Splintering the Grand Fallacy around India’s Mandate in 2024

The BJP retaining 242 seats after a decade in power is unprecedented in modern Indian politics, unfortunately, its brashness and austerity in the run up to the election has undermined the stellar feat the world’s largest political party has achieved.

Modi might not be invincible but he is enduring: Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives at the national headquarters of the Bharatiya Janata Party in New Delhi after the declaration of 2024 General Elections results

After a month and a half long election, the largest ever in history with 969 million eligible voters, the world’s largest democracy decided to continue with “Modi” – the name that has defined Indian politics for a decade – but with a modest message.

Anyone moderately aware of electoral politics in India can vouch that it is a prolific process through and through. The prodigious diversity of the world’s most populous nation and largest democracy, embed in it a tremendously fierce political dynamic. Politics is competitive, however, none as much as Indian politics, where the manifold identities of the populace call for a greatly miscellaneous political representation. Hence, Indian politics is flooded with regional political parties that enable inimitable dynamics at various levels of the nation’s federal structure. Post independence, the Indian National Congress, under the leadership of Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first Prime Minister, dominated the country as its pluralistic polity emerged. Nevertheless, since Mr. Nehru’s demise, it got gradually challenging for the Congress to maintain the extent of its prowess. By the end of the 20th century, India had entered into the “coalition era” as no single political party seemed to possess the faculty to achieve an outright majority in the Parliament or the Sansad.That changed in 2014 – with the onset of the – “Modi Lehar” or the “Modi Wave” that swept the Bharatiya Janata Party with an explicit mandate.

Knowing Narendra Modi in the context of Indian politics:

Narendra Modi, the 14th Prime Minister of India, and the longest serving non-congress Prime Minister, was at the heart of the 2024 general election. In understanding the Indian Prime Minister’s rise to fame lies the ability to grasp what transpired on June 4. For its remarkable assortment of people, Independent India’s political history has been blemished by dynastic politics. At the forefront of this degenerate system has been the Indian National Congress, the principal opposition to Prime Minister Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and India’s oldest political party. Since independence, the Congress has been under the sway of Mr. Nehru’s successive generations. While Mr. Nehru was Prime Minister for 17 years, his daughter Indira Gandhi was cumulatively Prime Minister for almost 16 years, next only to her father. Indira Gandhi was succeeded by her son Rajiv, a pilot with no experience in government, who was anointed Prime Minister and served for five years following the assassination of his mother in 1984. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991 and his widow, Sonia Gandhi, originally Antonio Maino, of Italian origin, thereafter, served as the President of the party that once championed India’s cause of Independence under the leadership of greats such as Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Sonia Gandhi, the longest serving Congress President, resigned in 2022, under colossal pressure from rebelling leaders and the faltering performance of the party. Sonia was replaced by Mallikarjun Kharge, a confidant of her family, in a quasi election. Sonia’s son Rahul Gandhi, also known as “Pappu” or “silly” in Indian political vernacular due to his often misplaced and zany remarks, has been the “face” of the Congress and the chief challenger to Prime Minister Modi. Most Indians would agree that Rahul instead of being the chief challenger has in fact been the chief enabler of Prime Minister Modi.

In India, political nepotism is characterised by a family exercising uncontested control of a party, rendering the party in absolute submission to a particular family. While the Gandhis of the Congress are the only pan nation dynasty, the Thackerays of Shiv Sena and Pawars of Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra, Banerjees of Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, Yadavs of the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, Patnaiks of the Biju Janata Dal in Orissa, Sorens of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in Jharkhand, Yadavs of Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar, Abdullahs of National Conference and Muftis of J&K People’s Democratic Party in Kashmir, Reddys of YSR Congress Party in Andhra Pradesh, and the Karunanidhi Dynasty of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu are all families with absolute ascendancy in their respective regional political parties. The snowballing of dynastic politics across India through decades inculcated a bitter resentment against regional parties and the Congress, which came to be pervaded with corruption and extortion following the myriad eye watering scandals during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime from 2004 – 2014. The UPA regime came to be known as “the lost decade” as Coal, 2G, Chopper, Tata Truck, Common Wealth Games, Adarsh, and Satyam scams led to a net loss of 12 trillion rupees as per the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. The alliance that comprised the UPA, largely perceived as a combination of family-run parties, was veritably devoid of popular support and faced skyrocketing anti-incumbency in the run-up to the 2014 general election. The people sought an alternative, and in Mr. Modi, they found a striking antithesis to the many dynasties of the UPA parties.

