Narendra Modi is the strong favorite to win a third term as India’s prime minister when elections begin this week. Modi and his allies have prepared a new round of repressive policies to consolidate their Hindu chauvinist project after the vote.
By ACHIN VANAIK
Over the last ten years, governmental power and command over material resources have further extended Hindutva’s ideological appeal and its organizational implantation in Indian society. In this year’s election, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Narendra Modi does not merely want to secure a majority of seats as before or return to power with its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners. It wants to elect 370 or more MPs, giving the party a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha (LS) after the elections.
This outcome is highly improbable but not impossible. The recently formed Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc includes the Indian National Congress, the mainstream left parties, and many regional parties that saw their electoral bases in national and state elections eaten away by the BJP when they previously formed alliances with it.
However, these parties have no common vision or agreed, meaningful program. Hostility to the BJP is the main glue holding them together and almost all of them, including the Congress but with the exception of the Left, have a soft Hindutva posture. Moreover, in some states there are unresolved clashes over seat distribution between the major non-BJP contending parties.
This story was originally published in jacobin.com. Read the full story here.