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Supporters of India's main opposition Congress party celebrate after the initial poll results in Karnataka elections
Opposition wins big in southern India
India's opposition Congress Party swept last week's Karnataka election, booting the ruling BJP party from the only state it controlled in southern India. Expect this to have ripple effects ahead of 2024, when uber-popular PM Narendra Modi will seek a third term in office.
The result is a bigger deal than you might think. For one thing, Karnataka is home to Bengaluru, India’s tech hub, which Modi tried to woo with a whopping 19 campaign stops in the state over seven days. The PM hoped that if the BJP could stay in power in Karnataka, he could target neighboring Telangana and Tamil Nadu, where the BJP's Hindu-first message has so far fallen flat.
It's also the best news that the once-dominant Congress has gotten since Modi and the BJP swept to power in 2014. The party, which admits it cannot beat Modi alone, has now demonstrated that it can flip BJP-run states, so it can lead a coalition of opposition parties to have at least a fighting chance of defeating the BJP in next year's general election.
Still, Congress should manage its expectations: Challenging the ruling party will be a lot harder in northern India, which is not only more populous but has been fertile ground for Modi's divisive politics.
Demonstrators drape the national flag of Israel on the walls of Jerusalem's Old City.
What We’re Watching: Bibi’s defiance, US strikes in Syria, Lula’s China visit, Putin’s Hungary refuge, India vs. free speech
Bibi’s not backing down
Israelis waited with bated breath on Thursday evening as news broke that PM Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu was preparing to brief the nation after another “day of disruption” saw protesters block roads and strike over the government’s proposed judicial reforms.
The trigger for the impromptu public address was a meeting between Bibi and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, also from the ruling Likud Party, who has voiced increasing concern that the looming judicial reform would threaten Israel’s national security, particularly as more and more army reservists are refusing to show up for training.
That never happened. While he talked about healing divisions, a defiant Netanyahu came out and said he will proceed to push through the reform, which, among other things, would give the government an automatic majority on appointing Supreme Court judges. This came just a day after the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, passed a bill blocking the attorney general from declaring Netanyahu unfit for office due to a conflict of interest over his ongoing legal woes and his bid to dilute the power of the judiciary. In response, the attorney general released a letter Friday saying Netanyahu's involvement in judicial reform is "illegal," suggesting a much-dreaded constitutional crisis may have begun.
Two things to look out for in the days ahead: First, what does Defense Minister Gallant do next? If he threatens to – or does – resign, it could set off subsequent defections and be a game changer. Second, how do the markets respond? Indeed, markets rallied Thursday before Bibi’s address in hopes that the government was set to backtrack on the reforms that are spooking investors, but the shekel value slumped after the speech.
US strikes Iranian-backed group in Syria
The US confirmed Thursday that it had struck an Iranian-backed group in northeastern Syria after a Tehran-aligned militia launched a drone attack against a US base near the province of Hasakah, killing at least one US contractor and injuring another contractor as well as five US troops.
While strikes on US bases in northeastern Syria are not necessarily uncommon, the scale of casualties seen Thursday is quite rare. Indeed, a high-ranking US official recently said that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, which takes orders directly from the supreme leader, has launched 78 attacks on US positions in Syria since Jan. 2021.
The US Department of Defense, meanwhile, said that the drone used in this attack was of Iranian origin, and that President Joe Biden had given the go ahead for a precision-guided retaliatory strike on an Iranian-backed group that reportedly killed 11 fighters.
Video footage suggests the strike was on Deir Ez-Zor, a province that borders Iraq and contains oil fields. The US still maintains around 900 troops in the country’s northeast after President Donald Trump ordered the withdrawal of roughly 2,000 troops in 2018. It is at least the fourth known attack on Iranian assets in northwestern Syria under the Biden administration.
Iran, for its part, has not commented on the strikes, but the likelihood of increased tensions with the US is only rising.
