An Election Message For India's Modi?

 

Hindu nationalist Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi may be getting a message in their general election:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s coalition led in a majority of seats Tuesday in India’s general election, according to partial figures, but faced a stronger challenge from the opposition than expected after it pushed back against the leader’s mixed economic record and polarizing politics.

Modi was still widely expected to be elected to a third five-year term in the world’s largest democratic exercise — even as an ongoing count showed his Hindu nationalist party might not secure a majority on its own, despite pre-election hopes of a landslide victory. 

If that trend holds, it would be a stunning blow for the 73-year-old leader, who has never been in a position where he has needed to rely on his coalition partners to govern.

The counting of more than 640 million votes cast over six weeks was set to take all day, and early figures could change.

In his 10 years in power, Modi has transformed India’s political landscape, bringing Hindu nationalism, once a fringe ideology in India, into the mainstream while leaving the country deeply divided.

His supporters see him as a self-made, strong leader who has improved India’s standing in the world. His critics and opponents say his Hindu-first politics have bred intolerance and while the economy, the world’s fifth-largest and one of the fastest-growing, has become more unequal.

Some 10 hours into counting, partial tallies reported by India’s Election Commission showed Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party was ahead in 196 constituencies and had won 45, including one uncontested, of 543 parliamentary seats. The main opposition Congress party led in 83 constituencies and had won 15.

A total of 272 seats are needed for a majority. In 2019, the BJP won 303 seats, while they secured 282 in 2014 when Modi first came to power...

The election, likely forcing him to form a coalition government, may turn out to have been a referendum on Modi's economic track record and his Hindu nationalist agenda:

India's most powerful leader in decades now faces the prospect of governing without an outright majority, in a potentially stunning upset overturning forecasts that had predicted his Hindu-nationalist party would come back with a supermajority.

If current trends hold, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be reliant on coalition partners, tempering the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's right-wing agenda and giving those smaller parties increased leverage.

The election had been cast as a referendum on Modi's decade in power, but this result, if it holds, would suggest that voters have at least partially rejected the more radical and divisive elements of Modi's agenda...

We'll have to wait and see what the real world effects of any change in the governing coalition will mean.  But, it would be for the better if his Hindu nationalist movement has received the message that, in a democracy, divisive "religious-culture war" politics won't be rewarded. We could use some of that tempering in this country, too, starting in November.

(Photo:  Modi on the campaign trail / Adnan Abidi, Reuters)