Narendra Modi may have led his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to a historic third term, but the landslide victory that many had expected failed to materialise. With half of the 640 million votes counted, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its political allies were on course to win 290 seats. It’s enough to form a coalition government – but is 60 fewer seats than it won in the 2019 election.

Despite being fragmented and perceived as weak on a national level, the Congress Party-led opposition, the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (or India), managed to gain traction in regional strongholds such as Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Maharastra, creating a more competitive electoral landscape.

In 2019, the BJP secured a majority in its own right. This time it will need to rely on its electoral alliances to maintain power. Nonetheless, Modi’s victory holds significant implications for India’s political landscape and future direction.

The BJP has employed a nuanced strategy over its ten-year tenure in office. It has tried to tailor its agenda to resonate with the diverse priorities and concerns of different regions across India. This approach has involved emphasising specific local issues, cultural narratives and economic needs that vary from one state to another.

In India’s northern states, such as Madhya Pradesh, the BJP has focused on national security and Hindu nationalism. In the south, meanwhile, it has prioritised economic development and infrastructure projects. This approach resonated with voters in the south who were frustrated with the status quo and sought better governance and economic progress.

The BJP won its first ever seat in Kerala in the south-west, traditionally a stronghold for the Congress Party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Local movie star, Suresh Gopi, won a big majority in the temple city of Thrissur. He campaigned on development issues, while avoiding any talk of Hindu nationalism, despite this being a theme which has played well for the BJP elsewhere.

Interestingly, religious nationalism did not resonate as strongly with the electorate in general. This was even the case in Uttar Pradesh in the north-east, despite the huge publicity coup afforded Modi in January when he inaugurated a temple to Ram at Ayodhya on the site of a former mosque. The Socialist party and Congress alliance won 42 of 80 seats, five more than the BJP. This is a blow for the BJP, and particularly for Yogi Adityanath, the state’s chief minister, a strong contender as Modi’s successor.

This reduced margin of victory indicates that the BJP may need to recalibrate its approach, particularly concerning its Hindu nationalist, or “Hindutva” policies. While religious nationalism has been a powerful tool in mobilising support during the BJP’s first two terms, the recent election results suggest that it might not always be sufficient to secure widespread victories.

But, as you’d expect in such a massive and populous country, there have been other factors at play. Extensive welfare measures introduced by the Modi government have significantly bolstered his support.

But despite the resilience and buoyancy of the Indian economy under Modi’s leadership, challenges remain. Stagnation in the manufacturing sector and the government’s poor performance on job creation have cast shadows over Modi’s growth narrative. While digital advancements and welfare initiatives have been successful, addressing these economic concerns is crucial for sustaining long-term growth and stability.

Diversity is strength

The strength of India’s democracy lies in its vibrant political discourse and the celebrated concept of the “argumentative Indian”. This culture of debate and dissent is vital for a healthy democracy, as it ensures that multiple voices and perspectives are heard and considered.

Instances such as the BJP government’s delayed response to the farmers’ protests underscore the importance of addressing public grievances and adapting policies based on feedback. The government’s eventual willingness to engage in dialogue and retract controversial agricultural laws demonstrated a responsiveness that can strengthen democracy by showing a commitment to listening and adjusting to the populace’s concerns.

Many people, meanwhile, expressed discomfort with the Modi government’s extreme positions on privacy and diverse beliefs. For instance, watering down the Information (RTI) Act of 2005, which was intended as a powerful tool for exposing corruption and ensuring good governance. India has fallen 11 places in the World Press Freedom Index to 161 out of 180 countries as freedom of expression has come under strain.

The BJP must now ensure that its third term does not lead to the marginalisation of minority voices or the erosion of democratic norms. Instead, it should use this period to foster a more inclusive political environment that encourages healthy debate and innovation.

Meanwhile, despite being formed relatively recently, in July 2023, the opposition India coalition put on an impressive performance. The coalition must now develop a sustained and coherent platform that resonates with a broader population segment.

By promoting a political landscape that values diverse perspectives and robust debate, India can continue to build a dynamic and inclusive democracy. This balance is essential for addressing the nation’s complex challenges and ensuring that democratic principles are upheld for future generations.

Thankom Arun, Professor of Global Development and Accountability, University of Essex

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, had hoped for a landslide victory in the country’s six-week general election – the largest display of democracy, by far, in a year of voting around the world. But with results still coming in on June 4, 2024, the party, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, looked to be heading to only a narrow parliamentary majority.

The BJP needs 272 seats to form a government on its own, failing which it will need the help of its coalition partners, the National Democratic Alliance.

The Conversation U.S. spoke with Sumit Ganguly, distinguished professor of political science and the Tagore chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University, to understand more about the election results and what they mean for Indian democracy.

The BJP had talked about an overwhelming victory, but it seems it will not get a majority. How do you explain these results?

Part of the answer lies in the Modi government’s failure to realize that while economic benefits had been substantial, their distribution has been uneven. India has seen a growth in inequality and persistent unemployment both in rural and urban areas. Unemployment of those aged 20 to 24 years is at a high of 44.49%. And that is the overall national number; that data does not tell us that it may be much worse in certain regions.

