A majority of the 800 million Indian citizens registered to vote had fully cast their ballots by Friday — they elected, by a landslide, Narendra Modi, formerly chief minister of the state of Gujarat, as their country’s next prime minister.
Modi is known to India-watchers as a divisive figure with a troubling sectarian agenda, who early in his career had given incendiary speeches that turned Hindus against Muslims. And not surprisingly, communal hatred and dreadful race riots flourished under his watch.
What propelled Indians to choose such a man to lead them? Sometimes you are driven, in pursuit of an answer, to ask first: Is India a fantasyland? What holds a land of such dazzling contradictions together?
Consider this: India is often described as the largest democracy in the world, yet it still has a caste system that impedes, if not altogether blocks, class mobility. A decade ago, it was seen as a nation that throbbed with economic vitality, well on its way to becoming a “superpower,” yet it is today identified with some of the most wretched poverty on earth. It projects itself as a harmonious composite of many ethnicities, languages and cultures — mind-boggling in their diversity — yet its ruling elite often turns a blind eye to the pogroms directed at minorities.
India nevertheless has miraculously held together, ruled by the Congress Party, which was established in 1885 by Indian nationalists whose goal was greater involvement in the government. In time, under the guidance of Mahatma Gandhi, it morphed into a popular liberation movement that sought an end to the British imperial rule in the subcontinent. Alas, since independence, India’s politicians have shown themselves to be not only venal and inept, at dealing with the country’s woes, but brazenly corrupt as well. In a way, the business of politics in India has become the business of corruption, as political leaders in the Congress Party concerned themselves with the privileges of office than with addressing the country’s teeming problems. According to the Economist, politicians and officials reportedly have taken bribes worth between $4 billion and $12 billion during Congress’s tenure.
The Indian journalist, Gita Mehta, bemused at the unabashed pursuit of self-interest by her country’s politicians, wrote recently: “Rather than undertake the duties of their office, our leaders have too often settled for redefining the privileges of office, making political corruption so endemic that winning an election in India today is tantamount to winning a lottery for the family.”
Now enter the bigots from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), along with their star from the state of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, who trounced the Congress Party by a landslide, a resounding victory not matched by any electoral bloc in 30 years. And the BJP has indeed gone a long way. In 1984, for example, in the election that brought Rajiv Gandhi to power, the BJP returned only two MPs out of 542 in the lower house of the Parliament. A decade after that, the party was becoming the most important force in Indian politics — shades, if you wish, of the stunning upset in the Israeli elections that brought Menachem Begin’s Herut party to power in 1977.
During his tenure as chief minister of Gujarat, Modi was indeed behind the growth of various sectors of public life. But will he now be able to bring Gujarat’s success to all of India? A herculean task if there ever was one.
India’s election results will represent a dilemma for the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU), not to mention countries in the Islamic world, which since 2002 have treated Modi as a pariah and shunned him as a bigot, following his stance on the communal riots that had then taken place in his state. Early that year, a train with Hindu pilgrims was stopped at a station in the north of Gujarat, reportedly by a Muslim mob, who set it on fire, killing 59 people. Hindu gangs responded by taking revenge on Muslims across the state. They dragged families out of their homes and cut them to death, as they burned mosques and destroyed property. Around 2,000 Muslims were murdered.
The police stood by and did nothing or, in some cases, actually joined in the mayhem — presumably following orders from above. No one was prosecuted, neither any of the killers nor those who were known to have organized the slaughter. What is more galling was the fact that Modi, in his public utterances at the time, expressed no remorse, no regret. He chose to focus instead on the train victims, implying that the Muslims effectively got what they deserved. For opponents of the BJP in India, not to mention foreign observers whose business was to monitor hate crimes perpetrated, or encouraged, by leaders in power, the state-sanctioned massacre in 2002 were incontestable evidence of the fascist character of the BJP and its cohorts.
So will the new Indian prime minister, with blood on his hands and hatred in his heart, be received in Washington, London and Brussels? A dilemma indeed!