Lula takes his beef directly to Xi Jinping
“Tell me who you walk with,” the saying goes, “and I’ll tell you who you are.” Well, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva is rolling deep to his upcoming summit with Xi Jinping, taking nearly 250 businesspeople along for the ride. More than a quarter of them are from Brazil’s powerful meat export industry alone.
That tells you everything about the trip’s main focus: trade, trade, and more trade. And why not? It was during Lula’s last stint as president that China displaced the US as Brazil’s largest commercial partner, fueling a historic economic boom as it gobbled up huge quantities of Brazilian meat, soybeans, and iron ore. Nowadays, facing a much tougher economic and political environment, Lula is keen to recapture some of that commercial magic.
But the geopolitical context also matters. Important as China is commercially, the US is Lula’s most important regional security and investment partner, and Washington was Lula’s first trip beyond Latin America as president. As the US-China rivalry deepens, Lula and his dealmaking entourage will need to tread carefully in a world that is splitting apart under their feet.
Hungary is a safe space for Putin
The Hungarian government said Thursday it wouldn’t jail Vladimir Putin if he came to Hungary, despite the International Criminal Court’s recent issuance of an arrest warrant for the Russian president for war crimes.
Budapest’s reasoning was a doozy: While they have signed and ratified the Rome Statute, which created the ICC, they say they haven’t gotten around to incorporating it into Hungarian law yet, so no-can-do on arresting Putin.
It’s all purely hypothetical, as there’s no chance of Putin going to Hungary any time soon. But that’s the point. Hungary’s avowedly “illiberal” PM Viktor Orban has long made clear that he won’t just toe the EU party line on Russia. He’s reluctantly gone along with EU sanctions on Russia, but he’s also said the EU is needlessly expanding and prolonging the war by arming Ukraine – something his government won’t do.
Moscow, for its part, says arresting Putin abroad would be “an act of war.”
India's opposition leader sentenced to prison for defamation
The world’s largest democracy seems to be getting less comfortable with a key tenet of it: free speech.
Rahul Gandhi, a member of the Indian National Congress, the main opposition party, was sentenced on Thursday to two years in prison for “defaming” Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He was also disqualified as a lawmaker by the lower house of parliament. In April 2019, Gandhi referred to the PM — along with two corrupt officials also named Modi and charged with embezzling millions of dollars — as “thieves.”
This is a big deal because Gandhi is Indian political royalty. After all, he's the son, grandson, and great-grandson of prime ministers (his great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, was India's first PM), and was surely planning to run against Modi for the top job in 2024. What's more, he recently completed a five-month-long march in hopes of reviving the Congress party, which for decades dominated Indian politics but took a beating from the BJP in the last election.
Although his party is appealing the conviction, the stakes are very high for Gandhi due to a provision in India’s election law that disqualifies MPs sentenced to, coincidentally, at least two years in prison for any offense, including defamation. Gandhi turned to Twitter in defiance, tweeting up a storm on Thursday with messages like "Long live the revolution" and quoting Mahatma Gandhi with "truth is my God."
Meanwhile, opposition groups accuse the PM of using the courts to go after his political rivals. Indeed, Gandhi’s sentence comes on the heels of the recent arrest on corruption charges of Manish Sisodia, the head of the AAP, another opposition party that runs the capital, New Delhi. Democratic backsliding indeed.
Indian billionaire Gautam Adani.
As Asia’s richest man falters, will his ties to Modi hurt the PM?
For years, India’s Adani Group, an Indian conglomerate and the world’s largest private developer of coal plants, faced repeated allegations of corruption, money laundering, and theft of taxpayer funds. Those claims tended to be of local origin, and they triggered low-level investigations that usually went away. Meanwhile, Gautam Adani, 60, continued to amass his wealth, becoming critical to India’s infrastructural expansion under powerful Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Known as “Modi’s Rockefeller,” Adani is now Asia’s wealthiest man.
US probe leads to scandal. Now, Adani’s family-run energy and transport empire has been slammed with a US-based investigation by Hindenburg Research. The New York-based financial forensics investigator has cited evidence of suspected money laundering, stock manipulation, and tax fraud, causing Adani Group’s market value to tumble. Crucially, the report also raises questions about Adani’s proximity to his friend and ally, Modi.
