Nemesis has followed swift on the heels of Narendra Modi’s hubris. He is set to be the first Indian prime minister to serve a third term since its first, Jawaharlal Nehru. Yet rarely has an election victory looked more like defeat.
He boasted that he would win a third full majority in the world’s largest democracy – suggesting his party would win as many as 400 seats – and said he had been sent by God. Instead of a coronation, he got a rebuke. Far from winning a landslide, his Bharatiya Janata party’s seats fell from 303 to 240, leaving him reliant on political allies. The BJP had made a major push in the south and managed to take a seat in Kerala. But Mr Modi’s vote slumped in his own constituency of Varanasi, in the north. Indian electors have humbled the strongman.
It was entirely deserved. The aggressive Hindu majoritarianism he has pursued, to the detriment of India’s 200 million Muslims, became increasingly shrill Islamophobia on the campaign trail. His government has cracked down on civil society and opponents have faced corruption investigations. The opposition Congress party said its bank accounts were frozen. Fawning mainstream media effectively campaigned for the BJP instead of covering it.
“India’s democratic decline shows how democracies die today … through the fully legal harassment of the opposition, intimidation of media and centralisation of executive power,” wrote one democracy scholar, Dr Maya Tudor, last year.
Now Mr Modi must rely upon a deal with Chandrababu Naidu of the Telugu Desam party and Nitish Kumar of Janata Dal (United). Both are known for their horse-trading rather than their political principles. They will want to limit the power of his right-hand man, Amit Shah. Taking the home ministry from him would be one way to do this. Mr Modi also faces a reinvigorated opposition. The Congress-led alliance, known as INDIA, defied expectations by taking 232 seats – a reward for persistence and its ability to pull together.
Strikingly, there are some signs that the Hindu chauvinism Mr Modi rode to power may be reaching its limits. The BJP was defeated in Faizabad, where the prime minister inaugurated a grand temple on the site in Ayodhya where a Hindu mob once demolished a 16th-century mosque. Reporters who visited the area and other parts of Uttar Pradesh ahead of election day found poorer voters complaining that Mr Modi’s focus on such issues was doing nothing to address basic needs. Despite his expansion of welfare programmes, many feel left behind. The headline GDP figure and new highways may impress, and billionaires like Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani have prospered, but wealth has not trickled down. Huge numbers of young people are unemployed, and inequality is both flagrant and increasing.
The reproof from voters might encourage the BJP to steer the economy towards a somewhat fairer and more sustainable course, for its own sake. What it indisputably offers is an opportunity to halt the democratic erosion. It is possible that Mr Modi will now seek to intensify his authoritarianism; an election under fairer conditions would surely have proved still more damning. But without a supermajority he cannot push through constitutional changes, as many feared he might. With his air of invincibility punctured, politicians, business people, officials and broadcasters may be somewhat less eager to dance to his tune.
All those who have resisted Mr Modi’s encroachment on India’s institutions and democratic, secular traditions – courageous activists, journalists, lawyers and the voters themselves – should be applauded. They have given democracy a second chance. It must now be seized.
