Narendra Modi has repeatedly made political profit by posing as the champion protector of 'endangered' Hindus
RIGHT AFTER winning independence in 1947, India did two crucial things. It gave all citizens the right to vote, and it adopted a secular constitution that enshrined equality before the law. Over the decades, some of that high-mindedness has eroded. Corruption and “” politics have frequently tarnished Indian democracy. The enduring reality of caste and class privilege has undermined the ideal of equality. Under the populist rule of Narendra Modi, India has also drifted away from secularism.
The controversy has roots in the era of the British Raj. Whereas the mainstream of India’s independence movement envisioned a secular, inclusive republic, Hindu nationalists saw religion as the strongest base for a new national identity. They resented the creation of Pakistan, the new state demanded by Muslim separatists, yet in effect wanted India to be a Hindu version of such a religion-based nation.
Mr Modi, who before entering politics had served for more than a decade as a monk-like acolyte of India’s biggest Hindu-nationalist group, has repeatedly made political profit by posing as the champion protector of “endangered” Hindus. As chief minister of Gujarat in 2002, he made little effort to stop communal rioting that left perhaps 2,000 dead, mostly Muslims. Soon afterwards, he was re-elected by a bigger margin.
In isolation, none of these changes might have caused great fuss; after all, the BJP holds a crushing 56% of parliamentary seats. But Muslims’ cumulative resentment, compounded by wider fears of creeping autocracy, has stirred stronger resistance. As a result, India is growing dangerously polarised. Mr Modi’s partisans increasingly see their opponents as saboteurs of a grand civilisational project.
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