Starting off with diamonds and commodities, Adani is now the coal king of India. Despite protests and regulations against the use of dirty fossil fuel, the first-generation entrepreneur has also expanded into defense, media, and cement, but much of his money has come from energy and infrastructure contracts, many of them tendered during the Modi era. While the relationship between the two men has been under scrutiny for years, the widely cited Hindenburg investigation doesn’t just detail the extent of Adani’s misdoings, but it also claims he couldn’t have gotten so far without the government stonewalling regulators and supporting his expansion.
Modi’s been silent about his ties to Adani, but he has reportedly nurtured a connection with him since the 1990s. Before Modi was PM, he was the chief minister of Gujarat, the same state where Adani got his start and where one of Modi’s major gifts to him was land at a throwaway price, which essentially became the launchpad for Adani’s biggest power moves.
The fallout. The scandal has triggered a run on Adani’s companies, clouding prospects for India’s excellent emerging market potential, but their immense size and role in India’s recent growth spurt still have analysts convinced that Adani is too unique to fail.
With elections due next year, the bigger question is whether it will hurt Modi’s prospects for a third term. The Hindenburg findings prompted India’s divided opposition to demand an investigation into how regulators let Adani get this far. Many analysts claim that he and Modi have scratched each other’s backs for over two decades, noting that Adani was worth a mere $2.8 billion in 2014, when Modi became PM, and that he’s now worth $119 billion.
Still, analysts are doubtful the PM will be hurt by the fallout.
“I don’t expect these revelations about the Adani Group to harm Modi politically,” says Michael Kugelman, the director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington. “He remains remarkably popular and can easily withstand the types of challenges that would doom more vulnerable politicians.”
Teflon Modi. Modi’s popularity is amongst the highest in the world. Despite recent and not-so-recent failures – from bungling India’s COVID response to not reigning in anti-Muslim policies of his Bharatiya Janata Party – Modi seems to be India’s Teflon Man.
“One reason why Modi doesn’t suffer politically from these episodes is that these challenges can be depicted as a reflection of his victimhood,” says Kugelman, referring to Modi’s often-used “they’re gunning for us” brand of Hindutva politics. Modi alleges that “powerful forces are unfairly conspiring to impugn and weaken him, and that can’t stand," he says.
Last week, Adani’s spokespersons took a similar nationalist approach against his American naysayers, claiming that an attack on the group was an attack on India. But while Adani is threatening legal action against the US-based investigators, Modi might not need to go on the defensive just yet.
“India lacks a strong and united opposition with the capacity to exploit these moments, and the main opposition group remains quite weak,” says Kugelman.
For now, Modi is popular enough at home that he doesn’t need to worry too much about the hits to his image.
“The Adani scandal will come and go like the others before it and will have little lasting political impact on Modi,” says Kugelman, noting that the PM can “easily withstand these political shocks.”
Indian PM Narendra Modi walks after inspecting the honor guard during Independence Day celebrations at the historic Red Fort in Delhi.
Gearing up for a third term, meet Modi 3.0
Narendra Modi, 72, is stronger than ever. Last week, the Indian prime minister claimed the top prize in a three-pronged election by keeping his home state of Gujarat. Nabbing one of India’s richest states a sixth time in a row may propel him into a likely third term.
Although headwinds are starting to pick up, the Indian economy remains the fastest growing in the world. And despite his right-wing BJP party being fueled by dangerously populist and divisive communal politics, Modi remains a darling of the West, a friend of Big Business, and Washington’s biggest regional bet to counter China.
But the Great Indian Political Equation has flaws: a Cold War-era proximity to Russia, a rough neighborhood which continues to get rougher, rising inequality at home, and a stubborn strain of Hindu chauvinism that is keeping India from firing on all social and economic cylinders.
So, two questions pop up. First, is Modi going to evolve beyond his limiting politics? Second, what should the world expect from New Delhi when India becomes the third-largest economy on the planet in 2027, in the middle of Modi’s probable next term?
