The Indian General Election was a referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The election campaign of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) centered on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The BJP’s election manifesto was titled “Modi ki Guarantee” (Modi’s guarantee). Their election campaign made him a Hindu deity. Modi asked the people of India to come together to make India the epicenter of world economic growth by giving them four hundred seats in the Lok Sabha (Parliament of India). It is a demand to give two-thirds unlimited power to Narendra Modi-led BJP.
Narendra Modi is a populist, Hindu extremist, racist, fascist dictatorial leader.
He became a fascist not recently. He put the miniaturized political handbook through the Hindu fundamentalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), one of the oldest fascist organizations in the world. The RSS was started at the time when fascism and Nazism were spreading across Europe. A victim of the RSS “hook” at an early age, Narendra Modi became a full-time activist at a young age. Having served as a full-time RSS worker for over two decades, Modi was qualified for the top leadership of the RSS.
When the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was founded, its foundation was the RSS fascist organization. But when the BJP became popular among the Indian people leaders such as Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L. K Advani abandoned strict Hindu fundamentalist approaches and turned to popular Hindu politics. The primary reason was to create an easier approach to coalition politics. As it was difficult for the BJP to gain parliamentary power as a single party, political alliances had to come together at that time. Many parties were reluctant to join alliances with a hard line Hindu fundamentalist party, so they needed a new face. By 2009, the BJP had reached the peak of coalition politics. In the period from 1990 to 2009, they were able to acquire 25 percent of the votes only in the 1998 general election. In all other cases it was close to twenty percent.
Their next goal was to gain power as a single party. For that, they abandoned some moderate policies followed till then and entered into strict anti-minority policies including Hindu extremism, racist Muslims. RSS leader Narendra Modi was chosen by the inaugural leaders of the BJP to follow that fascist path.
First, he was appointed as the BJP leader in Gujarat. He won the Chief Minister election of Gujarat where he killed thousands of Muslims and earned the title of “Butcher of Gujarat”. The BJP leaders decided to give Narendra Modi the prime ministerial candidacy in the 2014 general election, who has exhibited fascist activities for several years.
That gamble paid off. In that election, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 282 seats and formed a government for the first time in history as a single party. There, the BJP won 166 seats more than in the 2009 general elections and got 31 percent of the votes. They managed to increase it to 303 seats in the 2019 general election. This time the target was to cross the 362 seat threshold and establish a two-thirds majority.
Christophe Jaffrelot has published an excellent research book entitled “Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy” which provides an in-depth analysis of Narendra Modi’s rule and his politics from 2014 to 2024.
India’s secular constitution, while prohibiting religious teaching in government schools, states that “all minorities based on religion or language have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice”.
India thus fulfills the essential criteria of secularism put forward by Charles Taylor:
1. Everyone is free to practice his religion,
2. Every religion – majority or minority – is treated in the public sphere on an equal footing, and
3. “All spiritual families must heed to it.”
Indian secularism reflects a conception of nation that is not based on a separation of religion and the political sphere (or even on the secularization of society). Instead it is based on the official recognition of religious communities where all enjoy the same rights.
Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India from 1947 to 1964, declared in 1961: “We are talking about a secular state in India. Even finding a good word for ‘secular’ in Hindi is not easy. Some people think it is against religions. That is clearly not correct. It means a state that respects all faiths equally and gives them equal opportunities” (Pages. 7-8).
After independence, India emerged as a secular state. The new constitution of India laid the foundation for it. But the Hindu extremists strongly opposed this secular state. The RSS fascist organization took the lead in that protest. One of its activists, Nathuram Vinayak Godse, assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of the Indian Independence War, on January 30, 1948, because he did not agree to establish a Hindu state. Narendra Modi-led RSS commemorates Godse and his personal terrorism annually.
They socialized a new view that Mahatma Gandhi was as pro-Muslim as anti-Hindu. Jawaharlal Nehru, the outstanding leader of that struggle and the first Prime Minister of India, who received a long prison sentence for the Indian Independence War, also suffered the same fate.
As Christophe Jaffrelot points out in his research book, Narendra Modi’s BJP government has re-created Indian history for Hindu extremist interests. Instead of the secular state established by the Indian Constitution, they are establishing a Hindu state. This change has spread from school textbooks to university syllabus. In place of the secular state idea, Hindu state ideology has been introduced into government education. So far Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and others who were known in school textbooks as pioneer leaders of the Indian freedom struggle have been removed.
