India’s drift into electoral autocracy

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his populist rhetoric have led his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to decisive electoral triumphs in recent state elections. While many election watchers predicted the BJP would put up strong showings in the five states at play, wins, especially by comfortable margins, were not on the cards.

The BJP held Madhya Pradesh with a resounding win, while also taking control of Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. Congress got a big win in Telangana, beating a regional party that has won every election since the state was created in 2014. The results in Mizoram — India’s second-least populous state — are still awaited, but the expectation is that the ruling Mizo National Front will retain power, with Congress remaining the largest opposition party. But the BJP has almost no presence in either state.

Put another way, the BJP took home thumping wins in all three states in which it was considered competitive. All three are also among the country’s larger states, meaning that the results could underscore expectations that Modi will win a third term as prime minister in next year’s elections.

Meanwhile, the Congress-led INDIA alliance is in disarray. The BJP did not win on the backs of any beneficial policy measures, but on the populist appeal of its borderline fascist leadership. Despite good issues-based messaging in their campaigns, Congress and the other opposition parties could not convince voters to look past the BJP’s focus on caste, identity, Hindu nationalism, and dubious ‘free money’ welfare projects.

Experts have noted that Modi’s decade-long rule has largely been one of failure — India has seen press freedom and respect for human rights fall, and income inequality rise. Even the broader economy, which Modi loves to take credit for, has not grown at the pace expected before he took power — India’s economy has grown despite Modi, not because of him.

But with a compliant media and a decade of rewriting laws to allow black money to support his party, it seems the stage is set for another BJP term in the Centre. This does not augur well for India which, under Modi, has steadily drifted into the realm of “electoral autocracy” with its secular and democratic credentials repeatedly called into question.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 5^th, 2023.

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