Of the family, by the family, for the family: Opposition leaders (from left to Right) RJD’s Lalu Prasad Yadav, head of the Yadav clan of Bihar, Congress leader, Rahul Gandhi, scion of the Gandhi dynasty, NCP’s Sharad Pawar, head of the Pawar clan of Maharashtra, and Shiv Sena UBT’s Uddhav Thackeray, son of Balasaheb Thackeray at a INDIA alliance meeting in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

Narendra Damodardas Modi is the first Prime Minister born in independent India. He was born in Vadnagar, Gujarat, today one of India’s most affluent states, largely credited to Mr. Modi’s leadership as Chief Minister of the state before moving to Delhi. Mr. Modi was a tea-seller and assisted his father in selling tea at the Vadnagar railway station. Although, this was an infrequent activity undertaken by Mr. Modi, nevertheless, “the son of a tea seller” became the foundation of the Modi saga in 2014, and people rallied around Mr. Modi’s humble origins. Mr. Modi was introduced to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh at the age of 8, the RSS which is the genesis of the Bharatiya Janata Party, played a pivotal role in Mr. Modi’s upbringing and laying his convictions. In 1978, Mr. Modi received a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in political science from the School of Open Learning at the Delhi University. In 1983, he received a Master of Arts (MA) degree in political science from Gujarat University, graduating with a first class as an external distance learning student. Mr. Modi’s opponents have frequently contested the authenticity of his educational qualifications, however, no veracity has been identified in their suspicions.

India’s first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru is also its longest serving one. Mr. Modi’s sway in contemporary Indian politics, his charisma and popularity are often contrasted with those of India’s first premier. Some call the Indian Prime Minister, the most notable figure in India’s independent history next only to Nehru. But the Prime Minister disagrees although he has not commented on his stature in independent India’s making publicly, nonetheless, in a closed-door meeting with newly elected BJP legislators of Rajasthan, the Prime Minister is quoted to have said – “I am the longest administrator in Independent India’s history. I have already served twenty three years in leading an administration and that is more than Jawahar Lal Nehru”. The twenty-three years refer to the combination of the thirteen that Mr. Modi served as Chief Minister of Gujarat, followed by a decade of his premiership until he secured an unprecedented third term in 2024. The Prime Minister might never be able to match Mr. Nehru’s seventeen years in office, but that does not stop him from conceiving a bigger role and greater significance for himself in India’s history since 1947. After a decade of Mr. Modi at the global stage it is preposterous to suggest that the Indian premier is not pompous. In fact, despite his stellar track record in governance, it was his overbearing pomp, one that was brashly manifested by “Modi Ki Guarantee” like slogans in the 2024 election, that cost him and his party dearly. Howbeit, it is true that Mr. Modi is the only Prime Minister to have also served as a Chief Minister. When he assumed the most imperative office of the land in 2014, he already had a decade-plus of experience and equal accolades in governance and administration that neither Nehru nor any other Indian Prime Minister had possessed before. Hence, Mr. Modi’s accomplishments as Prime Minister are built upon his experience as Chief Minister and leading government in Gujarat from 2001 to 2014. In fact, Mr. Modi was seated in New Delhi by the Indian people in hopes of reproducing his performance as Chief Minister in Gandhinagar throughout India. Today, leading political analysts further deduce that the Prime Minister’s decade in power and the astronomical achievements on multiple fronts are not only reflective of his previous tenures as Chief Minister but also his two decades of service in the BJP organisation that familiarised him with the length and breadth of India, its multitudes of concerns and struggles, and its breathtaking diversity in almost everything

The Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi

Mr. Modi was a RSS man, before being involved in the BJP organisation. He worked in the BJP organisation for over two decades as a pracharak or a campaigner. The life of an RSS or BJP pracharak is one of austerity and modesty. They travel around the nation, meeting local party organisation members, dining and staying at their residences, learning of local issues and work of the party to apprise the central leadership of the ground situation and reaffirm the guidance of the central leadership to the party’s local cadre. Mr. Modi, as Prime Minister, boasts the work he did in the party organisation. He claims to have visited and stayed with locals in each of India’s 806 districts, most of these visits, as per the Prime Minister, were undertaken during his tenure in the BJP organisation. The BJP, under Mr. Modi, is not only the world’s largest political party but also a behemoth electoral machine with impeccable organisational capacity. The Prime Minister’s leadership style, which emerges from his organisational experience, has transformed the BJP into a highly competent and efficient political party with paramount discipline, brisk coordination and to-the-point execution. Hence, the BJP under Mr. Modi has demonstrated tremendous success in driving the Prime Minister’s message home. Alternatively, the Congress, whose current leadership, the fourth generation of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, grew up in isolation from India itself. Other opposition parties too struggle to maintain decorum in their party rank and files with each leader propagating her/his own beliefs and ideas surpassing the party vision, manifesto and ideologue. The bewilderedness and commotion that often seems to cloud Indian opposition parties severely desecrates their public perception and undermines the confidence in them to substitute Mr. Modi’s regime.

A blend of Mr. Modi’s popularity and soaring indignation under the UPA regime cruised the Bharatiya Janata Party to an absolute majority in the 2014 general elections. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 336 seats, while the BJP alone secured 282, making the election to be first since 1984, where a single party secured majority in the Lok Sabha – the lower house of the Indian Parliament. The then Chief Minister Modi’s campaign had hit the ground running in the 2014 elections. Phrases such as “Acche din aayenge” meaning “good days will come” were popularised by Mr. Modi. To state the obvious, in the aftermath of his astounding win in the 2014 elections, expectations were running high on the newly sworn Prime Minister. Seldom would an Indian voter have that level of confidence in a Prime Minister. A decade later, the strain of maintaining this level of confidence in the Prime Minister, supplemented by his overconfidence in himself, constitutes the challenge faced by the BJP today. To say the least, Mr. Modi is a master at sensationalising his audience, that is to say, his words and presence inspire tremendous confidence. Perhaps to an extent that is simply infeasible to maintain in any polity, especially one of India’s size. The Prime Minister’s overstretched eloquence does dilute appreciation of his accomplishments, which too are of an inordinate scale.

Measuring Modi by what he did in a decade:

India’s poverty headcount ratio declined steeply under Prime Minister Modi from 29.17% in 2013-14 to 11.28% in 2022-23. A record 28.4 crore Indians overcame multidimensional poverty in a decade of the Modi government. This is an exceptional feat as poverty is the most lingering issue of independent India’s history. Indian bonds were recently included in the J.P. Morgan Index, as credence of the world’s fifth largest economy echoes around the world, the same J.P. Morgan had included India in its “fragile 5 economies” categories during the tenure of the UPA. Recently, India overtook China to be the leading emerging economy in the world’s biggest investable stock benchmark. The Modi government made a comprehensive infrastructure overhaul its top priority and capex expenditure has swelled in the last decade. Since 2014, there has been a 500% increase in the road transport and highway budget allocation. Moreover, the National Highway (NH) network has expanded by 60% from 91,287 km in 2014 to 1,46,145 km by the year 2023. The government has made an equally prodigious attempt to transform rural infrastructure. India has witnessed significant progress in rural road infrastructure, with an impressive 3.74 lakh km of roads constructed since 2014 under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). This achievement has resulted in over 99% of rural habitations being connected. If you ask any Indian, whether pro-Modi or against, the status of India’s infrastructure rollout in the past decade, they are highly likely to extol “Gadkari” – Nitin Jairam Gadkari, a BJP stalwart, and the Roads, Highways and Transport Minister of India throughout Mr. Modi’s premiership.

