter along to a friend who’s as curious about the world as you are. Someone send it to you? Sign up [here](. FROM THE FILES Putin’s Dreams Last week, the U.S. television host Tucker Carlson, formerly of Fox News, interviewed Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. Asked why he invaded Ukraine in February 2022, to Carlson’s surprise, Putin spoke for half an hour about his views on Russian history—and how they now entitle Moscow to take control over Ukrainian territory and call it Russia. In May 2022, Anatol Lieven, the senior research fellow on Russia and Europe at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, examined Putin’s interpretation of history. To Lieven, [Putin’s reading of Russia’s past is careful elaborate but inaccurate and ultimately illogical, a distortion that mostly serves to justify his agenda for expanding Russian power](—even as it yields the irony of a military operation that’s destroyed whatever political sway he and Russia once had among the Ukrainian people. To access our full articles, full archive, and to support The Signal as we build a new approach to current affairs, become a member. [Join The Signal]( Coming soon: Vali Nasr on how the war in Gaza is changing Iran's position in the Middle East … This email address is unmonitored; please send questions or comments [here](mailto:mail@thesgnl.com). To advertise with The Signal: advertise@thesgnl.com. Add us to your [address book](mailto:newsletter@thesgnl.com). Unsubscribe [here](. © 2023 The Signal [unsubscribe](