Modi’s re-election shows India has abandoned diversity and embraced Hindu-majority rule
- The triumphant rise of Modi’s once-obscure party and collapse of the opposition means Muslims have reason to worry – India no longer embraces secularism and diversity
This is the second successive majority Modi has won and caps a remarkable rise for the BJP. The party won only two seats out of 543 in the 1984 election and only secured its first majority in 2014 under Modi.
The recent dominance of Hindu nationalists is linked closely to Modi, who was chief minister for over a decade in the province of Gujarat. He became a national figure after religious violence on his watch claimed the lives of around 1,000 Gujaratis, most of them Muslim. His unapologetic stance on that massacre in 2002 – for which one of his ministers, Maya Kodnani, was convicted and later acquitted of participation in mass murder – has made him the most polarising leader in India’s modern history.
Religious violence has long assisted the BJP in its expansion. Its fiery campaign against a medieval mosque and its subsequent demolition in 1992 resulted in the deaths of around 2,000 Indians. But it also gave the BJP the momentum to form its first national government in 1996.
Modi said this week, after his win, that the five years of his new term would be as significant in Indian history as 1942-1947. That was when India became independent and began writing its constitution. Modi’s words have alarmed those who see the BJP as moving India towards constitutional change as a majoritarian state.