In the last decade, India’s border infrastructure, motivated by an increasingly hostile relationship with China, has gone through an outright metamorphosis. A.K. Anthony, then Defense Minister under the UPA, once remarked in the Parliament – “The best Defense is no Defense” – he suggested in 2013 that it is best to leave India’s border regions with China undeveloped to mellow out the Chinese in case of an incursion. Prime Minister Modi reversed the UPA’s approach, instead of perceiving it to be the best for the last Indian village on the border with China to be left undeveloped, he called for that same village to be recognised as the first village into India. Since 2014, the Modi government has increased the BRO’s (Border Roads Organisation) budget from Rs 3,782 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 14,387 crore in 2023-24. This is almost a four fold increase in allocations. Other major projects in the border region include monumental tunnels and towering bridges in the most remote and virtually untouched regions of the country.

(Left) The World’s Highest Railway Bridge, The Chenab Bridge, in Jammu & Kashmir. (Right) The Mumbai Trans Harbour Link, also known as Atal Setu, in Mumbai

Apart from roads and highways, India has doubled its number of airports in the last ten years from 74 to 149. The “hawai chapal” is a term for an Indian layman’s slippers, and “hawai” – also means – in the air, ergo, the Prime Minister at the best of his adroitness hailed his aspiration to ensure that Indians wearing the hawai chappal get to ride conveniently in the hawai jahaz or an airplane. He is not falling short of his promise as first-time flyers are ensuing a cutthroat dynamic of a spiralling Indian aviation industry. Consequently, India’s IndiGo airlines placed the largest order ever in aviation history of a record 500 A320neo aircrafts from Airbus at an estimated value of $55 billion in June 2023. Moreover, the second largest order of aircrafts in aviation world history, next to IndiGo, is also by the Indian airline, Air India. The company placed an order of 470 jetliners including 250 planes from Airbus and 220 from Boeing with options of buying 70 more from the US plane maker. Aviation is an impeccable illustration of Prime Minister Modi promising big and delivering even bigger – a rarity in politics.

India’s maritime infrastructure has also witnessed remarkable growth, the cargo handling capacity of Indian ports has surged by an impressive 87.6%, rising from 1,399.99 MTPA in 2013-14 to 2,627 MTPA in 2022-23. Through its focus on infrastructure development, the Modi government has laid a strong foundation for India’s economic trajectory

Other milestones achieved in infrastructure development under the Modi government include the inauguration of the world’s longest highway tunnel, the Atal Tunnel, and the construction of the world’s highest railway bridge, the Chenab Bridge. Asia’s longest tunnel, the Zojila Tunnel, has been inaugurated to provide all-weather connectivity in the Ladakh region in Northern India. The Prime Minister does like to include symbolism in his development spree. The world’s largest statue is the Statue of Unity, dedicated to Congress leader and India’s first Home Minister, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, inaugurated in the Prime Minister’s home state, Gujarat. The BJP has long eulogised Congress leaders of the independence struggle that have been “conveniently forgotten” by the Gandhi family to artificially highlight their dynasty in Independent Indian history. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, in whose memory the world’s largest statue was built, is credited with establishing the critical agreements of integrating the hundreds of Indian princely states with the Union of India in the immediate aftermath of the nation’s Independence. Indian opposition, including the Congress, vehemently berated the Prime Minister was incurring a heavy cost for developing the Statue of Unity. They argued the funds could have been of better service if invested in hospitals and universities. Today, the Statue of Unity has enabled a thriving tourist ecosystem in Gujarat and the BJP rebukes the opposition’s arguments by indicating the revenue generated through tourism-related activities.

Nevertheless, even if we pick the opposition’s call for investments in hospitals and universities, the juxtaposing of their record with Prime Minister Modi’s government will only bring them sheer ignominy. Before the Modi era, there existed only 7 All India Institution of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in the country, today the number has reached 23 of the highly prestigious Indian medical institutions. Similarly, prior to the Modi era there existed only 387 medical colleges in the country, today that number has shot up to 706. The number of public universities has increased from 316, prior to 2014, to 480 in the present date. The number of technical universities has increased from 90 in 2014 to 188 in 2024. Overall, the number of colleges in the country has gone up from 38000 to 53000, however, the standard of education remains a major concern. Under Mr. Modi’s leadership, India has added 7 of the globally renowned Indian Institution of Technology (IIT), 16 of the Indian Institution of Information Technology (IIIT) and 7 of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM).

