Riding the Elephant

Amit Shah pushes the Hinduvta agenda too far for many people

Modi wants to transform society – and has widespread support

Narendra Modi is facing the first major test of his political leadership, and of his image of apparent invincibility, since he became India’s Bharatiya Janata Party prime minister in 2014.

His authority is still intact but, largely because of the provocative actions of his henchman, home minister Amit Shah, he is being challenged by the biggest and longest-running country-wide protests for decades.

Demonstrations dominated by the young claim that the two Hindu Nationalist politicians have gone too far with their basically anti-Muslim drive since winning an overwhelming general election victory eight months ago. At the same time, Modi has failed to manage the economy effectively and create jobs.

The main target is an amendment to India’s citizenship laws launched in early December that discriminates against Muslims by favouring Hindus and other religions, plus an associated National Register of Citizens (NRC) promoted by Shah that could create social havoc as the minorities, the poor, and others without family documents struggle with corrupt officials to prove their rights.

Some states have refused to implement the citizenship legislation (though they may be constitutionally bound to do so), and there are rumblings of discontent among the BJP’s allies. The legislation is now being challenged in the Supreme Court.

There is a sense of a pending crisis in the country because of widespread concern and speculation about how far – and how forcefully – the Modi-Shah duo intend to go with their aim of creating a Hindu Rashtra (polity), and for how long they are prepared to be tolerant of dissent and protests.

Some critics suggest that, like populist leaders elsewhere, they welcome protests – or the prospect of them – because they can respond with repressive measures.

In Kashmir, when they cancelled the special status of the Muslim-dominated state in a constitutional coup on August 5, they imposed an unprecedented massive security shutdown with curfews, blocked internet and mobile telephones, and detention of political activists.

Internet and social media are still partially blocked, despite international protests and criticism by India’s supreme court, and leading mainstream politicians remain under a form of house arrest after almost six months.

Significantly however, the change in Kashmir’s status, and the security action, has had widespread support across India, as did an earlier cancellation of the Muslim triple talaq method of instant divorce.

The citizenship legislation however went too far for large swathes of public opinion, Hindu as well as Muslim,  mainly because of the prospect of the NRC. There was extensive violence, burning of vehicles and attacks on shops that provoked tough repressive action. In Uttar Pradesh, where an extreme Hindu priest is the chief minister, there was extensive and brutal police repression, with reports of young protestors being assaulted by vigilante groups.

There are also reports of detention centres being built to accommodate those (Muslims) who fail the citizenship test, and the chief of army staff has talked publicly about de-radicalisation centres to deal with radicalised Kashmiri youth (later explained as “army goodwill schools” to avoid radicalisation) .

It is easy, as some critics have done, to relate this to China’s re-education camps that are used to stifle protests by a million Uighurs in the western province of Xinjiang, and it is equally easy to dismiss such a comparison as extreme for a democracy such as India.

Observers wonder however how far in this direction India will have moved by the time of the next general election in 2024, when Modi and Shah will want to inspire their party cadres and win votes. In last year’s elections, concern about the worsening economy was eclipsed by Modi campaigning on national security and on tough action against terror attacks emanating from Pakistan.

One contact in Mumbai even talks about the risk of “SRCC” – Strikes, Riots, Civil Commotion – being generated in order to justify clampdowns. Such extreme ideas raise memories of the two-year State of Emergency declared in 1975 by India Gandhi, then the Congress prime minister.

Modi restructuring society

Sources both within and outside the BJP suggest that Modi believes India needs an overhaul of how society works in order to meet his ambition of building a strong, successful and self-confident nation.

This would galvanise the 80% of Indians who are Hindus with a sense of nationalism, reducing the power of traditional elites (typified by the Congress Party and its Gandhi dynasty), strengthening the potential for the poor with a sense of empowerment, simplifying and improving the way that government works and impinges on people’s daily lives, and gaining respect abroad.

Shah (below) however, whose political role has escalated in recent months, seems to have little interest beyond establishing Hindu rule at the expense of minorities. There is considerable speculation about whether he and Modi are fully united and are playing a modified version of good-cop-bad cop, or whether Shah is going further than Modi would wish. What is clear is that Shah has none of Modi’s vote-pulling charisma as a populist leader.

