On Sunday, voting ended in India’s seven-phase, six-week-long general election. Exit polls released that evening point uniformly in one direction: a comfortable win for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, and a rout for the Congress Party led by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty scion Rahul Gandhi.
Indian exit polls have been proved wrong before — most spectacularly in predicting a BJP victory in 2004 — but at this point it’s safe to assume that Modi is winning a second term. What will this mean for how the world perceives India, and for US-India relations?
In my most recent Wall Street Journal column — read it here — I argue that, contrary to what Modi’s fervent fans believe, over the past two years the Prime Minister’s decisions have harmed India’s international standing.
Also read: Dear PM Modi, you’re spending too much time on Twitter and have got the media wrong
The Prime Minister’s unwillingness, or inability, to check the rise of figures considered too extreme for high office just a few years ago has inevitably affected how India is perceived in the world. A slew of stories in the international press have raised concerns about Modi’s empowerment of anti-Muslim bigots, including a woman on trial for a bombing that killed six Muslims. A recent cover story in Time asked whether India could endure another five years of Modi’s leadership. The Economist argued that under Modi the BJP poses a threat to Indian democracy.
When Modi first ran for Prime Minister, five years ago, he struck a Thatcherite note by promising “minimum government, maximum governance,” and swearing that “the government has no business to be in business.” But he has governed as a statist, raising tariffs, failing to privatise a single company, and focusing more on devising grand government programmes for the poor than on unleashing market forces to boost growth and create jobs.
In some ways, the world leader Modi resembles most is the Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán. Like Orbán’s Fidesz Party, the BJP gins up hysteria against what it claims is a looming threat from immigrants. BJP president Amit Shah refers to Muslim migrants from Bangladesh as “termites.” Modi’s tenure has also seen the rise of aggressively pro-BJP TV news channels and websites that act as attack dogs for the ruling party. A giant social media operation linked to the ruling party smears government critics and opposition leaders.
Western NGOs have come in for special scrutiny. Those that have had run-ins with the Modi government include Greenpeace, the Ford Foundation and Amnesty International.
Modi’s fans do not appear to see a downside in any of this. In my recent travels in the populous Hindi heartland state of Uttar Pradesh, voters regularly praised the Prime Minister for “making India’s name shine in the world.”
They see United Nations recognition of an “international day of Yoga” (21 June), and widely publicised images of Modi rubbing shoulders with global leaders such as Barack Obama and Xi Jinping as evidence that India has arrived on the world stage. They also praise Modi for airstrikes against alleged terrorist training camps in Pakistan in February.
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The view that Modi has boosted India’s international profile is not entirely without merit. During the first two years of his prime ministership, he fed off the aura created by his historic 2014 election victory, the first time in 30 years any party had won a single-party majority in Parliament, to project himself as a new kind of Indian leader — self-confident and assertive.
As the leader of the world’s fifth largest economy, and second-largest arms importer, Modi obviously commands a certain amount of global influence. As China rises, the importance of India as a potential counterweight has also risen in Washington. By all accounts, Modi has forged close relationships with Japan’s Shinzo Abe and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu.
Nonetheless, the BJP’s lurch toward hardline Hindu nationalism over the past two years carries costs for India. In March 2017, Modi appointed Yogi Adityanath, a Muslim-baiting Hindu cleric who ran a private militia to head Uttar Pradesh. This would be akin to the Republicans picking David Duke to lead California.
A series of mob-lynchings of suspected Muslim cattle traders — Hindus regard the cow as sacred — has stained India’s reputation as a bastion of religious pluralism in a rough part of the world. Apparently loath to alienate part of his base, Modi has failed to condemn these killings forcefully enough. Some of his ministers openly flaunt their sympathy for the alleged lynchers.
For two decades, the promise of the US-India relationship has rested on the twin pillars of shared interests and shared values. Both countries still share the important interest of preventing the rise of China as a hegemon in Asia.
Also read: PM Modi’s silence on Akhlaq murder in 2015 broke his global momentum
But unless Modi can find a way to reverse course and take his party on a more centrist course — an unlikely outcome if he wins big when results are announced this week — it will become harder to argue that the world’s oldest and largest democracies are bound by a common respect for democratic values.
This article was originally published in American Enterprise Institute.
Any proof for you article or it’s just the Modi bias you and the print have in general? Who is worried about western media? Does China have a good name works wide? Economy is all what it matters and Modi is doing fine in that. See the “ease of business doing” index. End of story. Just don’t let your hate toward also hide the facts.
What stood out was naming orgs such as Amnesty!!! & we all know their funding sources, agenda and influenced mindset. If they are truly what they claim to be then why is it that they never cover anything in UK, EU or US where racism, nationalism and agenda driven abuse happens. Writings should be clearly prefaced with disclaimers such as “personal opinion”
There is no text book free market capitalist party in Bharat. So any government in power sticks on to socialism. The difference is so subtle that it doesn’t matter who is in power. The same problems, the same socialist schemes- left right or center.
So many personal opinions, such little facts.
a) What are the costs? Can you quantify them?
b) How are the so called “hardline” decisions of Modi govt hurting India’s global standing? Is that your own best guess, or do you actually have any before/after data to quantify the “hurt” or “reduction” in standing?
c) If Indian media channels can casually be dismissed off as “attack dogs of ruling party”… is it not plausible that international media could also be converted into some other lower species of animal enslaved by the opposition to Modi?
So, besides the carefully selected international articles disparaging India, what have you got?
Dhume and his ilk make money by casting baseless, evidence less aspersions on an elected government IF it is BJP/NDA. This ‘well-known’ journalist – a fan of Sonia Gandhi – is naive enough to think that international media is completely unbiased and incorruptible.
Mr. Dhume, when BJP forms the next government on 23rd, you may have more time at your hands. I sincerely suggest that you practice writing articles, make them deeper, original, evidence based demonstrating your ability to analyse meaningfully, and evaluate without bias. If you cannot, then please quit journalism.
Mr Dhume has to understand that there exists a world outside US as well. I don’t need validation from US on whether or not Modi is good, or whether my democracy is secured, may be Mr Dhume needs but that just shows his lack of self confidence with this constant urge of external validation. As recently as last month, UAE and Russia honored Modi with their highest order awards. UAE honoured PM with its highest decoration, Zayed Medal and Russian honored with it Order of St Andrew the Apostle, the highest order of the Russian Federation. Are these not external countries or just the editors at Time magazine or guardian represents the world views?
We know who butters your toast dear author.
What virulent western media says is of little consequence……they have little standing left in their own countries.
The people who are making record investments in India will continue to do so.
There is no point in writing such article if Modi supporters are not supposed to believe it as Modi haters do anyhow already believe it. When I read such pieces, my understanding about authors with a mask of intellectual become even more firmer that in a democracy, these small number of fake intellectuals want the majority of people to listen to them and dance to their tune. However, in this information age this is not going to happen because people now have access to different point of views i.e. take informed decisions. Even in deep down villages, mobile phones have brought a sort of revolution.