There is no denying the fact that in a country the size of India, at the pinnacle of its demographic dividend, 65% of the population is under the age of 35, no government can ever really do enough in education. The Modi government’s track record in education is mediocre at best. In its 2014 manifesto, the Bharatiya Janata Party stated, “investment in education yields the best dividend”, and promised to raise public spending on education to 6% of the gross domestic product. Today, slandering the Modi government’s record, that figure hovers around a meagre 3%. After the NDA was also delivered a pinch of humility along with the mandate to govern in the 2024 general elections, the Modi government has sought to address pervading concerns around education, employment and skill development. Although, the efficacy of these initiatives announced by the government remains to be seen. The initiatives include the setting up of Vidhya Samiksha Kendra or VSKs, aimed at monitoring student and teacher attendance in schools across the country. The goal is to have a VSK centre in every state linked to the national VSK within the first 100 days of the Prime Minister’s third term, with digital availability of parameters such as student and teachers’ attendance on a real-time basis across all states on a GIS dashboard. Other measures include internship programmes for students at the 500 largest corporations and skill development initiatives for 20 lakh youth in the next 5 years. Monitoring and basing policy decision-making in education on real-time data was a real requirement that the government has finally sought to fulfil in its third term – a welcome step.

Investors and businesses in India long complained about the country’s convoluted and highly bureaucratic tax system. The Modi government has strived to streamline taxation to facilitate ease of doing business. In the Modi government’s first five years, India jumped from 142nd rank in 2014 to 69th rank in 2019 in the Doing Business Report published by the World Bank for assessing the convenience of doing business in a country. Prime Minister Modi adopted the motto “One Nation, One Market, One Tax” as he rolled out the Goods and Services Tax that sought to streamline indirect taxation in the country. The implementation of GST was no small feat. It required the collaboration of the Central government and the 29 states to create a dual GST model. Despite suspicion around its successful execution, the tax base more than doubled in 2017, with revenues witnessing substantial growth over the years. GST laid the foundation for a seamless national market, reshaping India’s tax landscape and driving economic growth. By digitalising processes from registration to return filing, the GST portal ensured smoother compliance for businesses, fostering a tech-enabled environment. Moreover, it paved the way for other significant indirect tax reforms, including e-way bills and einvoicing, promoting transparent data sharing between businesses and the government. GST’s impact on the manufacturing sector was remarkable, as it eliminated the cascading effect of taxes and reduced manufacturing costs.

Manufacturing growth has been another issue of precedence for the Modi government. Prime Minister Modi raised the slogan “Make in India” in the form of a flagship government program that sought to revive and revitalise domestic manufacturing. However, this endeavour has been a particular struggle for the government. The ‘Make-in-India’ initiative was launched in 2014, aiming to increase the share of manufacturing in the economy to 25% and create 100 million jobs by 2020. However, this target has been delayed three times and now has been shifted to 2025. As geopolitical stifles became increasingly evident and the “China +1” notion matures, it is imperative for India, as an alternative to China, to up its game in manufacturing. There already are positive signs of what is to come. Leveraging its robust electronics industry, India now produces one out of seven apple iPhones, and the figures are only expected to grow. The Modi government has also launched production-linked incentives (PLIs) schemes to attract foreign investment in critical and emerging technologies such as semiconductors. Companies such as Qualcomm and Micron have already used the scheme to set up manufacturing of the highly tangled industry in India.

Just prior to the 2024 general election, the Modi Government enacted laws to modernise India’s current legal system and overhaul the criminal justice system. The bills were crafted to abolish and replace a trio of criminal laws. The Indian Penal Code and the Indian Evidence Act are antiquated colonial-era laws, while the Code of Criminal Procedure is half a century old. The development was in lieu of shoddy police investigations that often result in catastrophic miscarriages of justice; jails overflowing with undertrials and the slow-moving courts that are clogged with some 50 million cases. India has long remained desperate for these reforms. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS), the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanita, 2023 (BNSS), and the Bharatiya Sakshya Bill, 2023 (BSB), replace the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IC), the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC, and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (IA), respectively. Experts continue to scrutinise the reforms and their inability to address the institutional bottlenecks in the system, nevertheless, the efficiency of the Indian legal system is set to augment. And the government must seek to build further upon them in its third term.