After Modi came to power, in August 2014, the RSS formed a committee called Bharatiya Shiksha Niti Aayog. Its aim was to “Indianize” the education system by directing the policies of the Ministry of Human Resource Development in charge of education. The committee was headed by Dinanath Badra, a long-time member of the RSS who specialized in rewriting Indian history in terms of Hindu nationalism. In 2010, he filed a civil suit to ban Wendy Doniger’s book “The Hindus”, alleging that it created a bad image of Hinduism. Penguin India, fearing reprisals, pulled the book from the market even before a court order. Badra also influenced the prestigious Delhi University. The famous Indian anthropologist A.K. Ramanujan’s essay “Three Hundred Ramayanas” should be removed from its syllabus. He alleged that the essay was against the idea of Hindu nationalism. School textbooks also include a poem by Badra. “I have a dream, to build a school on the basis of Hinduism and patriotism” is the poem (pages 170-171).
During the Modi regime of 2014-2024, many corners of India were subjugated to Hindu fundamentalism, but the RSS and BJP’s goal of making the whole of India a Hindu state could not be achieved. The main obstacle to it was the Constitution of India, which provides equal protection to all races, religions, castes and classes in India. In this election, the goal of the Hindu extremists, including Modi, was to get a two-thirds parliamentary majority that could amend the Indian constitution. They directly said this during the election campaign. Prime Minister Modi announced that he will remove the clauses contained in the Indian Constitution for the protection of minorities, religious and caste groups.
During the ten years since Modi became Prime Minister, there have been thousands of extremist Hindu mob attacks targeting minorities including Muslims and minor religious groups including Christians. A considerable number were killed. These lynches are done by Hindu extremist mobs. Modi and the BJP government have not actively intervened to stop these killings till date. Instead, they provide ideological support for these attacks.
In January this year, Modi inaugurated the Ram temple in Ayodhya. Built on the ruins of the Muslim Babar Mosque, which was demolished by a Hindu mob in 1992, the temple was the centerpiece of the BJP’s election campaign. Prime Minister Modi shouted triumphantly on the election platform that he had liberated this place for the entire Hindu people, displaying his usual Hindu extremism again and again. He targeted Muslims and spread hatred. Muslims were publicly insulted and ridiculed.
Modi fulfilled his promises to Hindu nationalists during his decade-long rule. Notable among these are the abrogation of autonomy in Indian-administered Kashmir, the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya and the implementation of a controversial citizenship law, as well as strict laws on interfaith marriages in many BJP-ruled states.
As 2014, and 2019, Hindu extremism and anti-Muslim sentiment did not bring victory to Modi and the BJP this time. The BJP could not even secure a simple majority, let alone two-thirds, in Parliament. For example Uttar Pradesh, one of Modi’s Hindu center base which is considered the heart of the Hindi speaking population, it has a population of over 240 million. It is the most populous state in India. Uttar Pradesh is considered to be the key to decide who will take over power in New Delhi. It is due to the election of eighty members of parliament from that state. Both Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi contested this general election from different constituencies of the state.
Ruled by the BJP since 2017, its chief minister is Yogi Adityanath, an extremist anti-Muslim Hindu cleric. Indian political commentators predict that he will succeed Modi as the leader of the BJP. Yogi Adityanath created a fascist organization called “Hindu Youth Army” to unleash violence against Muslims. After he became Chief Minister he banned all Halal products in Uttar Pradesh. Thousands of houses of Muslim people were destroyed under the pretext of illegal construction.
In the 2019 general elections, the BJP managed to win 62 out of 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh. This time, that number fell to 33, with the BJP and its coalition parties losing nine percent of their votes. Among the constituencies where the BJP lost was Faizabad, home to the Ram temple in Ayodhya, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Modi last January.
What happened in Uttar Pradesh, a hotbed of Modi’s Hindu racism? Minorities including Muslims were determined to put an end to the Hindu racism of the BJP central government as well as that of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Meantime the minority, religious sections as well as the oppressed sections at the bottom of the caste hierarchy became very afraid and uneasy about Modi’s attempt to change the Indian constitution. Dalit’s were the main among these. They were instrumental in defeating Modi’s candidates.
This trend can also be seen in states like Maharashtra and Rajasthan where lower caste groups and religious minorities are prevalent. BJP contested for 28 seats in Maharashtra state but managed to win only nine seats. In Rajasthan, 25 seats were contested and 14 seats were won.