Modi is the fairytale success story of Indian politics: the lowly tea vendor who became an abstinent political worker, who became a populist chief minister, who became one of the world’s most powerful prime ministers. But it wasn’t a smooth transition.
Two decades ago, when he was running Gujarat, Modi was blacklisted by the US State Department over his involvement in the deadly anti-Muslim pogrom of 2000. That was Modi 1.0: local, communal, and controversial.
But the 13 years of successful governance which saw the state propel economically became his launchpad into his own version 2.0. His alliance with corporate India was already sealed well before he arrived in New Delhi in 2014 as PM. But it was the big moves in international affairs — firming up a bipartisan bond with Washington, joining the right economic clubs and political groups, and boosting India’s economic momentum — that proved his international street cred.
Still Modi was limited. Bogged down by China, irritated by Pakistan, statically tied to Russia by defense ties and a longstanding tradition of non-alignment, he was criticized for not doing enough to bridge India’s massive income inequality gap, as well as possessing a heavy-handed authoritarian streak.
With a third term approaching, a Modi 3.0 is emerging. And some recent moves indicate that the Indian PM is moving away from previously dug-in positions.
In the fall, Modi turned heads when he scolded longtime pal Vladimir Putin about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Last week, India cancelled Modi’s annual huddle with Putin over Moscow’s nuclear saber-rattling. Both moves were carefully calibrated by New Delhi to tackle the impression that it is not a reliable partner of the West.
Still, the broad contours of Modi’s foreign policy won’t change in the run-up to the general election in 18 months, estimates Eurasia Group analyst Pramit Chaudhury.
On the one hand, “the slow drift toward the US will continue, though India’s will continue to keep hedging, as it’s not entirely sure about the US commitment to the Indo-Pacific, thanks to America's propensity for isolationism,” he says. On the other, the more private sector-driven, less state-owned, and digitally savvy India that Modi is trying to create makes it naturally compatible with the US economy.
Also, Modi will likely carry on “managing China, not getting any closer, while continuing to purge China’s economic influence within the Indian economy,” Chaudhury assesses. Meanwhile, Pakistan will be dealt with a firm hand, considering India’s old nemesis is dead broke and has no real solution to stop Modi from absorbing disputed Kashmir.
In the Middle East, India aims to leverage hard-earned relationships with the Saudis and the Emiratis to replace Islamabad as their favored South Asian partner — which would be a coup for New Delhi. Finally, the recently acquired G-20 presidency will test Modi’s international mettle on whether his pursuit of a green transition is in line with the West.
But what will an uber-powerful “Maximum Modi” look like at home? For Chaudhury, Modi’s latest tactics indicate that he is moving beyond “Hindutva” – the muscular brand of Hindu-first politics that he depends on – in order to tackle the flaws of his own machine. Since his cult of personality already cuts across India’s communal lines, the PM is beginning to reach out to poor Muslims to join his ranks.
Though it’s unclear how the old-school BJP apparatchiks will respond to this kindness, perhaps behind this rare show of inclusivity lies a cold rationale: to split the opposition, influence upcoming state elections, and bridge the massive inequality gap.
Remember: India has no term limits. Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first PM, ruled for 16 years. While Modi has professed to retire to a Himalayan ashram after his next term, his years in power have only strengthened his support.
Sure, India is richer and more powerful under him, but at great cost to its most sacred, progressive values. With no clear successors aligned, and the economic stakes involved, the biggest question in South Asia remains: what’s Modi actually thinking?India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi attends a bilateral meeting during the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.
India is rising fast, but Modi must drive with care
India’s decade is here. According to two recent back-to-back reports by Morgan Stanley and S&P, the world’s second-most populous country is set to become the planet’s third-largest economy by as early as 2027.
Already the fastest-growing major economy in the world, India’s GDP is expected to double from its current $3.5 trillion by 2031. That means that all else being equal, India will be economically neck-and-neck with Japan and Germany by the middle of the next US presidential term.
