by Prashant Jha
For the past times 5 years inwards the world’s biggest democracy, i man, i party, in addition to i ideological electrical current have got pretty much cornered all the hawa. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 puffing guardian spirit tangibly energizes Narendra Modi, India’s prime number minister; despite his modest stature, the bearded sixty-seven-year-old tin create total a room amongst a swirling air of placidity operate or, some would say, menace. All across the terra firma hawa tin endure felt ruffling the ubiquitous orangish flags of his Bharatiya Janata, or Indian People’s Party (BJP), in addition to stirring the long-suppressed ambitions of the Sangh Parivar, the “family” of Hindu nationalist groups that is the party’s ideological home.
Modi, his party, in addition to the Sangh have got made remarkable gains since he assumed the BJPleadership inwards 2013. Before his rise, the political party inwards diverse avatars had at times won powerfulness inwards some of India’s thirty-six states in addition to territories. It had fifty-fifty led coalition governments inwards the capital, Delhi. Ideologically the BJP had long been the strongest challenger to the Indian National Congress, the legacy political party of Mahatma Gandhi in addition to Jawaharlal Nehru’s liberty struggle: since earlier independence inwards 1947, the Sangh’s dream of a muscular Hindu rashtra, or nation, has stood inwards contrast to the Congress’s vision of a secular Republic of Republic of India that gains strength from diversity.
Yet earlier Modi was plucked from his post as principal government minister of the province of Gujarat (roughly equivalent to an American governor) in addition to made the party’s candidate for prime number minister, the BJP had seldom excelled exterior the “cow belt,” a socially conservative in addition to largely Hindi-speaking northwestern wedge of the Indian diamond. Other Indians, whether minority Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, or exactly differently observant Hindus, to a greater extent than oft than non shunned the Sangh “family”: they were earnest in addition to devoted, yes, but also frightening; it was an extreme Hindu nationalist, afterward all, who shot Gandhi inwards 1948. The BJP could heighten an occasional clamor, but the actual agenda of Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism—demands such as banning beef, ending the alleged “appeasement” of minorities past times politicians seeking their votes, edifice a temple to the god Ram on the ruins of a mosque at his supposed birthplace, beingness extra-tough on Pakistan, or replacing “Western” modes of thinking in addition to behaving amongst ostensibly “authentic” Indian ones similar Ayurvedic medicine or rather vague notions of “Indian” economics—gained entirely deadening in addition to uneven traction inwards practice.
Modi has changed all that. In 2014 he led the BJP to i of the most dramatic electoral upsets inwards India’s 70 years as a democracy. The political party non entirely captured 282 of the 543 seats inwards the Lok Sabha, or lower theater of parliament—the showtime fourth dimension inwards 30 years that whatsoever political party had won a total bulk without the remove for a coalition. It scored a tape “strike rate,” winning 2 of every iii constituencies its candidates contested. The BJP to a greater extent than than doubled the release of its ain MPs. It humiliated Congress, slashing the outgoing party’s seats past times nearly 4 fifths to a paltry forty-four.
More political triumphs have got followed. Having started amongst exactly 7 inwards Jan 2014, the political party in addition to smaller allies at nowadays command 19 states in addition to territories that together trouble organisation human relationship for nearly 2 thirds of India’s people—a feat non paralleled since Congress’s heyday inwards the 1960s. In March 2017 the BJP captured the biggest prize, Uttar Pradesh, a province amongst 220 i grand one thousand people, winning a stunning iii quarters of all seats inwards the province legislature. In Dec it won an unprecedented 6th term inwards Gujarat, Modi’s domicile state, despite furious efforts past times Congress to rally what has traditionally proven to endure India’s most reliable political force, anti-incumbency. And inwards March the BJPcaptured iii little states inwards the remote, ethnically complex northeast, proving its growing strength beyond the Hindi-speaking heartland.