The constructive aspect of Modi’s ambitions is rarely taken into account internationally by liberal opinion which is appalled by the seemingly anti-Muslim policies and does not appreciate that Modi is tapping into both a growing sense of national pride among aspirational youth, and a latent but easily aroused aversion to Muslims among a significant number of Hindus.

S. Jaishankar, the former top diplomat who is now the external affairs minister, has talked in Washington about a “new India” that his foreign audiences had been reluctant to recognise. “This new India is a different being, one that lives in second tier cities, and speaks and feels differently,” he said, referring without being specific to the base of Hindu nationalism.

It remains to be seen how sensitive Modi is to international criticism because he wants India to carve out its own form of society that does not conform to the west’s liberal norms.

His aim is to show off India as a successful economically strong and internationally important country, first in 2022 when it hosts the G20 conference, and then maybe the Commonwealth biennial summit in 2024 just before the general election.

Perhaps more ominously though, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the extreme umbrella organisation to which the BJP belongs, celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2025, which will require more Hindu nationalist-oriented achievements.

The immediate focus is how Modi and Shah handle the citizenship legislation, which Shah says will go ahead.

Then there is the bigger question about the National Register of Citizens that Shah originally said would be in place by 2024. It is currently not clear how far he will push this, but Swapan Dasgupta, an MP and prominent Modi-supporting columnist, indicates that it might not go ahead for some time.

“The architecture of any proposed register is not yet clear,” he says. “It has to be designed and there needs to be a wider understanding in society about what to do with those who are declared illegal”.

That indicates the need for a national debate on the issue, but neither Modi nor Shah have shown any interest in public debate, or tolerance of criticism which is usually rejected as being “anti national” or “pro Pakistan”. This makes people extremely cautious about what they say, even in private, for fear that someone will report back to Modi or Shah.

There is also deep dissatisfaction about the government’s focus on religion-based divisive policies while failing to arrest a decline in economic growth, which has fallen to an 11-year low of 4.5-5%, and a failure to generate jobs promised by Modi.

Prospects of a good rabi (spring) harvest indicate the decline in growth might have bottomed out and Modi is expected to spring some surprises via his unimpressive finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman’s annual Budget speech on February 1.

BJP would not win a majority today

This is reducing support for the government. An opinion survey published in this weekend’s edition of India Today found that, if there were a general election now, the BJP’s seats in the Lok Sabha would fall from the 303 won in last year’s general elections to 271, one seat short of a simple majority. But Modi’s personal rating has only dropped slightly  by 3% to 68%.

The February 1 Budget is one of three significant dates for Modi. The second, on February 8, is the election for Delhi’s assembly, which will test the BJP’s popularity and could lead to victory for the local-based Aam Aadmi Party.

Later in February, the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of the citizenship legislation.

It is tempting to wonder whether it would suit Modi, if not Shah, for the court to rule against it, or at least demand some changes. That would be one way of curbing the current protests, giving Modi and Shah time to reassess what to do next.

Kashmir 370 does not work as a BJP rallying cry

Congress recovers in Haryana and ally improves in Maharashtra 

India’s democracy is often criticised for being corrupt and unrepresentative, but it has proved again this week that it works with voters reacting against a dominant power that is not delivering what they need.

This has happened in the important Haryana and Maharashtra state assembly elections where Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party juggernaut, fuelled by exaggerated fears of war with Pakistan and by anti-Muslim policies, has been disrupted because of voter dissatisfaction over a lack of jobs, the plight of poor farmers, inadequate infrastructure and other regional issues.

Votes counted yesterday (Oc 24) shows that the Congress Party, which has been in decline since its heavy defeat in May’s general election, has done far better than expected in Haryana, while its ally, the regional Nationalist Congress Party, has gained significantly in Maharashtra.

NDTV/24×7 graphic when the trends were clear, awaiting the final figures

The BJP has lost its overall majority in Haryana, having won 40 seats in the 90-seat assembly, seven less than in the last assembly elections five years ago. Congress has won 31, up 16. The recently created Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), which is linked to the Chautalas, a leading Haryana political dynasty, holds the balance of power with ten seats along with nine others. [Oct 27: The JJP joined up in a coalition with the BJP, giving it a majority – independents will also support it.]

The results are a serious blow to Modi and his party president, Amit Shah, the home minister, because the elections have been the first test of the BJP’s hardline Hindu nationalist policies since the party’s overwhelming general election victory in May. As opposition politicians have been saying since the results emerged , it has been shown that Modi and Shah are not invincible.