Nothing could be a more cogent argument for the Modi Government’s accomplishments than the marvellous digital public infrastructure that it has created. India has digitalised the identities of its billion and a half citizens. No country in the world comes close to the stupendous feat. India’s Aadhaar, a biometrically secured national identification system, has allowed millions to participate in the country’s economic life. In 2009, India had no nationally recognised form of identification. Indians carried separate ID cards relating to various government programs/functions—taxes, subsidised food, cooking gas, water—but none served as an all-purpose identification throughout the country. And often what ID systems did exist were so systemically tainted that half of the names on the rolls were fakes, while the neediest, the very people social programs were designed to help, were excluded because they couldn’t pay the required bribes. Today, more than 1.2 billion Indians have what Paul Romer, a Nobel laureate and former World Bank chief economist, has described as “the most sophisticated ID program in the world.” The program, called Aadhaar, provides each individual with a biometrically secured, 12-digit identification number. Aadhaar represents a remarkable feat of policy, design, technology, and real-world implementation. Narendra Modi has brought e-governance to life like no other leader in history.

Today, when I press a button from Delhi thousands of crores of rupees are instantly transferred to the bank accounts of the beneficiary, eradicating any scope of corruption”. The Prime Minister very compendiously puts the profound digital revolution that his government has enabled for 1.5 billion Indians and the multifaceted effects of it. Thanks to the blotted legacy of ubiquitous corruption that Prime Minister Modi’s predecessors created and were ousted from office for; corruption was a burning question that had the Modi Government’s immediate attention. This is not to say that corruption has disappeared but India does not have billion-dollar scams a month in and out now. Corruption has virtually dissipated in routine government procedures and public programs due to widespread use of digital transactions, via the United Payments Interface (UPI) system, that took off after the demonetisation of 2016 enacted by the Modi Government. “Black Money”—in cash—was the term deemed to be the fulcrum of all things government, economics, commerce, industry, market and life in India. Therefore, the Prime Minister charged right at the root—cash—and out of the blue on 8th November 2016, the Prime Minister, through a televised address announced that Rs 1000 and Rs 500

P. Chidambaram, India’s former finance minister in the UPA regime, a senior congress leader, and an esteemed economic pundit, supposed by some, lambasted the Modi Government in 2017. He questioned “If someone buys
potatoes for Rs 7 and 50 paisa from a poor lady, a street vendor, how do you pay her? Does she have a phone or internet for UPI? Does she have a POS machine for credit card transactions? What kind of a false picture you are presenting”— Mr. Chidambaram did chuckle a lot that day in the Parliament. And it was not his fault, like any ordinary Indian, it seemed inconceivable 7 years ago that we’d soon enter an era, where 1.5 billion of us would make instant payments by just a tap on the phone. The very street vendor lady that Mr. Chidambaram gave an example of, today, there are hundreds of thousands of such women all across India who are more proficient than anyone else in using UPI. Today, India’s share of digital transactions not only triumphs over that of the USA, China and Europe but also beats the combined figure of digital payments made by the three of them. Prime Minister Narendra Modi often says that his predecessors carried such a pessimistic, despairing and often disparaging narrative of the country with such great insouciance that they simply forgot how to think big. For one thing, Narendra Modi has definitely reminded India, once described as the golden bird in civilisational history, how to think big and win even bigger.

Coming to the internet itself, India is the second largest data consumer in the world, next to China. Indians are anticipated to consume the most data in the world by 2028, an estimated 62GB per user per month, ahead of countries such as China, USA and South Korea. Some of the world’s most affordable data rates, smartphones and faster penetration of 5G networks will keep Indian nationals online. India is already the second biggest market for 5G subscribers in the world, while China continues to be the largest.

