As the general election process continues in India, Shanti Dey explains the background and history to the rise of Modi and his far right, supremacist party the BJP.
In 2014, Modi came to power with vibrant promises of economic glory, anti-corruption and with seemingly tremendous mass support from all over India. His rise was phenomenal in the recent history of the country.
In 2019, he won a second election, this time with an even higher percentage of the vote. His own party winning 303 out of the 543 seats in the election. However, it was not the same show this time. On the February 14th 2019, over 40 Indian soldiers were killed in an attack in the Kashmir valley. It was the first time in the history of India that a prime minister had openly asked for votes in the name of dead soldiers. Not to mention it’s now been five years and many of these families have yet to receive their share of government compensation. Now in 2024, Modi is running for a third time.
Hindu Militantism
To understand Modi and his politics it is best to begin from 1925 when a Hindu militant organization named RSS, or Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh, was formed in India. Its stated objective was to oppose the All-India Muslim League. Their main aim was to revive the ways of the Hindus, to establish the supremacy of the Hindus. The RSS strictly favoured the British. From the murder of Gandhi in 1948 to the demolition of a 400-year-old mosque in Ayodhya in 1992, the RSS established its training schools throughout the country to spread the ideology that India is a Hindu country and people of all other faiths should be abide by the laws of the Hindus.
One may ask what is Hinduism, or Hindutva (the political ideology which justifies, on cultural grounds, Hindu nationalism and supremacy), that RSS was born to preserve and promote?
Hindutva was inspired by European fascism. It holds that not all men and women are born equal and hence should not receive the same opportunities. This demarcation is socially constructed in the caste hierarchy. However, Hindutva’s main similarity with Islam and Christianity lies with its treatment of women, who are basically seen as property, the bearers of genes and children.
Modi’s Origins
The BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) is the main political wing of RSS. The BJP’s members and prominent leaders are generally close associates to the RSS. Modi was himself a member of the group.
Before coming to national power in 2014, Modi ruled in the state of Gujarat as a chief minister. In 2002, under Modi’s first tenure as Gujarat chief minister, communal violence erupted. Thousands of Muslims were killed, their women gang-raped and their properties attacked. This violence left several thousands more with permanent scars.
In his debut win in 2014, Modi’s Gujarat was projected in the media as a growing economy and dubbed the ‘Gujarat model’. However, in reality, his national policies seemed to be morelike the ‘chaos and communal model’ of his time in the state of Gujarat.
Modi’s Rule
To give a short summary of his regime over the last 10 years and more prominently over the last five years, we can highlight:
1. A sharp rise in mob lynching and the filming of the victims of violence on suspicion of having slaughtered cows and being sympathetic to jihad. There was complicity on the part of the law enforcement agencies in this violence.
2. Organised violence from various Hindutva gangs in the name of religious processions, including desecration of mosques and churches.
3. Openly violent speeches, by several BJP ministers and party leaders, which threatened to overthrow the constitution of India.
4. Tight control of the media; there has not been a single press conference from the Prime Minister for the whole ten years of his rule.
5. Rising unemployment among those aged 20-25 years,which now stands at about 45%. This while the proportion of young people possessing at least secondary education, among the total unemployed youth has nearly doubled from 35% in 2000 to around 66% in 2022.
6. Price rises in every sector has brought domestic savings to an all-time low. For example, the price of cooking oil in India is almost the same as in Irish supermarkets, while people in India have far lower annual incomes.
Resistance
But there has been resistance. Modi brought in three farmlaws in 2019, despite parliamentary opposition to the promotion of corporate farming. There was a year-long peaceful protest from the farmers demanding the repeal of these laws and to guarantee a Minimum Support Price (MSP) for all crops. A few months before the 2022 state elections in Uttar Pradesh – the main stronghold of the BJP – Modi had to repeal these laws and promised to legally guarantee MSP. It was a big win for the people of the country.
A second phase of the farmers’ movement started in 2024, to instate the legal guarantee of MSP. The unarmed protests were met with police brutality which killed a young farmer and left several injured. Farmers are still holding their ground on the borders of Punjab and Haryana.
There is anger among the working class over high inflation and the lack of jobs. Vast numbers of public sector jobs havebeen privatised under this regime, and many more are moving towards a contractual system.
India is not seeing as much opposition from the left-wing mainstream parties as it is from the people (although southern states, such as Kerala, are exceptions). The majority of opposition parties in India have formed an alliance with the leading opposition party Congress, called the I.N.D.I.A alliance. This led to the arrests of two sitting chief ministers and the freezing by the central agencies of the bank accounts of Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the former ruling Congress Party, supposedly because of tax evasion.
Electoral Corruption
The BJP, however, has received the lion’s share of a scheme of electoral bonds, where political donations could be made anonymously. Such donations were recently scrapped by the Supreme Court of India for being unconstitutional. Data on the electoral bonds points to widespread abuse of power by the agencies of central government.
The BJP started its 2024 election campaign, with the claim of ‘Charso Paar’ (‘we will cross 400 seats’). It has kept up its pitch against the Muslim community throughout the election campaign in an attempt to woo Hindu voters. The election commission has mostly remained silent on their violation ofthe “Model Code of Conduct”, even after several complaints from the opposition leaders.
Even if BJP loses this election, the communal hatred, superstitions and misogyny which have spread across the country through its channels will remain. And if the BJP does come to power through the electoral process, the future looks very bleak.