The province votes send to a greater extent than than local significance. Under India’s singularly elaborate constitution, province legislators concur a crucial trunk of votes inwards indirect elections for members of the Rajya Sabha, the upper theater of the national parliament. This way it is only a affair of time, as to a greater extent than Rajya Sabha members’ six-year price expire at intervals over the coming months in addition to to a greater extent than province elections are held, until the political party gains an outright bulk inwards India’s equivalent of the the States Senate, too. The country’s titular but non altogether toothless president in addition to vice-president are also indirectly elected; when these offices opened upward final summertime the BJP deftly engineered the installation of 2 stalwarts for five-year terms.
Both men arrive at to be, similar Modi himself, one-time pracharaks, or “apostles,” of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the organizational woman parent ship of the Hindu-nationalist family. In other words, India’s iii top-ranking world officials have got all served as unpaid pes soldiers inwards an arrangement that was i time banned for alleged links to tearing extremism. Modi’s selection for principal government minister of Uttar Pradesh is as telling. He is non exactly some other gray, reliable RSS graduate. Yogi Adityanath is a forty-five-year-old Hindu priest in addition to the founder of his ain extreme-right Hindutva youth grouping amongst a penchant for bigoted vigilantism. His most vigorous maiden so far: repainting world buildings, walls, in addition to highway medians inwards bright, pious orange.
The Hindutva agenda is advancing inwards other ways, non as fast as some powerfulness like, but the RSS knows the value of patience. Founded inwards 1925 in addition to at nowadays amongst some 60,000 branches, the brotherhood is non nigh to blow its best remove a chance yet of transforming Republic of Republic of India into the proud Hindu nation that its founding ideologues, who were contemporaries in addition to admirers of European fascism, long dreamed of. The RSS tin run into that BJPgovernments, both local in addition to national, soundless seem upward rigid resistance when they seek such things as imposing stricter bans on beef or “reforming” schoolhouse curricula to downplay India’s millennium of dominion past times Muslim dynasties, so it instead spotlights romantic tales of Hindu resistance in addition to Indian preeminence inwards philosophy, art, in addition to science. The Sangh “family” appreciates Modi’s blend of tactically nimble political instinct amongst strategic commitment to their cause.
While Modi’s benign fatherly ikon has raised honor for the movement at domicile in addition to abroad, his regime has quietly inserted loyalists wherever possible inwards India’s establishment, from the boards of state-owned companies to transcend posts inwards province universities in addition to query institutes. It has also aggressively—and quite effectively—bullied much of India’s mainstream press into toeing the political party line. The Fox News–like stridency of Modi’s media claque does non seem to bother most voters, in addition to many have got also cheered what amounts to a placidity purge of the Congress-era mandarins who have got long occupied the commanding heights inwards world life. Yet fifty-fifty amid those who welcomed the BJP’s 2014 hope to brand Republic of Republic of India “Congress-free,” some have got begun to suspect that squad Modi’s aim may endure non only to overcome but rather to destroy the once-dominant competition party, in addition to non exactly to guide the national agenda but to capture the Indian province in addition to concur it for keeps.
Modi in addition to his men are happy to encourage assumptions that the electrical current political style represents some form of natural in addition to permanent “return” to Hindu roots. Despairing opponents, for their part, tend to consider Modi’s success component division of an as inexorable global moving ridge of strongman populism: from his appeal to voter anger, to his accusations of enemies, to his televisual talent for audio bites in addition to gestures, he much resembles Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, or Rodrigo Duterte. With dreary regularity inwards Delhi as much as inwards London or New York, shoulders shrug in addition to palms spread as it is explained that witless Indian voters have got succumbed to some form of wicked zeitgeist.