What’s driving India’s growth? A decade-long effort premised on making aggressive inroads into digitization, pro-manufacturing incentives, and a focus on exports. This has been buoyed by riding the wave of global offshoring and gearing up for an energy transition, which has placed Narendra Modi's administration and its backers in corporate India in an enviable position.
But how will Indians be affected? India’s booming GDP will likely change the destiny of many of its billion-plus consumers. New initiatives are already changing the way Indians borrow, consume, and access healthcare. As Indians overtake the Chinese as the world’s largest population — perhaps as early as next year — they will likely have more disposable income too. The country’s income inequality gap will likely decrease, with consumption expected to more than double from $2 trillion to $4.9 trillion by 2030.
Critically, real income per capita will grow significantly by an average of 5.3%, with Indian households set to become the greatest spenders among the G-20 countries.
Being Indian won’t just mean being better off than your neighbors — it will also mean being (more) global. As international outsourcing spending triples to $500 billion by the end of the decade, the number of Indians employed in jobs outside India will triple to more than 11 million. All of India’s 660,000 villages are set to be electrified by 2030 as well.
The nature of the Indian worker will change, too. Given that its global exports could also double by the end of the decade, the nation of farmers will transition to more Indians working in industrial jobs as the manufacturing’s share of GDP in India could increase from 15.6% currently to 21% by the end of the decade.
Meanwhile, India’s growth also has ramifications for many of its neighbors. The likes of Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka are all beginning to lag — yet are increasingly dependent on New Delhi for credit and growth, sectors where India is openly competing with China as the region’s lender.
India might also step into China’s boots as the factory of the world. As zero-COVID, economic decoupling, and Xi Jinping’s aggressive foreign and domestic policies continue to force global investors to look for other options, India is standing by with fresh corporate tax cuts, attractive investment incentives, and new infrastructure to attract capital in manufacturing.
But there’s a flip side. While India’s surge is also expected to increase its standing on the global stage, its economics and its politics will likely run it into direct competition with China.
“As the strategic competition with China heats up, we are going to see India play a critical role in global supply chains that are significantly less dependent on China as the world’s factory,” said Uzair Younus, director of the Pakistan Initiative at the Atlantic Council. “As additional investments materialize in other manufacturing sectors, we are likely to see a sustained and substantial increase in 'Made in India' products sold in global markets.”
But while multinational corporations’ interest in investing in India is at an all-time high — indeed, India's current moment is being compared to the growth surge that China was going through from 2007-2012 – there are complications.
India resides in a rough neighborhood. As its troops remain bogged down by China in the Himalayas, its perpetual tensions with Pakistan keep the region’s political climate unstable.
After more than a year of normalization, the Indian and Pakistani militaries have started to threaten each other openly after India’s hardline defense minister promised to reclaim territory claimed by Pakistan despite an ongoing ceasefire.
This destabilizing hypernationalist streak of the Indian government runs all the way up to the top. On the one hand, PM Narendra Modi can be credited for India’s attractive manufacturing policies, his effective public-private partnerships with corporate India, as well as his trade diplomacy that is more focused on bilateral than multilateral deals. Counterproductively, the Hindutva politics of his ruling BJP party often trigger communal and civil tensions, which can have local as well broader regional and economic impacts too.
Right-wing fundamentalism is a part of Modi’s bid to retain the strength he has in parliament. However, his enemies aren’t just Muslims, whom he targets to buck up his base. Strong trade unions and organized farmers who have strongly opposed his pro-corporate policies equally threaten his alliance with Big Business.
Going forward, if he wants his country to progress, Modi will have to move with caution to curb his party’s worst and extremist tendencies. Bulldozing around at home and across the subcontinent with an ideologue’s zeal will likely disrupt his utopian vision of this being “one world, one family, and one earth.”
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Indonesian President Joko Widodo (R) hands over the G-20 presidency gavel to India's PM Narendra Modi (L) at the G-20 summit in Bali.