On 23 August this year, India will celebrate its maiden National Space Day, marking the first anniversary of the successful landing of the Chandrayaan 3 mission on the Moon’s South Pole. India became only the fourth country to successfully land on the Moon and the first to do so at its South Pole. Previously, India also holds the record of being the first country to successfully place a probe in Mars’s Orbit in the first attempt – the Mangalyaan Mission. Moreover, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), renowned for its stunning successes in space exploration with frugality, intends the Gaganyaan mission in 2025. The Gaganyaan project envisages a demonstration of human spaceflight capability by launching a crew of 3 members to an orbit of 400 km for a 3-day mission and bringing them back safely to earth, by landing in Indian sea waters. Days back, the Union Cabinet approved four projects at a cost of an estimated $3 billion for ISRO. These include the Chandrayaan 4 mission, which is also intended to return back to Earth with lunar samples, and India’s first probe to the planet Venus. India also intends to launch the Bharatiya Antariksha Station, an Indian International Space Station, by 2035 as part of the sanctions made by the Cabinet. The peerless successes in space exploration are all due to ISRO’s fabled scientists. However, the Prime Minister leaves no stone unturned in publicly manifesting the illimitable delight that every Indian should rightly harbour towards the aweinspiring works of its ingenious scientists. ISRO delivers dazzling success, the Prime Minister makes it a celebration for 1.5 billion citizens, who beam with pride and confidence in their country and prospects. Consequently, scientists and other nation-builders rightly receive the esteem in society that they more than deserve.

The Ram Mandir has been the cynosure of religious tensions in India and as per the investigations of the Archaeological Survey of India there existed a temple predating the mosque built during the Mughal era at the same site. Hence, the irrefutable conclusion drawn by researchers and excavators was that the invading forces did indeed obliterate a temple and build a mosque over it during the reign of Babur. Additionally, the temple destroyed to build the mosque hundreds of years back was not just another one of the hundreds of thousands of temples in India. It is believed, historically, to be the birth place of Lord Ram, who is the epicentre of Hindu faith. Was it really his birth place? I cannot answer but is it believed by more than a billion Indians to be his birth place – yes. It was Congress leader and former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, who ordered the gates of the mosque to be first opened in his tenure and a makeshift temple established there to let Hindus exercise their faith. After decades of perhaps the largest legal affray of independent India’s history, it was the Supreme Court of India that warranted the construction of the Ram Mandir in a landmark judgement in 2019. The court also provided land in the same region for a mosque to be built. Imagine a temple existing at the site of the Kaaba in Mecca – that is what the Babri Masjid standing in Ayodhya meant for the Hindus in India. Faith, beliefs and tradition are convoluted territories to navigate through, where only perspective-taking can aid to the comprehensive understanding of the situation. Today, land prices near the temple have mushroomed indefinitely with major hotel chains and other corporate groups entering the once small town, and a giant of Indian history, with significant investments. Ayodhya has an airport and the tourism ecosystem of posterity in the region is set to alleviate the socioeconomic lives of millions in city and surrounding regions substantially.

The ongoing slaughtering of Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh is a stark reminder of minorities’ persecution in India’s neighbouring countries, and the CAA is a necessity as a humanitarian law to give citizenship to those persecuted based on their religious or ethnic identities. India is a country that was partitioned based on religion, which is the root of minority persecution in its neighbouring countries today. Hence, even from a religious point view, critics conveniently forget that the problem the CAA seeks to address is based on an event that itself was human history’s largest religious divide ever and is a principal component of colonial legacy.

The farmer protests were indubitably hijacked by a certain lobby as reports indicate menacing attempts to incite violence and dissipate genuine concerns of Indian agrarian society to stem chaos and instability near the national capital. And, of course, for political imperatives of certain political outfits. The majority of Indians, 54.6%, practice agriculture, while the sector contribution to GDP lingers around 18%-19%. This is a problem and a result of the failure of the existing system – change is needed. The three farm laws were not pulled out of thin air. They were part of the BJP’s manifesto that handed it a crushing majority in 2019. People voted for the BJP in anticipation of the laws. As widespread protests were propped up, with people being paid to protest as per empiric evidences, the government even offered to withhold the law’s implementation for a year and engage in rigorous discussions. However, all such proposals were explicitly denied by the protest hijackers. The question needs to be asked if the paramount concern and motive of the protestors were to seek the best policy for the farmers then why did they refuse to talk with the government? Do they not believe policy change is required? And if so are they content with the existing state of our agrarian society?

