Modi’s India

In the 1930s, a Hindu social service organisation would send people to Italy and Germany to study right-wing fascism. Their goal was to bring the ideology back to India and use it to peddle a version of Hindu nationalism based on the superiority of the Hindu. That organisation’s descendant has been re-elected for a second term this month by the people of India.

The world has seen a surge of right-wing populist leaders in recent times. A surge that is made up of men disdainful of democracy’s slow and frustrating pace. Witness in this the rise of peddlers of fear and division like Viktor Oban, Erdogan, and Donald Trump. Add to that list Narendra Modi.

In an election that was just as much about India’s soul as it was about the role that religion would play in its government, Modi succeeded. Not on the basis of performance, his 2014 promises of more jobs and economic prosperity for the poor remain unfulfilled. His decision in 2016 to make certain currency denominations invalid tender was a massive failure that resulted in people unable to obtain money from ATMs. The poor had no cash available. Labourers weren’t paid. No, Modi didn’t win based on his stellar role in revitalising the Indian economy. Modi won because he played the populist strong man part down to the T.

In Modi’s India, lynch mobs roam the streets killing people who slaughter cows; scholars sit down and decide how to rewrite the country’s history to claim that Hindus are direct descendants from India’s first inhabitants thousands of years ago. In Modi’s India, Muslims call members of their community to ask if they are safe, while Modi’s television anchors bay for blood and label people traitors. In Modi’s India, 8-year-old Muslim girls are raped to threaten entire Muslims communities.

This is the threat that democracy across the world faces from right-wing populism. Its ability to blind people to the erosion of human decency. Its ability to blur the truth. In fact, Narendra Modi, and his band of Hindutva trolls, thrive on blurring the truth to create an environment of fear. They whisper into the ears of people that the enemy is amongst them. The refugees, the minorities, the liberals — the favourite scapegoats of the far-right — are the ones responsible for holding back progress. It was a lie, after all, that caused a resurgence of support for Modi when it appeared this year that he was losing support. That lie was Modi’s claim that a surgical strike inside Pakistan had resulted in the death of over three hundred terrorists. This claim was about as true as the Indian army’s recent declaration that they had discovered the fabled Yeti.

But through fake news via Whatsapp and social media, Modi spun a narrative of machismo that resulted in people rallying around him. All to counter the non-existent threat from Pakistan. A tale of jingoism helped Modi reclaim his throne.

Much like how a tale of anti-Muslim hate helped him secure a second term as Chief Minister of Gujarat. As thousands of Muslims were brutally murdered and raped while the police sat back and watched, Modi was remorseless. His stoking of Hindu-Muslim animosity allowed him to capture another term as Gujarat’s Chief Minister.

But it hasn’t just been Modi’s ability to create an environment of fear that has allowed him to be re-elected as Prime Minister. His populist narrative of coming from a humble background to stamp out the corrupt, dynastic, elite has been just as persuasive. It didn’t hurt that his main political opponent was Rahul Gandhi. A walking, talking, representation of dynastic corruption if there ever was one.

Yet, in handing power over to Modi to tackle the elite, the dynastic heirs, the scary Muslim threat, India is losing its decency. By re-electing Modi, the once secular, vibrant, India is transforming into an unrecognisable bastion of Hindu superiority. Where government-sanctioned committees sit down to try and prove that Hindu scripture is fact, and that India was a nation solely for Hindus. Indian Muslims know where things are heading. As Asaduddin Owaisi, the leader of the All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, told Reuters, “The government wants Muslims to live in India as second-class citizens.”

Right-wing populism creates the myth of a sparkling past. Like Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again.’ But any agenda that tries to take people back to the past can only halt progress. India shall not progress under Modi, it will devolve from secular India to Hindutva India. It shall be a nation governed by fear and fake news. Where their leader poses as a messiah in saffron robes sitting in caves before the next election. In the great Indian election of 2019, India had a choice regarding which direction it wanted to move. It did not choose secularism. It chose Modi.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 28^th, 2019.

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