Yet as Prashant Jha makes rattling clear inwards his concise in addition to persuasively researched How the BJP Wins, the combination of hawa, personal charisma, in addition to revived Hindu spirit cannot adequately explicate the Modi phenomenon. Jha, a Nepalese reporter who has covered numerous Indian elections for the Hindustan Times, an English-language daily, does non downplay Modi’s wizardry as a politician. Nor does he underestimate the accelerating social churn that has made many Indians, especially the immature in addition to upwardly mobile, impatient for the form of sweeping modify that the BJP promises—shedding shop-worn price similar “secular” in addition to “liberal,” replacing effete cosmopolitans amongst proud Hindus, in addition to tossing out the whole tired Nehru-Gandhi dynasty whose grasp on the rusty old Congress lingers at nowadays into a 4th post-independence generation. (Rahul Gandhi, the electrical current political party head, inherited the post from his mother, Sonia, his father, Rajiv, his grandmother Indira, in addition to his great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru—whose manful someone parent had also twice been Congress political party president.)
Even so, Jha, a precipitous in addition to experienced observer of Indian electoral mechanics, is to a greater extent than disposed to ascribe the BJP’s success to prose than to poetry, to difficult work, non luck. The party’s repeated victories, inwards this telling, are a resultant non of favorable hawa or of Congress fatigue but of discipline, focused leadership, consistent messaging, deep pockets, ruthless tactics, in addition to fancy footwork. By carefully unpacking factors that have got propelled the Modi wave, Jha usefully demystifies its power.
Modi’s fabled charisma, for instance, turns out to endure less a production of visionary statesmanship than of such political advantages as modest origins in addition to a lack of theater unit of measurement encumbrances (he abandoned a showtime married adult woman early on inwards his career in addition to remains unattached in addition to childless), combined amongst an actor’s skills: a command of poise in addition to delivery, a professional person experience for favorable colors in addition to lite in addition to photographic idiot box camera angles, in addition to an powerfulness to sense, embody, in addition to channel an audience’s feelings—particularly resentment. Observing a oral communication of Modi’s inwards final year’s Uttar Pradesh campaign, Jha writes:
He projects himself as the homo fighting the practiced battle, on the side of the people, victimized past times the bad guys. But spell willing to fight, he also positions himself as a leader who tin throw it all away, for he has no vested interests, goose egg to lose. He also acknowledges the pain, but taps into the sense of righteousness, the sense of sacrifice in addition to makes citizens experience they are participants inwards a neat national mission, distinct from the prosaic in addition to the banal.
Last year’s election inwards Uttar Pradesh, a misfortunate in addition to unruly state, came as Indians were struggling to recover from a sudden, controversial displace past times the national regime to scrap all large-denomination banknotes. Modi had billed the drastic policy as difficult medicine to purge the economic scheme of so-called dark coin inwards the hands of criminals in addition to corrupt people, although, given that at that topographic point were non plenty small-denomination notes to supercede high-value ones in addition to the primal depository fiscal establishment could non impress novel bills fast enough, its main outcome was to crush hundreds of millions of hateful solar daytime laborers in addition to little traders in addition to anyone amongst fifty-fifty modest savings inwards cash, which is to say, the poor.
Yet Modi’s powerfulness to tap into shape envy had the magical outcome of displacing whatsoever blame for the hurting that he had so evidently in addition to direct caused. On stage, Jha observes, the prime number government minister gloated over the imagined suffering of the rich. At i rally he jauntily demanded to know, “What tin they do to me? I am a fakir; I volition convey my pocketbook in addition to leave.” He in addition to so laughed in addition to shared his satisfaction that the rich used to say “money, money, money.” “Now, they entirely say Modi, Modi, Modi.” 
Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty Images
Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty Images BJP leader Amit Shah arriving at a press conference at political party headquarters, New Delhi, Dec 2017
His science at stoking resentment is at its most subtle when it comes to chronic tensions betwixt India’s lxxx pct Hindu bulk in addition to xv pct Muslim minority. Lower-ranking political party members may resort to bluntly sectarian linguistic communication or outright lies to stir upward crowds. Jha quotes i political party official admitting that the whole indicate is to unite Hindus past times making them experience similar victims. Another confesses to him, “We desire anti-Muslim polarization. Why pretend otherwise?” Unlike when he was a province official, Modi as prime number government minister no longer stoops to undiluted Islamophobia. But amongst his trademark upheld wagging finger, he is a original of insinuation, amongst much the same effect.