Yet, the Modi Government must take cognisance of its policies and intentions being sabotaged by misinformation and hersey to the loss of India’s farmers.

Nothing in Indian society would be greater infamy than the existence of concepts such as Triple Talaq, wherein a Muslim man was able to divorce his wife by simply uttering the word “Talaq” thrice, for more than six decades, until its abolition by the Modi Government in 2019. This single act is more than the cumulative efforts by all previous governments towards Muslim or minority empowerment, especially that of Muslim women, in India.

As far as concerns pertinent to democratic backsliding in India go, there couldn’t be a better antithesis to that suggestion than the outcome of the 2024 general election itself. The controversies around these issues are deliberately pulled out of the blue and the vexation surrounding them is nothing but a giant colossus with clay feet. Eventually, there are only two things Indians love – cricket and politics. One can witness this simply for themselves by going on a short stroll in any Indian city, town or village – at time of an election or not – to witness the political and electoral enthusiasm that is ubiquitous in the country.

In democracies, which are well known for their multitudes of entanglements, maintaining the people’s mandate requires consistent and arduous effort by the government and entire the ruling party. No where is this more true than in India, which is after all the largest democracy of the world. In 2014, for the first time since 1984, India gave an outright majority to the Bharatiya Janata Party and Narendra Modi. In 2019, the BJP alone got 303 seats, bettering its previous 282, and comfortably beyond the 272 mark required for majority. Neither in UPA 1 (2004-09) or the UPA 2 (2009-14) did the Congress alone possess the majority. In sooth, the grand old party, the Congress, won only 145 seats in 2004, while the BJP bagged 138, and in 2009 the Congress again failed to secure majority by getting only 206 seats. The Congress has never been able to produce absolute majority since 1984 and ruled from 2004 to 2014 at the beck and call of its coalition partners. Contrast that with the BJP, which after a decade of rule with majority, 2014-2024, has lost the majority in the 2024 general election. Howbeit, it still won 240 seats, meaning that the BJP’s worst performance is still almost 40 more seats that the Congress’s best in the UPA era. Even in 2024, after a decade in opposition, the Congress, under Rahul Gandhi, failed to cross the 100 mark in the Parliament.

It is worth considering that the opposition for the first time in 2024 united to take on the BJP. The Indian National Democratic Inclusive Alliance or the INDIA alliance comprising of the Congress and its allies was successful in consolidating all non-BJP votes under one umbrella. It adopted the acronym INDIA, and shunned the infamous ‘UPA’. Similar to the INDIA alliance, a pre-poll alliance, is the National Democratic Alliance or the NDA of the BJP and its= allies, another pre-poll alliance, that secured 293 seats in the Lok Sabha. Hence, to suggest that the BJP underwent a blunder in 2024 is utterly bogus and non-sensical.

The Indian opposition, especially the Congress, needs a reality check and that is the fact of them failing to unseat Narendra Modi and the BJP from power in the world’s largest democracy even after a decade long rule. The united opposition parties, neglecting all curses that still exist among them but have gone silent to “stop the BJP”, were unsuccessful in their bid to defeat the BJP. The many differences existing within the INDIA alliance parties begs a new predicament for the Congress – can it ensure the INDIA alliance’s survival until 2029 to face-off Narendra Modi and the BJP, again?

Certainly, if the Congress and the Opposition do not undergo the aforementioned reality check then their prospects are doomed. Meanwhile, it is true that the JD(U), an ally part of the BJP in the NDA, has a history of shifting loyalties. Whilst the Telugu Desam Party or the TDP, the most crucial ally of the BJP, has a record of sustaining alliances. Regardless, unlike the Congress, the BJP’s highly efficient organisation has already made headway with its allies and they are here to stay.

The real concerns for the Modi 3.0 are – their preposterous pomp and lack of appropriate reception of the curtailed mandate in the 2024 elections, unemployment, an inept education sector, sluggish manufacturing, crime against women, corruption and social harmony that is periled by misinformation.