India's Modi seeks to burnish his legacy with G-20 presidency
On Dec. 1, India will assume the year-long rotating presidency of the G-20, a grouping that brings together representatives of the world’s largest economies to coordinate responses to the leading problems of the day. Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to make the Indian presidency one to remember. In fact, he asked Indonesia to take India’s place in the scheduled G-20 rotation last year because he felt the country was behind on preparations that include rebuilding a portion of New Delhi, India’s capital city.
We asked Eurasia Group expert Pramit Pal Chaudhuri to explain why Modi is making such a big bet on the G-20 presidency and how he hopes to address some of the world’s challenges.
Is Modi expecting some sort of political gain?
India will be gearing up next year for national elections in early 2024. So, when Modi unveiled a logo for the G-20 presidency that included the lotus flower — which is both India's national flower and the symbol of the ruling BJP party — the opposition immediately accused him of exploiting the occasion for electoral purposes.
Modi is likely betting that the international attention generated by the G-20 meetings will elevate the profile of the BJP in the eyes of voters. Events will be held throughout the country, including in Kashmir, which is claimed by neighboring Pakistan. (China, an ally of Pakistan, has already refused to participate in those events.)
But beyond the short-term electoral considerations, Modi is thinking about his legacy. The 72-year-old leader is hoping to advance global solutions to problems such as climate change during his time at the helm of the G-20.
But the G-20 is very divided. How will Modi manage the geopolitical tensions?
Yes, it’s true that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the intensifying rivalry between the US and China have created divisions. And India has problems of its own with China — relations have been in a deep freeze since a Himalayan border clash in 2020. But Modi has been working to unfreeze them.
After two years of zero contact, Modi shared a podium with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in September and followed it up with a handshake and a brief chat at the G-20 leaders’ summit earlier this month in Indonesia. That will likely pave the way for Xi to come to the same event next September in New Delhi.
Meanwhile, India has been working to bridge the divide over Ukraine. Many countries in the developing world – including India and China – have either opposed or been reluctant to go along with the West’s campaign to punish Russia for its actions. At the G-20 summit earlier this month, Indian diplomats worked overtime to get all sides to agree to language in the summit communique that condemned the war but recognized differing views among members.
What will be the main focus of India’s G-20 presidency?
Amitabh Kant, India’s G-20 sherpa (lead negotiator), recently said that trying to reinvigorate the world economy will be at the top of the agenda: "By the time we take over ... many parts of the world will go into recession… almost 70 countries will be impacted by global debt." India has already got traction on a proposal for developed country central banks to offer currency swaps to countries in the Global South to help them secure the supplies of foreign currencies they need to pay off debt and pay for imports.
Modi himself, however, has suggested that much of the agenda will focus on climate issues. For example, Indian officials want to discuss ways to direct global capital to emerging-market countries to help them fund transitions to less-polluting forms of energy. One idea, they say, is to get multilateral financial institutions such as the World Bank to become more proactive in financing projects in this space. Another is to create a new multilateral program to underwrite private investment in green energy projects.
Are there other items of note on the agenda?
The Modi government is trying to get the G-20 members to consider a coordinated global regulatory response to cryptocurrency, given the ease with which it crosses borders and transactions are shifted to offshore sites. It will also press the demands of emerging market countries for a greater share of the votes at institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF. Indian officials say they don't want to clutter the agenda with too many items, preferring to keep the focus mostly on growth and climate.Modi attends an innovation conference with Israeli and Indian CEOs in Tel Aviv.
The promise and peril of Modi’s success
Narendra Modi’s political juggernaut seems unstoppable.
Through a series of maneuvers — some of them questionable, if not illegal — Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP party last week took the reins of Maharashtra, India’s richest state. It was yet another victory for Modi in the run-up to elections in 2024, when he is expected to secure a third term.
But Modi’s take-no-prisoners style of governance, coupled with a weak opposition, a compliant judiciary, a supine press, and a society struggling with weakened civil liberties, is increasingly threatening the pillars of the world’s largest democracy.
