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Even before he became prime minister in 2014, Narendra Modi attracted a large set of passionate followers who staunchly believed that concerted attempts had been made by the ruling party of the time to silence him. His political journey, therefore, became a template of struggle against establishment. In aligning with him and fighting social media battles on his behalf, people felt they too were doing their bit. Modi's passionate following only increased in the run-up to the 2019 general election. This passionate support was
In 2019 the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), led by Narendra Modi, won a huge victory in the Indian general election, increasing their tally of seats from 2014, and reducing their nearest rivals to an ineffectual rump. Commentators and political scientists can't agree on the reasons for Modi's success. Was it a result of effective campaigning and unchecked amounts of money thrown into the coffers of the BJP machine? Was it, as in 2014, the strength of Modi's individual appeal – the common man taking on entrenched elites? Or was it a peculiarly
Emotions matter to politics. Despite their importance, emotions tend to be neglected in the study of such routine aspects of politics as elections. Whereas emotions have certainly been studied in the context of spectacular political moments, this volume attends to the passions generated by elections, which have all too often been dismissed as a relatively banal dimension of politics. The volume delves into the passions evoked by India’s 2019 general election, widely billed as a ‘battle for India’s soul’. It explores the processes of social, economic and cultural change within which the election was embedded. Contributions from economists, sociologists, geographers, anthropologists and political scientists shed light on a significant political moment in India.
Since taking power in 2014, India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, has made significant headway in turning a robust, socially rooted democracy into an authoritarian system. He has acquired substantial autonomy, radically centralised power, and used it to mount an aggressive, systematic assault on open politics. In pursuit of top-down control by the Prime Minister's Office, he has greatly weakened other state institutions and mounted an offensive on alternative power centres beyond the state – rival parties, civil society organisations, the
, these protests reflect the massive agrarian distress being experienced by the farming community across the country. They symbolise in many different ways the sense of non-viability, even the death of farming as a livelihood. Despite these escalating protests, and an anticipation of rural consolidation against the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2019 parliamentary election, this did not happen. In this short chapter, I seek to explain this puzzle of why farmer dissatisfaction did not convert into an electoral
lack of job creation in the Indian economy – and reflect on why this did not hurt the BJP's electoral prospects. Demonetisation 1 In the campaign leading up to the Lok Sabha election in spring 2014, one of the more important promises that Narendra Modi made was to ‘clean up’ the economy by bringing back to India all the illicit money that was purportedly stashed away overseas. After coming into power, the government led by Modi's BJP
Introduction The defense policies of the Narendra Modi government are marked by attempts at structural reforms. These have meant India’s pursuit of defense technology has been superseded by an overriding drive to indigenize arms production. In pursuit of indigenization, New Delhi will accept inferior technology, abandon established transfer of technology practices and demote its once all-powerful, state-owned defense firms. This puts the U.S. at a disadvantage in its attempts to expand defense technology
at which ostensibly religious virtuosos participated in secular affairs was a feature that Indian politics had never quite seen before. This evoked an inner tie between culture, religion and politics that connected with the Hindu population. When Narendra Modi became prime minister, the national political discourse changed further. In 2014 the focus was on connecting directly with the people, creating the image of a strong, decisive leader, and with it a brand – ‘NaMo’. This derivation from the name ‘Narendra Modi’ was
-truth politics’, but also some of the grislier consequences of this trend. This chapter reflects on the passions excited by, and expressed though, these new social media platforms. The 2014 Indian general election, which brought the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power, was widely feted as ‘India's first social media election’ (Khullar and Haridasani, 2014 ). During the election campaign, political parties in India, most notably the BJP, placed an unprecedented emphasis on using social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and
chapter concludes by reflecting on agendas beyond the BJP's Hindu nationalist welfarism that continue to motivate members of poor people from other castes. The BJP's consolidation of power: a changing politics of the poor Narendra Modi dedicated the BJP's electoral landslide to India's unorganised workers, the homeless, households without toilets and the law-abiding tax-paying middle classes. ‘Only two castes exist’, he thundered, ‘the poor and those who work for the poor.’ Laced with claims that his