The other explanation is that Modi’s exploitation of historic Hindu-Muslim tensions seems to have run its natural course. You can beat the religious drum – and Modi did with rhetoric including calling Muslims “infiltrators” – but then the day-to-day issues of jobs, housing and other such necessities take over, and these are the things people care about the most.

BJP made a miscalculation, in my analysis. It failed to realize that in a country where only 11.3% of children get adequate nutrition, Hindu pride cannot be eaten – ultimately, it’s the price of potatoes and other essentials that matter.

Let’s talk about Uttar Pradesh, the northern Indian state with 80 parliamentary seats. It plays a crucial role in any national election, and Modi and his alliance are set to lose the state. What happened?

It’s another example of the same miscalculation we are seeing nationally by the BJP. The chief minister of the state,Yogi Adityanath, saw himself as a firebrand Hindu nationalist leader and likely a successor of Modi.

But he, too, failed to take into account how his policies were playing out in the poorer segments of the state’s population, who are mainly Muslims and those at the bottom of India’s caste hierarchy.

He pursued grand infrastructure projects such as new highways and airports, and those might well have appealed to the middle class – but not to the poor.

Additionally, years of presiding over a state government that has used police power to suppress dissent, often those of the poor and marginalized, have taken their toll on Adityanath’s support.

What explains BJP’s inroads into the southern state of Kerala, where it is on course to make history by winning a parliamentary seat for the first time?

The gains in the south are perplexing and will require more data on voting patterns for a more accurate analysis.

Historically, the BJP has not been able to make inroads into the southern states for a number of reasons. These include linguistic subnationalism owing to the hostility toward Hindi.

The other issue in the south is that the practice of Hinduism is quite different, including festivals and other regional traditions. The BJP’s vision of Hinduism is based on the “great tradition” of northern India, which believes in the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva as the creator, the sustainer and the destroyer gods.

The southern states are also engines of economic growth and end up subsidizing the poorer states of the north. As a consequence, there is resentment against the BJP, which has long had its political base in northern India.

In July 2023, 26 opposition parties formed a coalition called INDIA – the Indian National Developmental and Inclusive Alliance – to challenge the BJP in the election. Were they given a fair chance?

No, the playing field was far from level. The mass media has been mostly co-opted by the ruling BJP to advance its agenda. Apart from one or two regional newspapers, all the national dailies scrupulously avoid any criticism of the BJP, and the major television channels mostly act as cheerleaders of the government’s policies.

A number of intelligence agencies are alleged to have been used for blatantly partisan purposes against the opposition parties. Political leaders have been jailed on charges that may prove to be dubious. For example, Arvind Kejriwal, the highly popular chief minister of New Delhi, was charged with alleged improprieties in the allocation of liquor licenses and jailed just days after election dates were announced.

Despite the electoral losses, Modi is expected to return as prime minister for a third term. Given that the BJP got just two seats in the 1984 elections, what factors led to the party’s meteoric rise?

The BJP has built a solid organizational base across the country, unlike the Indian National Congress, the principal opposition party. And the Congress party has done little to revitalize its political foundations, which had eroded in the 1970s after then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed a state of emergency and a non-Congress government came into power for the first time.

The BJP has also appealed to the sentiments of the majority Hindu population through slogans that paint India’s principal minority, Muslims, as the source of myriad societal problems. Hate crimes against Muslims and other minorities surged across India over the past few years.

Finally, the BJP also benefited from economic reforms that the earlier Congress government had set in motion from the 1990s, including a national goods and services tax and the privatization of the loss-making, state-owned airline, Air India, thereby contributing to substantial economic growth in India.

In December 1992, Hindu nationalists destroyed the 16th-century Babri Mosque. How crucial was that to BJP’s rise to power? And what should we read into BJP losing its seat in Ayodhya?

The destruction of the Babri Mosque certainly galvanized an important segment of the Hindu electorate and led to a growth in support for the BJP. In 1999 – just seven years after the event – the BJP first came to power in a coalition government in which it had 182 out of 543 seats in the Indian Parliament. Two national elections later, in 2004, Modi assumed office as the prime minister with a clear-cut majority of 282 seats.

In January 2024, just a few months before the election, Modi inaugurated a newly constructed temple in Ayodhya, the site of the Babri Mosque. It was a carefully stage-managed event with an eye on votes.

However, BJP lost its seat in Ayodhya. It’s possible that all the fanfare around the new temple appealed to people outside of Ayodhya – but not to the city’s residents who continued to deal with waste mismanagement and other issues.

What’s next for Modi? And what do the results tell us about Indian democracy?

It’s certainly possible that Modi will form the government with coalition partners. I believe that Modi, as an astute politician, will most likely learn from this setback and adapt his tactics to new realities.

The results might also be a useful corrective – the Indian voter has once again demonstrated that he or she might be willing to put up with some things but not others.

Indian voters have demonstrated in the past that when they see democracy being threatened, they tend to punish leaders with autocratic tendencies. We saw this when the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi suffered a crushing defeat in the elections in 1977. The elections followed a state of emergency that Gandhi had imposed on the country, suspending all civil liberties. Back then, it was India’s poor who voted her out of power.

This time around, we might need to wait on additional electoral data about how particular caste and income groups voted.

Sumit Ganguly, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and the Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations, Indiana University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.