What happened: The BJP regained its foothold in Maharashtra, home to Mumbai, by allying with about 40 “rebel” lawmakers who broke away from the state government of another right-wing party, the Shiv Sena. Though long deemed as a natural ally to the BJP, Shiv Sena’s leader, Uddhav Thackeray, had led a “secular” coalition that included opposition parties unaligned with Modi’s brand of Hindu supremacy.
Thackeray’s progressive moves triggered a schism within his ranks, which Modi then exploited.
“[The] BJP under Modi used the combination of ideology and realpolitik to bring down the existing coalition government” led by Thackeray, says Ashutosh Varshney, director of the Center for Contemporary South Asia at Brown University. Thackeray’s crime? He “was moderating Hindu nationalism” and running “India's most financially powerful city in a way that was hurting the BJP.”
The stakes:Smashing the coalition run by Thackeray — a conservative, albeit more moderate than Modi — took a few weeks. But the BJP is now back in control in the state where most of India’s business is conducted, making no apologies for fracturing a former ally’s ranks with Machiavellian precision.
Also, Maharashtra is a political trophy.
Its state capital, Mumbai, is the 20-million-strong financial and cultural hub that’s home to Bollywood. Maharashtra is also India’s second-most populous state and has drawn almost a third of all foreign direct investment to the country since 2018. It’s responsible for a fifth of India's sales tax revenue, and the single-largest contributor to GDP. Finally, Maharashtra accounts for nearly one-tenth of MPs in the lower house of parliament.
In short, Maharashtra has what every Indian politician wants: votes, money, and Bollywood dreams.
What this means for Indian politics: The BJP now is directly governing or partnered to rule 18 of India’s 28 states, including Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Bihar. With the opposition Congress party — which ruled India for much of its 75 years since independence — essentially dead in the water with a leadership crisis, it is regional parties that pose the main threat to the BJP. Shiv Sena was one such threat, which is why Modi took aim.
This targeting will continue because “the regional parties are the most important opposition today to the BJP,” says Varshney. Governance, he says, is less important than ideology for Modi. Despite ruling Maharashtra well during the pandemic and even experimenting with environmental policies, Shiv Sena was singled out because it was not “ideologically pure enough” for the even more Hindu nationalist BJP.
Shiv Sena’s fracturing will now serve as a template Modi can use against other regional players who pose a threat to his leadership, Varshney adds.
Rapid growth, but with rising inequality and intolerance: Boasting the world’s fastest economic growth rate, there is no doubt that India is doing well. Last month, it reached the $3.3 trillion mark, surpassing the UK as the world’s fifth-largest economy. But as Indian billionaires rise up, exports boom, and stock markets surge, so do joblessness and inequality.
The same parallel can be drawn to India’s polity. Modi’s BJP used scorched-earth tactics to get elected in 2014 and 2018. His hard-nosed campaigning, combined with cutting-edge PR, helped the BJP secure votes. However, while the party grows electorally, it does so not just at the expense of the opposition — but also by undermining India’s progressive democratic values.
Recent examples of targeting civil society, muzzling the press, even persecuting Bollywood stars suggest that if you investigate Modi or fail to fall in line with his communal politics, you’re out. These tactics also show that the Indian judiciary — with a proud history of checking executive authority — is increasingly compliant with Delhi, according to Varshney. This threatens the secular ethos of the Indian republic and its constitution, especially as Modi looks poised for a third term.
“It is a very, very difficult moment for the polity,” says Varhsney. The 1950 constitution, which guarantees rights for all, “will come undone if Modi wins in 2024,” he predicts. While there are no constitutional grounds upon which he can declare India a Hindu state, Modi is transforming India into a de-facto one, Varshney argues.
“India will not come undone with another Modi victory,” says Varshney. “India will just become a very different place.”
The coup in Maharashtra and the latest crackdown against his critics were conducted while Modi was in Europe last week, hobnobbing with the global elite at the G7 summit in Germany. India isn’t a G7 member, but Modi was there because India is increasingly important for the West’s grand plans, especially the role it could play in checking the rise of their common strategic rival, China. But amid all the jet setting and handshakes, G7 leaders — all democratic countries — must understand the stakes of betting on Modi.