The setback comes a day after heavy criticism in the US Congress over the government’s controversial removal of the state of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status under article 370 of the constitution. The criticism focuses on the continued security clampdown in the state with internet access suppressed, and politicians under house arrest for well over two months.

Campaigning in both Haryana and Maharashtra, Modi focussed almost exclusively on the removal of 370, claiming this would increase the country’s security and make it stronger against Pakistan.

Muslim discrimination

He and Shah also trumpeted their Citizenship Bill and National Register of Citizens (NRC) that discriminate against Muslims when assessing potentially illegal immigrants.

They hoped that this would deflect voters’ attention from their failure to tackle India’s worsening economic problems with GDP growth down to 5%, rising unemployment and a lack of fresh investment.

There appears to be widespread support in India for the Kashmir initiative, but this was not an effective campaign issue. Modi and Shah will now have to rethink their strategy before state assembly elections in Delhi next February, where the BJP are determined to reverse their defeat by the regional Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in 2015.

It had been widely expected that the BJP would improve its position this week in Maharashtra and Haryana, and this was supported by most exit polls published on October 21 evening when voting ended.

While it has lost its sole power in Haryana, it remains the government in Maharashtra in coalition with the state-based Shiv Sena Party, though with only 104 seats in the 288-seat assembly, 18 fewer than in the last election.

The regional NCP is increasing its tally by 13 to 54, a higher total than Congress’s 42, even though the BJP persuaded some NCP leaders to defect, and government investigation agencies launched high profile corruption charges against Praful Patel, one of its top leaders.

Congress could have won Haryana

Congress has lacked effective leadership nationally since Rahul Gandhi resigned as the party president after the general election. He was eventfully succeeded, supposedly on a temporary basis, by his mother Sonia Gandhi, but neither of them made many appearances during the election.

Rival Congress political factions have emerged in various states, including Haryana where Sonia Gandhi changed the leadership, replacing a Rahul Gandhi nominee with someone close to her.

As a result, the Congress lost a major opportunity to defeat the BJP in Haryana. More effective leadership (probably not by Rahul Gandhi) over the past five months could have led to an outright Congress victory there and could have also won more seats in Maharashtra.

The results do not mean that Congress has recovered from its downward slide nationally. It did well at the end of last year, defeating the BJP in state elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, but then did badly in those states in May’s general election.

Nor does not mean that there is a significant swing against Modi and the BJP nationally. Voters make different choices in national and local elections, but this has been a warning that the government needs to get the economy and job creation moving, which it has so far failed to do.

Explains the rationale for ending Kashmir’s special status

Gives a finely tuned BJP politician’s account of events

India has conducted an unprecedented diplomatic campaign in America over the past ten days to try to win international understanding and support for its controversial announcement on August 5 that it is cancelling Jammu & Kashmir’s special status and imposing a state-wide security clampdown (that is now being eased).

Following prime minister Narendra Modi’s mega rally with president Donald Trump in Houston on September 22 and his speeches at United Nations meetings, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the foreign minister, has had an astonishingly large number of public appearances with virtually all the top foreign affairs think tanks, plus other audiences, in New York and Washington.

Formerly a top diplomat who retired as foreign secretary in January 2018, he has been spelling out how an increasingly strong and confident India is adopting its own style of foreign policy – and how the much criticised Kashmir move fits in with India’s continuing development because it was an attempt to solve a 65-year old problem.

Jaishankar’s foreign policy statements emphasised India’s “multi-alignment”, which meant “you keep your relationships well-oiled with all the major power centres”. The country “which does that best actually has political positioning in the world which may be superior to its actual structural strengths,” he said at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York (above).

Thatmay not please Trump or China’s Xi Jinping – Trump wants exclusivity and Xi does not want India getting close to the US – but it is a notable updating of India’s Cold War policy of non-alignment.

“World affairs will see a proliferation of ‘frenemies’. They will emerge in both categories: allies who publicly turn on each other, or competitors who are compelled to make common cause on issues,” he told the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. “The game has now become one of positioning and optimizing”.

The remarks put the Trump-Modi Houston extravaganza in a non-aligned perspective, especially because, just three weeks after that event, Modi will be feting Xi – surely India’s leading “frenemy” – in the Tamil Nadu temple town of Mamallapuram on October 12-13.

