In June, Narendra Modi was reelected as India’s perfect secretary for a traditional second term. For the first time in a decade, his Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP) does not have the right to an absolute majority. It may lead a partnership that is already fraught with disagreements.
What many believed to be a steadfast help for the BJP’s fundamental tenets of Hindu nationalism and its claims to have achieved national independence and financial growth are now in doubt due to the outcome.
As I discussed in my recently published book, an important part of the BJP’s strategy over the past 15 years has been to discredit established intellectuals as irrelevant, elite and detached, while at the same time building alternative forms of” credible” knowledge and expertise.
In the run-up to the 2009 regional elections, for instance, the BJP created two completely new consider vehicles: the India Foundation and Vivekananda International Foundation. This was, in my opinion, a way to make gains into New Delhi’s wealthy, unique and generally left-liberal plan habitat.
The BJP won the election that year in vain. However, it won decisively in 2014, and these two consider vehicles provided employees for a number of jobs within the main authorities.
Under Modi’s authority, experts have also been carefully replaced with nominated unionists by dismantling or co-opting expert committees, universities and established study institutions.
In reality, this approach has helped to restore suggestions that might otherwise have appeared to be intellectually biased. This was evident in the most current election cycle.
In April, Modi made a statement at an election protest in Banswara, Rajasthan, where he claimed the opposition Congress party wanted to deliver people’s money to “infiltrators” who are claiming more advantages than they deserve. He was frequently seen as referring to India’s Muslim majority.
The Economic Advisory Council’s appointed authorities therefore reinforced this myth that Muslims” stealing” from the welfare state. In May, the government asserted in a dubious study that Muslim birthrates are rising much faster than any other statistical.
But, the BJP is not a rock. The base of the party’s cultural identity and local base has previously been grounded in the , Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu republican paramilitary organization. However, the party has never articulated a coherent or coherent political and economic ideology.
Modi and the BJP are able to sway the opinions of a variety of people across the political spectrum. Therefore, they must combine Hindu nationalism and technocratic efficiency in their political communication and policy promises. And these appointed experts have contributed to the creation of a narrative that combines both.
In recent years, several government ministries have contracted with think tanks and international management consulting firms to develop and implement policies. These management consultants have played a significant role in promoting the notion that India’s Hindu identity is synonymous with the country’s technological and managerial advancement, whether intentionally or not.
In 2019, for instance, the Modi government hired global accounting firm Ernst &, Young ( EY ) to manage the Kumbh Mela – the largest Hindu spiritual gathering in the world. The firm developed a temporary city in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh with luxury tents, AI surveillance, and new transportation infrastructure.
Paying consulting firms to manage events and formulate policies is now a common practice in many nations, arguably to the detriment of government capacity. But in an ethno-nationalist state like India, I would argue it is deeply symbolic.
It combines the Modi government’s national grandstanding of building a technologically advanced “digital India” with its Hindu identity.
Democratic implications
India’s 2024 general election result was not technically a loss for the BJP. However, it has received a lot of positive reviews. In former constituency strongholds, the party lost a sizable number of seats.
It lost its seat in Faizabad, the district in which the party had hoped to locate a temple built on the site of a destroyed mosque. And the BJP also lost in Banswara, where Modi gave his Islamophobic speech.
The causes of voting patterns are still being investigated in data analysis. However, the opposition’s pledge to uphold constitutional principles and democratic representation received positive responses from voters.
It may seem naive to believe that the election of 2024 shows that the Indian electorate is less likely to back the Hindu nationalism that Modi’s administration has legitimized. After all, the BJP still won 260 out of the 543 available seats – a giant margin for a single party.
However, it does demonstrate that there are still opportunities for a wide range of political viewpoints in India’s universities, research institutes, and think tanks.
University of East Anglia lecturer in politics and policy Anuradha Sajjanhar
This article was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.