Gone are the days when India used to inspire the world, especially the global south, as a moral leader.
Gone are also the days when Indian leaders such as Gandhi and Nehru, two vastly different personalities, one earthly and the other, urbane nurtured the same values, the secular humanist values who used to treat people, all people – Indians and Non-Indians – with respect and empathy.
In recent times, the Cambridge educated Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh who ruled India during 2004-2014 also harbored and pursued the values of humanism and tolerance in the governance of the country and in personal life.
Fast forward. India’s current Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi is an anathema to these values. If anything, Mr. Modi is the opposite of India’s past leaders.
Unlike India’s past leaders who ascended to power by promising wellbeing for all Indians (not always succeeded and not because of lack of intent), Mr. Modi climbed the ladder of power by propagating hatred, the Hindu hegemonic Hindutva ideology and not the Indian constitution mandated inclusive compassion and yet he is by far the most popular leader that India has ever seen.
Mr. Modi first tried his Hindutva ideology – an anti-Muslim manifesto – in Gujarat, his home state. There, in Gujarat he peddled anti-Muslim rhetoric, got himself and his party, BJP elected and became the Chief Minister of the state in 2001.
Then, in 2002 a Hindu/Muslim communal riot broke out in Gujarat that had the appearance of a “genocidal massacre.”
Although there were some Hindu casualties and no proof that these were caused by the Muslims, the riot resulted in the murder of more than two thousand Muslims; hundreds were injured; women raped; and many Muslim properties were burned, and many Muslim businesses destroyed.
At a time when the carnage was raging, Mr. Modi, the Chief Minister, the chief administrator of the Gujarat state purposedly looked the other way. His see nothing, do nothing approach that shed the blood of the Muslims, seemed to have made him an instant hero in Gujarat and later, at the national level.
The Gujarat experiment may have also delivered to Mr. Modi an important political message something that Hitler once nurtured, which is that in democracy which is a number game, nothing works better than hatred especially the kind that mobilizes the majority against the minority, as votes.
Thus Mr. Modi stuck with his sectarian ideology and spread it nationwide and as is evident, it worked. Mr. Modi became the Prime Minister of India in 2014, a position which he occupies till to date.
As Prime Minister, Mr. Modi was expected to represent all India – Hindu, Muslim, Christian etc. but this is not to be. His anti-Muslim hate politics has remained with him and presently, with another general election underway, the hate in the form of election campaign has surfaced all over again and intensified.
A Modi victory is a foregone conclusion. However, Mr. Modi is aiming for something bigger. His target is to win 400 of the 543 parliamentary seats and if he succeeds, it will give Mr. Modi and his party, the BJP, an absolute majority in the parliament which in turn would give him and his government the carte blanche to enact laws particularly those that would broaden and entrench in India, the Hindu hegemony over Muslims and bolster his grip on power.
Either way, a Modi win certainly do not look that great for the Muslims nor for India. There is speculation that the post-election period in India is likely to be plagued by “extremism and violent nationalism” and that “an epidemic of communal violence, hate speech, lynchings, and the systematic persecution of religious minorities” likely to grip the country.
Furthermore, as Modi government is already using “… state institutions to silence dissent, including the jailing”, a Modi victory especially the two/third majority in the Parliament is likely see further curbing of freedom and free speech in the country.
Modi government’s discomfort with free speech is not confined within but has extended beyond. His government dislikes foreign correspondents who “cross the line.” For example, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist, Ms. Avanti Dias who recently made a documentary on Modi government’s human rights violations and went, after protracted delays with the visa, to India in April to cover the general elections. Sadly, Ms. Dias had to leave prematurely because the Indian government “made me feel so uncomfortable…” However, an Indian government spokesperson has denied these allegations.
Lately, Mr. Modi’s strong-arm tactics in silencing critics have also gone offshore where his hitmen hunt down and target the dissidents who live and operate from abroad.
Amid the gloom and doom the bright spot in the Modi rule is the economy. During the Modi period India’s GDP has grown on an average by 7 per cent per annum and in USD terms the economy is now valued at USD 3.6 trillion – the size of the Indian economy has jumped from the eighth largest to the fifth largest economy, globally in little more than a decade. This is impressive.
However, the bad news is that Mr. Modi’s economic policy – patronaged capitalism – that boosted economic growth, has not helped the multitude. The dividends of growth have been spread grossly inequitably.
Mr. Modi’s jobs-for-the-boys economic policy – patronaged capitalism – has made rich richer and poor poorer. For example, one of Mr. Modi’s mates, Mr. Adani, who received generous favours from his government, increased his wealth eight times during the pandemic. Another, Mr. Ambani, who also made his fortune during Mr. Modi’s reign, is at present US$113.0 billion worth whose family home, a 27-story private apartment building named Antila, worth $1 billion has three helipads, a 160-car garage, a private movie theatre, a swimming pool, and a fitness centre, is located near the Dharavi in Mumbai, one of the world’s largest slums, in which 1 million people live in just over 2.39 sq. kms.
Indeed, inequality in India which has deepened during Mr. Modi’s tenure is not just shocking but horrifying. For example, according to the 2022 World Inequality Report, “…. the wealthiest 10 percent own more than 72 percent of the total wealth, the top 5 percent own 62 percent of the total wealth, and the top 1 percent own 40.6 percent of the total wealth in India.”
It is evident that Modi’s “shinning India” is confined to the top 5 percent who own 62 percent of the wealth of India. The bottom is dark.
As a matter of fact, set against the public image of glitzy Bollywood and saffron Sadhus (the compassionate saint), India happens to host world’s largest number of hungry people – 228.9 million of them. The 2023 Global Hunger Index Report, has India ranked 111th among 125 countries, placing India slightly above Afghanistan, the Congo, Yemen, and Sudan. The report further notes that 18.7 percent of India’s infants suffer from “wasting” (low weight for height), the highest in the world, implying that India is an acutely malnourished country.
These evolving contrasting profiles – the gaping poverty and inequality, against the backdrop of concentration and vulgar display of wealth, and on the other, the institutionalized persecution of the minorities, the Muslims and the Dalits and the ever narrowing of space for freedom of speech, against the façade of democracy, – that are outcomes of Mr. Modi’s decades-long hate politics and patronaged capitalism is transforming India, world’s largest democracy into one of the world’s meanest societies. This is sad because the evolving scenario does not bode well for India, a country that aspires to be a world leader, as it is morally challenging for the democratic West that wishes to embrace India as a partner, a country which under Mr. Modi looks more and more like a racist neofascist mean society!
M. Adil Khan is a former senior policy manager of the United Nations and an Academic
