PM Modi was given a rude shock by the Indian electorate when it cut him, the BJP, his divisive, racist, communal, majoritarian policies, and his RSS-inspired, Hindutva-based politics to size. Far from acquiring the wherewithal to amend the Indian Constitution (400 plus seats in the Lok Sabha), the BJP (240 seats) will now need the crutches of coalition partners to govern. This will clearly restrict his flamboyance, elan, panache, freedom and independence in policy formulation and decision-making, limit his authoritarianism, and circumscribe the sheer audacity with which he has thus far ruled India. PM Modi followed the well-established principle of “divide and rule” to the hilt. He divided Indian society on religious and communal lines remorselessly and then exploited these contrived divisions to his and his party’s political benefit. He even fabricated external threats from Pakistan through dangerous albeit futile false flag operations. Pakistan-PAF’s “Swift Retort” in February 2019 put paid to all such ambitions, once and for all!
PM Modi’s and BJP’s success or lack of it in the 2024 elections is a direct function of his domestic policies of the past decade, which reeked of outright bias, discrimination, selective patronage, blatant racism, casteism, and Muslim bashing. The Indian electorate has now seen through this abominable, multidimensional charade that he and his party had woven and prescribed limits to his contentious policies. A check, in the form of coalition partners, has now been voted into power. It reflects the wisdom, sagacity, and political maturity of the Indian electorate and the inherent strength of Indian democracy. The Indian electorate has decisively opted for the united, secular India as visualized by its founding fathers!
PM Modi is in his third term in office and ordinarily should be looking at the sort of legacy he would leave behind. He could continue with his current policies and go down in history as a rather divisive leader whose politics was solely defined by the imperatives of RSS/Hindutva, or he could make a massive paradigm shift and try to emerge as a visionary statesman of international caliber and stature. Both avatars are, however, mutually exclusive!
In the first instance, he may continue to live trapped in the time warp of eons ago, persist with rewriting history (changing names of towns and cities, the Babri Masjid-Ram Mandir saga, etc.) to suit the RSS/BJP’s version of it. Such an inward-looking policy will confine his political vision, influence, and reach to Hindu India only. The Indian Muslims and those in IIOJ&KR suffer relentlessly because of PM Modi’s incomprehensible, insatiable drive to somehow make them (and Pakistan) pay penance and atone for the atrocities supposedly perpetrated by their ancestors on the Hindus of those bygone eras. (PM Netanyahu is on a similar compulsive ego-driven genocidal drive in Gaza!)
Furthermore, PM Modi could continue his contentious policy to create the Hindu Rashtra that Hindutva ordains and he yearns for. It plays on the communal, religious, sectarian, social, territorial, linguistic, financial, and political differences that define Indian society. He has skillfully exploited these multifaceted dissimilarities in all his electoral campaigns, not surprisingly with very limited success this time. Hindu Rashtra seeks Hindu supremacy, the imposition of Hindutva to the exclusion and/or total subjugation of all other religions, communities, and peoples. It is the antithesis of secularism and democracy. He has pitilessly demonized all minorities, the hapless Indian Muslims and the Muslims in IIOJ&KR in particular, and projected himself as the only savior and protector of the Hindu people, culture, and faith. However, PM Modi is still expected to seek innovative ways and means to achieve that elusive “desired end state of a Hindu Rashtra” ostensibly ordained to him by divine edicts, injunctions, and destiny!
Simultaneously, he is likely to pursue his obsession with the ever-elusive Akhand Bharat/Great India – stretching from Afghanistan to Myanmar and every country in between and on the periphery – with renewed vigor. Clearly, this reflects his inherent megalomania and hubris, the contradictions and confusions in his mind, and his political thought processes. A Hindu Rashtra and Akhand Bharat not only contradict one another but are impossible to achieve in this modern world, where many countries (say Pakistan) are autonomous, fiercely independent, formidable military-nuclear-missile powers! Does he really believe that all these countries that comprise “his” Akhand Bharat will willingly acquiesce to his utopian, grandiose designs or that he can actually “conquer” them or make them submit meekly to his will and diktat? Akhand Bharat is nothing but a fantastic pipedream in a make-believe world; unrealistic, unachievable, unrealisable! His policies are anything but conducive to a united India or a progressive, mutually supporting, interconnected, and economically interdependent region.
Furthermore, his animosity, his rage, and the vengeance he seeks for all the presumed sins and crimes of omission and commission by invaders of yore against Hindus are extremely selective and opportunistic in nature. It appears directed at “Muslim invaders from the North” only and not against the plethora of “Christian invaders” from Europe who ravished, ravaged, and raped the Indian subcontinent ruthlessly. Curiously, his animosity towards Muslims also suddenly vanishes when he deals with the oil-rich Gulf Arab states (the exploits of Mohammad bin Qasim notwithstanding!). Thus, these dichotomies, paradoxes, this lack of clarity in his mind, and his religion-based approach to foreign relations, especially within the South Asian context, reduce his stature as a leader manifold. In order to be remembered as a leader of consequence, he might want to grow out of his compulsive Muslim (and Pakistan) hating and baiting politics and phobias, grow up politically to seek and meet bigger challenges that beset his country, the region, and the world at large. Is he really up to it?
(To be continued)
Imran Malik
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army. He can be reached at im.k846@gmail.com and tweets @K846Im.