On the stump inwards Uttar Pradesh, Modi pledged that every town amongst a Muslim cemetery should also have got a Hindu crematorium, in addition to every hamlet that got electricity inwards Ramadan must instruct it for Hindu festivals, too. He did non remove to cite whatsoever item places where such conjectural disparities genuinely exist. They rattling probable do not: Muslims inwards the province are to a greater extent than oft than non worse off than Hindus. But the rattling proposition that Muslims powerfulness endure favored savage on Blue Planet fertilized past times generations of Hindutva activists blaming Congress for allegedly “appeasing” the minority amongst sweeteners as component division of its unseemly “vote bank” politics. Congress is hardly lonely amid Indian parties inwards pitching sops to item involvement groups, but constant hammering past times the BJP has succeeded inwards making its competition await specially “soft” on Muslims.
Although many inwards the BJP comport no personal animosity to Muslims, the political party has long found that chauvinism wins to a greater extent than votes than it loses. It is non past times remove a chance that its fortunes have got risen since the 1980s inwards tandem amongst the grade of menace felt from global jihadism in addition to from India’s perpetually hostile in addition to increasingly Islamized vecino Pakistan. In election afterward election, large numbers of Hindus have got indeed responded to alert nigh such things as “love jihad”—an imagined crusade past times Muslim men to seduce Hindu women—by voting for the BJP.
Under Modi the political party has also adopted to a greater extent than sophisticated tactics to appeal to its Hindu vote bank. Given the elaborate social hierarchy that conservative Hinduism enshrines, it is non surprising that the BJP has traditionally been associated amongst higher-ranking castes. Modi has changed that. Not entirely has he fully exploited his ain lower-caste origins to widen the party’s appeal, in addition to fifty-fifty made efforts to woo Dalits—the bottom-rung outcastes who brand upward some 17 pct of India’s population.* As Jha shows, the BJP has also forged powerful constituencies past times skillfully exploiting the usual resentments of rich in addition to misfortunate toward rising middle-class groups.
During the 1980s, Republic of Republic of India widely adopted policies of affirmative activity that inwards many northern states had the outcome of empowering the mid-ranking castes that proved most socially mobile. In the intervening decades, groups traditionally associated amongst proud rural small-holdings, such as the Marathas inwards Maharashtra, the Jats inwards Haryana, in addition to the Yadavs inwards Uttar Pradesh, have got gained outsize political clout inwards province capitals, winning jobs in addition to contracts in addition to influence. Precisely because of this, says Jha,
a arrive at of other castes—both the traditionally powerful in addition to the to a greater extent than marginalized—feel alienated. And thus, the fob is to mobilize these castes in addition to build a coalition against the dominant caste.
In many of the BJP’s most successful campaigns, this politics of intercaste resentment has proved exactly as crucial as the party’s carefully cultivated grudge against “nonindigenous” religious minorities. (Hindutva ideologues brand a pointed distinction betwixt Buddhists, Jains, in addition to Sikhs, who are considered properly Indian, in addition to Muslims in addition to Christians, who are somewhat suspect—regardless of the fact that these large monotheistic faiths reached the subcontinent 1400 in addition to 1900 years ago, respectively.)
The homo oft credited as the brains behind the Modi-era BJP’s electoral technology scientific discipline is Amit Shah, a tough beau Gujarati who outdoes his original inwards Stakhanovite devotion to the cause. According to Jha, the prime number minister’s consigliere began working on final year’s Uttar Pradesh election inwards 2014, amongst a conception to extensively expand the party’s organizational base. Within exactly 4 months, Shah’s recruitment drive, largely run using jail mobile telephone phone message services that also created a useful database for quick mobilization at election time, multiplied political party membership inwards the province past times to a greater extent than than 10 times. Expanded across India, Shah’s registration endeavour presently brought the BJP’s rolls to over 100 i grand one thousand members, making it the world’s biggest political party.
