India will have a general election next year. Though most expect Modi to win because of his vast popularity – in particular among the Hindu majority who make up 80% of the population – it is still a critical moment for the government. On Tuesday, more than a dozen officers from the government’s tax department office raided the offices of the BBC in Mumbai and New Delhi, describing it as a “survey” of operations. Phones and laptops were taken and the offices were sealed as part of a tax evasion investigation, which many viewed as retaliatory action. T his ideal of a pluralist, secular India is popular not only among its religious minorities. A 2021 study conducted by the Pew Research Center found that by a wide margin, Indians of all faiths consider religious tolerance an essential part of what it means to be “truly Indian.” This civic value is as old as the country itself: Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, rejected any concept of the nation as Hinduism’s answer to Pakistan. His India would not be “formally entitled to any religion as a nation,” he said, but a place where all faiths could coexist and be celebrated equally.

Modi’s India is an exhaustive account of contemporary Indian politics, which impressively draws on numerous sources and examines a range of issues . . . . this work emerges as an important contribution to the study of the future of democracy in India and beyond."—Pratim Ghosal, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics The screening was set for Wednesday night. That morning, Nivedya said, university staff chased her around campus and confiscated her phone. In the afternoon, she and three other students were taken away by police.Modi emphasised his government's efforts at sanitation as a means of ensuring good health. [321] On 2 October 2014, Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Mission ("Clean India") campaign. The campaign's stated goals included the elimination of open defecation and manual scavenging within five years. [327] [328] As part of the programme, the Indian government began constructing millions of toilets in rural areas and encouraging people to use them. [329] [330] [331] The government also announced plans to build new sewage treatment plants, [332] and planned to construct 60million toilets by 2019. The construction projects faced allegations of corruption and severe difficulty in getting people to use the newly constructed toilets. [328] [329] [330] Sanitation cover in India increased from 38.7% in October 2014 to 84.1% in May 2018 but use of the new sanitary facilities was lower than the government's targets. [333] In 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated at least 180,000 diarrhoeal deaths in rural India were averted after the launch of the sanitation effort. [334]

The BJP won 31 percent of the vote, [38] and more-than-doubled its number of seats in the Lok Sabha to 282, becoming the first party to win a majority of seats on its own since 1984. [210] [211] Voter dissatisfaction with the Congress and with regional parties in North India, and support from the RSS were reasons for the BJP's success. [211] [207] In states such as Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP performed well, it drew exceptionally high support from upper-caste Hindus, and its Muslim vote increased to 10 percent. The BJP performed particularly well in parts of the country that had recently experienced violence between Hindus and Muslims. [211] The magnitude of the BJP's victory led many commentators to say the election constituted a political realignment away from progressive parties towards the right-wing. [39] [185] [211] [216] [217] Modi's tweet announcing his victory was described as being emblematic of the political realignment away from a secular, socialist state towards capitalism and Hindu cultural nationalism. [218] We aim to ensure that the children of poor parents become doctors and engineers even if they are not educated in English …” Modi said on Wednesday in Gujarat while speaking about India’s New Education Policy, announced in 2020. Punjab, Delhi, Bihar, Maharashtra, Goa and West Bengal have thus far proven somewhat recalcitrant and occasionally rebellious, for a variety of reasons that are regionally specific, and because of local parties, caste alliances and grassroots leaders who challenge the BJP. But even in these States, the presence of an opposition no longer proves that public opinion is against Modi or that the default political common sense is secular. Nor should the south be taken for granted any more. As Jaffrelot shows in his oeuvre, studying Hindutva ideology over the past century, from Savarkar and Golwalkar, to Advani and Vajpayee, before arriving at Modi and Shah, allows us to retrospectively register the early tremors of the political earthquake we are now experiencing. Abroad, countries like Israel, Turkey, Hungary and Brazil provide a global context for the rise of ethnic democracy.BJP announces Shri Narendra Modi as its Prime Ministerial candidate for Loksabha Elections. Bharatiya Janata Party on YouTube, 13 September 2013 As menacing as the persecution of religious minorities has become, for most Indians, emigrating is not an option. Only about 5 percent of citizens have a passport, and those who leave the country tend to be among the wealthiest. “If we decide to abandon the ship, what will happen to people who do not have the resources to go out? That is a very big concern,” Akif told me. As the last of his siblings still living in India, he can’t bring himself to leave his parents behind. Jaffrelot concludes these signs are ominous for India’s democracy—let alone the political opposition’s general weakness. The evidence he has amassed in Modi’s India is persuasive. However, BJP supporters will likely dismiss it by pointing to the adulation that greets Modi overseas, the pride he has restored among Indian citizens, and the prosperity that is just around the corner. Without sustained economic slowdown or social unrest in India, Modi will remain on a roll.