Jaishankar confirmed while he was in America that India is buying a large-scale S400 missile defence system from Russia, despite strong objections from the US. He said he hoped to persuade the US not to retaliate and impose sanctions on India.

Sovereign rights

“We have always maintained that what we buy — the sourcing of military equipment — is very much a sovereign right,” Jaishankar told reporters just before he met Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “We would not like any state to tell us what to buy or not to buy from Russia, any more than we would like any state to tell us to buy or not buy from America”.

Jaishankar was not shy of going public with his think tank events – at least one of the host organisers was asked to turn what was to have been a background session into a filmed on-the-record open occasion. (Several of the events are available on YouTube, and some on the organisations’ websites). The Times of India has reported that Jaishankar’s other engagements included, nearly 100 diplomatic meetings.

Modi brought Jaishankar back from retirement to perform this role, spelling out India’s emerging foreign policy with jargon-free analysis while also explaining – extolling – Modi’s domestic policies and achievements.

Jaishankar set the tone for talking about the controversial cancelling of J&K’s article 370 semi-autonomous status when he said: “What we have presumed to be intractable challenges will have to be addressed, not ducked”.

“You had a state which was socially increasingly less aligned with the rest of the country….pretty much every progressive legislation in the country over the past twenty years did not get to be enacted and applied in Kashmir. And all of this really contributed to our political security challenge” he said at the CSIS.

J&K had not had the rest of India’s “economic activity and economic energy” which meant “less job opportunities, more sense of alienation, a sense of separatism, and therefore a climate for terrorism from across the border”, was how he put it at the CFR. It did not have India’s “progressive legislation” such as rights to work, education, and information, nor laws on domestic violence, juvenile-protection, representation of women, equal property and between men and women.

S.Jaishankar being sworn in as a minister in the Modi government

This “allowed really sort of a narrow elite to arbitrage this 370, to monopolize political power, to create a sort of a closed-loop politics” with a “vested interest in keeping alive separatist sentiment”.

Ignoring the primary fact that ending the special status fits the BJP’s over-riding aim to end Muslims’ special privileges, Jaishankar said  “Our expectation today is….that we will be able to push investments, economic activities, into Kashmir, that we will be able to frankly change the economic landscape, change the social landscape”.

Jaishankar put an even more optimistic spin on the heavy security clampdown with mass house-arrests and restrictions on communications that has horrified international opinion.

“Our challenge today is ….to ensure that this works on the ground” and  to “manage this transition situation without loss of life” by restricting “gathering of people and communication”. He justified the closing down of internet and social media because in the past they had been “used to radicalize and to mobilize”.

Amit Shah in West Bengal on the National Register of Citizens earlier this year

India needed that message to be spelt out because there is growing international concern about the restrictions on freedom of movement and communications.

Frank Wisner, a former US ambassador to India and long-time advocate for the country, reflected this when he closed the CFR session:

“Well, I think you’ve sensed, since you’ve been here, a very high degree of concern…..The responsibility lies with India to achieve the goals that you’ve set out tonight. And we all wish Kashmiris well and you well in re-finding stability in that state, building a different future”.

Jaishankar had even managed to deflect a question about “the erosion of the constitutional commitment to a secular state and the rise of a very politicized Hindu nationalism”, which is central to the BJP ethos.

“I don’t accept that secularism is under threat….secularism was not promoted by a law or by a constitutional belief,” he said.

“It was promoted by the ethos of the society [which] was not secular. No law, no constitutional provision, would have ensured it. And I don’t think the ethos of the society has changed. I think the ethos of India and the Hindu ethos of India is actually very secular. It’s very pluralistic”. What had changed was that economic power had moved from urban centres to Hindi-speaking rural areas.

With that last answer, Jaishankar’s presentations lost some of their overall credibility.

He had delivered an expert view on India’s foreign policy stance and a rational analysis of the Kashmir policy, but he took no account of the fact that Amit Shah, the home minister, BJP president and Modi’s closest ally, is certainly not behaving as though the Hindu ethos is very secular and pluralistic.

Currently Shah is stirring up emotions against Muslims with a Citizenship Bill and National Register of Citizens (NRC) that treats Muslims differently from other suspected illegal immigrants.

Jaishankar was demonstrating that he has moved on from being a respected foreign affairs expert and has become, as a member of the BJP government, a full time politician.