Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s overwhelming victory in India’s elections in May 2019 solidified his grip on power and ensured that he will set the country’s agenda for the foreseeable future. While the vote was technically a victory for his right-wing, nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, Modi turned it into a referendum on himself, becoming the face of nearly every BJP candidate’s local campaign. Modi played up his strongman persona on the campaign trail, particularly with regard to Pakistan, with which India had traded tit-for-tat airstrikes over Kashmir just months before the elections.
After the landslide victory, critics wondered whether Modi would double down on the Hindu nationalism and illiberalism that characterized his first term in office, or rein it in. In the almost two years since then, the answer has clearly been the former. In August 2019, Modi revoked Kashmir’s semiautonomous status and imposed a media and internet blackout on the state. Later that month, the state of Assam published the results of a citizenship census, the National Register of Citizens, that critics claimed was a backhanded effort to strip Muslim migrants from neighboring Bangladesh—and their descendants—of Indian citizenship. In December 2019, the government passed an immigration law that would confer fast-track citizenship on non-Muslim migrants from three neighboring Muslim-majority countries, including Bangladesh, sparking weeks of domestic protests.
Meanwhile, Modi’s administration faces foreign policy challenges besides Pakistan, including regional competition for influence with China. Last year, the two countries engaged in a series of unarmed skirmishes along their disputed border in the Himalayas that culminated in a deadly brawl in June, marking the first casualties suffered there in 45 years. Though they recently reached a resolution to the standoff, the situation remains volatile, in part because of the pressure Modi faces from his nationalist domestic base to stand up to India’s powerful neighbor. In addition, Modi faces the uncertainty created by the presidential transition in Washington. He and Donald Trump established what observers called a political “bromance” following several meetings and a high-profile visit by Trump to India in February 2020. Now, with President Joe Biden making the defense of liberal democratic values a central pillar of his foreign policy agenda, some observers have wondered whether India’s illiberal slide under Modi might make it a less attractive partner in America’s strategic competition with China.
WPR has covered India in detail and continues to examine key questions about what will happen next. Will Modi’s government continue to look the other way on Hindu nationalist violence? Will Modi’s illiberal streak cost him political capital with the Biden administration? How will the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on India’s economy affect Modi’s political prospects? Below are some of the highlights of WPR’s coverage.
This article first appeared on worldpoliticsreview.com