He might play their game, as he does his own thing at home, but it will be at the larger expense of democracy’s most sacred ideals.
People participate in the March for Our Lives on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
What We're Watching: US gun-control deal, Indian protests, Macron's majority, Biden goes to Saudi
US Senate reaches compromise on guns
On Sunday, a group of 20 US senators announced a bipartisan framework on new gun control legislation in response to the recent wave of mass shootings. The proposal includes more background checks, funding for states to implement "red-flag" laws so they can confiscate guns from dangerous people, and provisions to prevent gun sales to domestic violence offenders. While the deal is much less ambitious than the sweeping ban on assault weapons and universal background checks President Joe Biden called for after the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, it's a rare bipartisan effort in a deeply divided Washington that seeks to make at least some progress on gun safety, an issue on which Congress has been deadlocked for decades. Biden said these are "steps in the right direction" and endorsed the Senate deal but admitted he wants a lot more. The announcement came a day after thousands of Americans held rallies on the National Mall in the capital and across the country to demand tougher gun laws. Will the senators be able to turn the framework into actual legislation before the momentum passes?
Prophet protests grow violent in India
Protests across India over the government's failure to punish two officials from the ruling BJP party for making derogatory remarks about Islam and the Prophet Mohammad turned violent over the weekend, with two demonstrators shot dead by police in Jharkhand state. In Uttar Pradesh, cops razed houses belonging to Muslim protesters as hundreds were arrested and mass gatherings were banned. Although India has seen communal tensions for decades, the new wave of protests is growing, with Muslims clashing with police, Hindu mobs, or both, ranging from as far east as Bengal to as far west as Kashmir. Why? Because the BJP handled the controversy like just another day at the office, suspending one official and firing the other after almost all Islamic countries in the region — including Saudi Arabia and Iran, which rarely agree on anything — demanded corrective action from the government. PM Narendra Modi's foot-dragging on this issue is deeply resented by many of India's 200 million Muslims, who feel they've been marginalized under Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, and by many Islamic countries that trade with India.
Vote throws Macron's parliamentary majority in danger
French President Emmanuel Macron's centrist Ensemble (Together) Party looks set to win the most seats in parliament after the first round of voting on Sunday, but projected results show it might fall short of an outright majority. Ensemble was tied at 25.2% of the vote with Nupes, the resurgent left-wing coalition led by firebrand candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Macron's party is projected to secure 260-310 seats in the National Assembly, where the magic number is 289. The French president needs a parliamentary majority to carry out his ambitious reform agenda. Without it, his government will have to form ad-hoc parliamentary alliances to win votes on individual proposals like raising the retirement age from 62 to 65, which Mélenchon strongly opposes. Far-right leader Marine le Pen, who lost the presidential election to Macron in April, called on her supporters to abstain wherever Ensemble candidates are running against Nupes challengers in the second round of voting next Sunday, when voters will have another go in constituencies where no one candidate got 50%.
Risks and rewards await Biden in Saudi Arabia
The White House, after changing the itinerary, is expected to announce President Joe Biden’s first trip to Saudi Arabia as early as Monday. What an about-face for Biden, given his earlier rebukes about the Saudi human rights record and not giving dictators blank checks. The trip includes a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS, who an American intelligence report says was the signing authority on the Jamal Khashoggi murder (this obviously hasn’t gone down well with Khashoggi’s widow). But there’s an element of realism at play here: MBS is likely to rule Saudi for decades, and Riyadh needs to sign the Abraham Accords in order to really stabilize the Middle East. The groundwork has been set by friends: the Israelis have been lobbying for the trip, while British PM Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron have already met MBS and encouraged Biden to do the same. In a big get for Washington, the Saudis might have some welcome gifts: ousting Russia from the OPEC+ group of oil-producing countries led by Riyadh or perhaps announcing the normalization of ties with Israel. But don’t expect anything to change on the Saudi human rights front.