INDIA’S elections for its parliament began on 19 April. India’s elections are widely regarded as the world’s largest democratic exercise. The results, which are expected to confirm Modi’s reign, will be announced on June 4. Narendra Modi, the current Prime Minister, is running for a third term, making the fabric of the world’s greatest democracy appear in contradiction.
The election process is longer than ever, spanning six weeks, which substantially advantages Modi’s party, which has extraordinarily well-stocked campaign coffers filled with oligarchs and accused of abuses of tax and investigative authorities. India navigates a difficult political environment as this is a country that has lived through the long-term effects and vestiges of colonialism.
Corruption has always been a major hindrance to India’s economic, political and social development. Millions of Indians remain locked in a cycle of poverty with inadequate access to education, healthcare or employment possibilities. Furthermore, the prevalence of corruption has a significant impact on India’s economic development with studies suggesting that it costs the nation billions of dollars each year.
According to last year’s World Economic Forum global competitiveness report, corruption is one of the most difficult aspects of conducting business in India, impeding investment, limiting innovation and distorting market dynamics. The BJP regime, which has been in power since 2014, has stirred communal hate to gather popular nationalist and religious extremist votes. The BJP is a political offshoot of the RSS, a right-wing Hindu fundamentalist group which not only advocates racial superiority but regards Nazi Germany as an ideal.
The BJP after coming to power, has started working on RSS’ decades-old agenda; religiously cleansing India only for Hindus, rewriting Indian history through textbooks, even changing centuries-old names of Indian cities only because of Muslim affiliation and ultimately establishing a greater Hindu Rashtra. There has been a great surge in hate crimes against Muslims, other minorities and even lower-caste Hindus with entrenching BJP rule over the last decade.
According to Hindutva Watch, a USA-based research organization, 255 incidents of advocacy of hatred and violence targeting Muslims were recorded in the first six months of 2023. The US State Department in its annual report on religious freedom expressed concerns over “open calls for genocide against Muslims, lynching and other hate-fuelled violence, attacks on places of worship and home demolitions, and in some cases impunity and even clemency for those who have engaged in attacks on religious minorities” in India. The fascist and authoritarian measures have not been limited to religious minorities. After dismantling and crushing India’s secular face through actions like revoking article 370 and 35-A in the disputed Kashmir region. The top opposition party Congress complained that its bank accounts were frozen to sabotage its election campaign and the income tax department issued Congress a fine of Rs 17 billion in a case several years old. On the other hand, newspapers have refused to publish paid advertisements of opposition parties. Modi’s victory in these elections might mean the end of a pluralistic India. The question arises whether the West and the whole world can afford to have a nation of a billion people and nuclear weapons led by a supremacist, hyper-nationalist and fascist right-wing regime in a volatile region like South Asia?
—The writer is contributing columnist, based in Lahore.
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