The crisis of not sharing the benefits of the developments in the Indian economy during the last decade among the common people was also demonstrated through the results of this year’s general elections. In Rajasthan and Maharashtra, the rich industrial states west of Mumbai, India’s business capital, Modi suffered a resounding defeat. This time, the Indian Congress, which promised to provide economic benefits to the poor, was able to win more seats. Regardless of the economic numbers, India’s inflation has risen and unemployment has reached record levels. Unemployment, especially among the youth, is turning into a social crisis. Youth unemployment in the first quarter of this year is 17 percent. Unemployment among women is 24 percent. Although the Modi government has implemented a program to provide monthly cash assistance to a selected section of the poor, it has not been a solution to alleviate poverty.
In the 2019 general elections, the alliance that included Rahul Gandhi’s Indian Congress won 80 seats. This time Rahul’s Congress alone has won 99 seats. Their Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (I.N.D.I.A.) has won 234 seats and is only 38 seats short of forming a government. INDIA alliance is a strong opposition in the Lok Sabha this time.
According to the World Press Freedom Index, in 2022, India was ranked 150 out of 180 countries in the world, and in 2023, it has dropped to 161. Reporters without Borders (RSF), which produces the index, says that “violence against journalists, politically biased media, and concentration of media ownership all point to press freedom in the world’s largest democracy,” which has been ruled by BJP leader Prime Minister Narendra Modi since 2014. is in crisis and is the epitome of the Hindu nationalist right”.
Prime Minister Modi has taken the judiciary, the Election Commission, the security forces including the police, and the entire mass media in his political grip. He started this year’s general election campaign by unleashing “tax terrorism” against India’s main opposition, the Indian Congress.
The party’s bank accounts were suspended. A popular tactic of Modi’s anti-Hindu fascism is his use of “tax terrorism” against media outlets, civil organizations, businesses, and political parties. Government tax officials are sent to these institutions and cases are brought against them and weak these institutions.
“Tax terrorism” was launched against the BBC in India after it aired an investigative documentary on the violence committed against Muslims during Modi’s tenure as Gujarat Chief Minister. Hundreds of such examples could be given.
Many candidates, party leaders and activists of the INDIA Alliance who stood against Modi in this election were arrested under absurd charges, including the Chief Minister of Delhi. Modi’s anti-democratic fascist rule had reached the point where many Indians could no longer bear it. Modi responded to the recent anti-government protests by farmers, workers and students through police repression. Apart from official suppression, RSS used fascist thugs to attack peaceful protests.
The INDIA alliance, which included Rahul Gandhi’s Indian Congress, took forward as the main theme of this election the protection of Indian democracy and the secular constitution from Modi’s fascist rule. Rahul Gandhi used to show the people a copy of the Constitution in every election meeting he attended and explained the importance of protecting it and appealed to the people to protect it. It is clear from the poll results that the people of India have given the highest priority to protect the Indian democracy and the secular constitution from Modi’s fascist rule.
To woo its people, Modi pitched the recapture of Kachchathivu Island.
Our foreign news “commentators” predicted that the BJP would establish considerable power in Tamil Nadu. But the BJP could not win even a single seat out of the 23 seats it contested! The people of Tamil Nadu did not swallow the Kachchathivu bait.
People of India are rejecting Narendra Modi’s populist, Hindu extremist, racist, fascist policies as well as him personally. In Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency “Varanasi”, the 479,505 votes he got in 2019 has fallen by 326,992 votes to 152,513 this year.
During his tenure as Chief Minister of Gujarat and during his decade as Prime Minister, Modi followed a dictatorial policy of “I am the King” style. At that time he had unlimited political power and the BJP had a single majority in Parliament.
But Modi does not have such power in Parliament this time. He needs the support of Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party and Janata Dal (United) to form a government. For that, the Telugu Desam Party hopes for five cabinet ministers and the post of speaker.
This alliance politics is foreign to Modi. He can no longer perform “I am the king”. Chandrababu Nayidu is the king maker of India. Both the Telungu Desam Party and the Janata Dal (United) have more important regional priorities than making India a Hindu state.
The opposition was in a weak position. But they went around India and held meetings and informed the people. They communicated their message to the people. Regardless of the power, the only thing that matters in the end is whether it communicated its message to the people properly or not. In the end, the people won. They put an end to Modi’s dream of two-thirds power. They defended India’s democracy and secular constitution. Modi, who was dreaming in the sky, has been brought down to earth.