The surge did non exactly hateful to a greater extent than bodies for rallies in addition to door-to-door canvasing. Jha points out 2 of import side effects. The huge novel numbers quietly but radically changed the party’s demographics, tilting its base of operations away from upper castes to reverberate a broader appeal. They also allowed for a stealthy purge of the party’s one-time leaders, who found themselves outflanked past times a novel generation marked to a greater extent than past times loyalty to Modi than past times ideological affinity. Among the party’s old guard, many disdain Modi as a unsafe upstart; L.K. Advani, a one-time political party grandee, i time damned the ambitious Gujarati amongst faint praise as “a brilliant events manager.” But such opinions at nowadays send no weight.
Apart from its huge size, Shah’s organizational genius, in addition to Modi’s drawing power, the daunting political machine that Shah has built enjoys some other asset. Wary of beingness tainted past times extremist tendencies that have got oft surfaced on the fringes of the Sangh, the BJP has traditionally preferred to locomote along the RSS at arm’s length. Not so Modi. Jha informs us that the hereafter prime number minister’s ain personal mentor inwards the Hindutva grouping inwards the 1980s, during his long years as a low-level pracharak inwards Gujarat, was none other than the manful someone parent of the electrical current RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat. Born entirely half dozen days apart inwards September 1950, Modi in addition to the Sangh patriarch have got brought their organizations into a much tighter alliance.
The back upward staff of every major BJP leader, from Amit Shah downward, is made upward of Sangh alumni, says Jha. At Bhagwat’s call, the RSS’s estimated 5 i grand one thousand highly disciplined acolytes tin deploy wherever needed to bolster the BJP’s ain Blue Planet forces. Bhagwat late boasted that he could mobilize his entire next inwards exactly iii days, whereas the Indian regular army would convey half dozen months. Spokesmen rapidly explained that he intended no insult to India’s fighting men, but the remark nevertheless made clear that the RSS sees itself as beingness to a greater extent than truthful to the Indian nation than the province itself.
The BJP’s ain superior dependent acre in addition to tight chain of command may explicate why, inwards recent years, the political party has made surprising gains simply past times catching Congress asleep at the wheel. In the province of Assam the BJP cleverly convinced a talented immature Congress leader to defect, shifting a crucial release of votes. In both Manipur in addition to Goa final twelvemonth the political party genuinely won fewer seats than Congress, but so swiftly wooed coalition partners that it had cobbled together governments in addition to gotten them sworn into component division earlier Congress realized what had happened.
In indirect voting to create total a vacant Rajya Sabha topographic point from the province of Haryana inwards 2016, a dozen Congress members of the province assembly inadvertently betrayed their ain candidate past times using the incorrect pen to grade their ballots. India’s powerful election committee had stipulated the utilisation of purple ink, but plenty Congress votes to plough the resultant were nullified for beingness inwards the incorrect color to allow the BJP’s homo to scamper off amongst the seat. Whether someone had switched the pen inwards the booth or persuaded the Congress deputies to brand a “mistake” has non been established.
Indian republic is non a overnice game. In all the cases exactly cited, coin is probable to have got had a part. Just as India’s first-past-the-post rules hateful that an payoff of exactly a few points inwards voting part may interpret into an outsize gain inwards seats, political funding has a style to slosh disproportionately to the winners, to people who tin “get things done” for donors.
In recent years the BJP has mopped upward an ever-growing part of this pool; the election committee says that lxxx pct of all corporate political funding inwards Gujarat inwards the iii years earlier November’s election went to Modi’s party. As Milan Vaishnav points out inwards When Crime Pays, a thorough, disturbing, in addition to oft amusing scholarly analysis of the seamy side of Indian politics, this imbalance may endure seen as payback. In the 1960s, Congress received as much as 30 times to a greater extent than inwards corporate donations than whatsoever other party.
Such advantages tin endure critical inwards districts where vote-buying is the norm. Vaishnav, who runs the Carnegie Endowment’s Southern Asia program, follows a crusade inwards the province of Andhra Pradesh; a candidate who happens to endure a friend revealed that iii quarters of his budget was earmarked for buying votes. In recent reporting from northeast India, where iii little states voted this winter, Jha discovered that virtually all votes inwards Nagaland are paid for, sometimes several times over as voters convey handouts from all in addition to sundry. Not surprisingly the BJP in addition to its allies handily captured Nagaland, as good as the 2 other states inwards play.
This is an expensive business. Vaishnav cites i study that puts the overall toll of India’s 2014 national election at $5 billion, inwards the same ballpark as the $6.5 billion that the US—a terra firma whose gross domestic product is almost 10 times greater than India’s—spent on presidential in addition to congressional elections inwards 2016. His candidate friend personally shelled out around $2 i grand one thousand inwards a race for the Andhra Pradesh province assembly. That is to a greater extent than than 30 times the legal limit, yet Vaishnav was laughingly told that other candidates spent far more. In some states, inducements are paid inwards form rather than cash. Kitchen appliances are the favored payoff inwards the southern province of Tamil Nadu. Election officials inwards Gujarat, an officially dry out state, seized 500,000 bottles of liquor during its 2012 province elections—most of this presumably intended as sweeteners for voters.
Small wonder that a rattling large proportion of candidates, for the BJP as good as other parties, tend to endure either scions of political dynasties, rattling wealthy, or criminals. Of the BJP’s 285 incoming members of parliament inwards 2014, Vaishnav observes, a 3rd had been charged inwards ongoing criminal cases in addition to a 5th were facing prosecution for jailable offenses, upward to in addition to including rape in addition to murder. More shockingly, a ten-year database of province in addition to national elections compiled past times Vaishnav showed that candidates amongst criminal cases were iii times to a greater extent than probable to win than others. This suggests that they are to a greater extent than skilled either at buying or intimidating voters or at persuading them that they are improve placed to “get things done” than law-abiding rivals.
Why displace into politics? It appears to endure a audio investment. Despite India’s relative economical liberalization since the suffocating, regulation-heavy “License Raj” of the post-independence period, the crankiness of its bureaucracy in addition to the trickiness of its laws soundless offering immense chance for agents, such as politicians, who tin steer clients toward security or profit. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 2013 study cited past times Vaishnav shows that the declared wealth of sitting legislators afterward a unmarried term inwards component division rose past times an average of 222 percent.
Modi himself has maintained an unusually gear upward clean tape and, at to the lowest degree for its showtime few years, his management has been relatively gratuitous of the odors that clung to the final Congress coalition. At a lower level, however, at that topographic point is petty divergence betwixt the 2 parties on this score. Tellingly, they late collaborated to insert an unobtrusive clause inwards the latest annual budget that has the outcome of absolving both from whatsoever prior violations of rules restricting unusual political donations. Having promised to gear upward clean upward the system, Modi’s regime has also pushed through crusade finance “reforms” that genuinely arrive easier for Indian donors to rest anonymous.
Until rattling recently, Delhi pundits were virtually unanimous inwards tipping Modi as a shoo-in to win the adjacent national elections, scheduled for the jump of 2019. Given all his party’s strengths in addition to the weakness of Congress, many predicted that the BJP would i time again secure a total bulk on its own. This would locomote along Modi inwards power, in addition to probable controlling both houses of parliament, through 2024.
But Indian politics are unusually volatile in addition to fickle. As to a greater extent than stories of corruption have got inevitably begun to stick in addition to loudly touted policies have got mired inwards Indian realities, the hawa seems to endure like shooting fish in a barrel dying down. Congress remains a weak in addition to wobbly opponent, but it is gathering strength in addition to operate as Modi’s many critics start to run into India’s grand old political party as the entirely strength capable of stopping the BJP juggernaut. The smart coin is soundless on Modi, but recent trends propose that he would endure wise to telephone band an early on election, or he may run into himself returned to powerfulness amongst a reduced majority, dependent on coalition allies. That powerfulness at to the lowest degree fold his style.
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