Populist leaders have recently been on the rise and have been everywhere in certain events of political history. Populist leaders seek political hegemony with an anti elitist mentality that legitimize their identity to the will of the people. In the United States’ last presidential election, two of three candidates, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, were considered left wing and right wing populists. Unlike westernized countries like the United States and countries of Europe, countries of Asia like India do not have strong democratic institutions that can prevent a growing population. Although India is one of the stronger democratic countries in Southeast Asia, there have been many indications of democratic backsliding since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to office in May of 2014. In the 2000’s, Modi made himself to be perceived by the citizens of Gujarat and all of India that he is the only leader who can fix India’s issues. Although Modi is credited for designing a political realignment geared towards right wing politics, he is still under controversy for his Hindu nationalistic beliefs and the Gujarat riots that occurred in 2002 that promoted an exclusive social agenda. There are many factors that attribute to India’s democratic decline like the violent tension between religious interest groups of the Hindus and Muslims and Modi’s demonetization policy.
First, the anti pluralist position of India means that the only interest group that Modi seeks to nationalize are the Hindus since India’s nationalism is derived from religious origin. Since Nehru, there had seemed to be no distinction between the conception of secular nationalism and religious nationalism in India because nothing in that regard was constitutionalized. This causes a conflict of interest for Muslims living in India because now Hindus can embody and authorize themselves to oppress anyone of other religious following. One instance, not including the many accounts that already occurred, was when fifteen year old Hafiz Junaid was murdered on a train. This does not give them the moral justice to inflict lynchings and tortures on the Muslim citizens of India. Modi is a part of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is a right wing party that enables Hindu people to attack the Muslims living in India. Modi is accused of promoting anti-Muslim policies, saying that Hindu families should have at least four children to out number the stagnant Muslim population. Ever since the creation of Hindutva, which is the hegemony of Hindus, a warlike mindset was engrained in the minds of the Hindus. Thus Muslims are victimized and oppressed. Müller says that populism fails to articulate the experience and vocabulary of those at the receiving end of such persistent violence. Since populism is a moralistic imagination of politics, desired traits of how a leader is supposed to run the state is perceived by the populist who is against the governmental constructs already. With Modi having anti-Muslim policies, similar to that of Trump’s, it deems him as a human categorizer. He categorizes Muslims as sub0-humans, people who are not living for the holy land of Hinduism.
Next, the demonetization policy that Modi started was supposed to eliminate “black money,” fake currency and terror financing, but also led to at least one hundred deaths by suicide. This occurred because the rural poor population of India have very minimal access to the banks and need liquid money to buy seeds and fertilizers. He eliminated the 500 and 1000 currency rupee notes from the denominations of rupees and would issue brand new 500 and 2000 rupee notes. This will automatically slow down the country’s GDP and goes against the constitutional right to property. There were also many costly components that went into the demonetization policy like printing new currency notes and recalibrating ATM machines. Also, most of the demonetized currency returned to India’s monetary system, which means that the dirty money was either used for clean means already or there was no dirty money to begin with. Modi is not helping with India’s population issue which is their biggest problem because there is not enough input of production. There is no infrastructure in most areas and no roads because over population of humans and animals. Modi should instill a limit on the amount of children one can have because welfare distribution should not be that high. This would slow down GDP more and put India in a financial crisis. Although India has a chance of a regime change into a dictatorship, it is not likely. “Sectors like real estate, manufacturing and finance have been under stress over the past year. Even agrarian discontent — which has been witnessed across various states, including Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, with farmers protesting and demanding loan waivers during the summer months — has been attributed to demonetization” (demonetization has eliminated black money- Murali Krishnan).
Works Cited:
Muller, Jan-Werner. 2016. What is Populism? Philadelphia: UPenn Press
Links:
https://theconversation.com/modis-polarising-populism-makes-a-fiction-of-a-secular-democratic-india-80605
http://www.dw.com/en/one-year-after-demonetization-has-india-eliminated-black-money/a-41276486
Kishan Patel argued well saying that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s populist tactics are basically harmful to democratic enhancement in India.
Patel poignantly illustrates two key points. First, how Modi embroils tacitly himself with political hegemony with the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to which he belongs to and Hindutva, which is the hegemony of Hindus and political ideologue of BJP. Based on this, Modi and his government policies and political actions tend to manifest strong and inalienable anti-minority religions (Christians and Muslims) sentiments. Sadly several BJP and Hindutva cadres continue to lynch Muslims sporadically across the country in the name of Hindu nationalism. Modi has done nothing to end this from his part as head of the government, despite having strong populism that he enjoys among the mass and the political clout that he has among the BJP and Hindutva regiment. Muslims, who make up about 170 million of India’s 1.3 billion population, have faced attacks after being accused of eating beef or killing cows, an animal considered sacred in Hinduism. As a free citizen of India, Muslims, like any Hindu for that matter, have right to eat what they wish to. No government would ever decide on one’s food habits in a democracy. This goes against the basic human rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
After Muslims, Christians are on the target by BJP and Hindutva, because both communities are perceived as Congress-vote banks. When Christians are persecuted and killed, their houses are burnt, churches and Christian institutions are attached by BJP and Hindutva forces, Modi does not take any step to stop these.
Since Modi came to power in 2014 with a populist mandate, many Dalits (formerly untouchables) are killed, subjugated inhumanly, and have become victims of Government’s structural apathy facing injustice, atrocities and unjust treatment meted against them amidst the caste-ridden Indian society. Modi opts to remain silent.
In recent months, India has been facing series of rape cases of minor girls and women, in some instances, his BJP ministers and party men are involved and that too in BJP-ruled states. Modi hardly speaks about girls and women’s safety, if he does; it is merely a lip service, without any urgent, stern and swift action. His slogan of girls and women’s education and empowerment policy is said to be “hollow” and lacks substance and sense given the violence against women on the rise unabatedly, as his critics rightly have said of Modi. Again, Modi chooses to remain silent.
When he was chief minister of Gujarat state (his home state), Modi was very penchant in criticizing his predecessor, Manmohan Singh, labeling him “as a silent prime minister.” Now, same Modi at the helm of affairs as prime minister is not following his own advice to Singh and consciously refuses to “speak more often.” Modis’ failure to speak up on several occasions and pressing issues had allowed people to think that they could get away without stern action being taken against them. What is lacking is that those in authority (such as Modi) must speak up in time (so as) to give a lead to their followers. Sadly this is wanting. It is Modi’s style of political hypocrisy. This questions his populism.
Second Patel mentions about the uncalled and abrupt demonetization move that Modi did with his vicious motif to end “black money,” “fake currency” and “terror financing.” Nothing has happened on the ground so far in this regard. Modi really misled the public with his futile and irrational logic and without any empirical substantive data to claim and justify his arguments. His irrational move of demonetization adversely affected GDP and economy as testified my several country’s stalwart economists and international policy experts and economists including Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen. Modi messed up with the Indian economy. In this gimmicks of Modi, the poor, unorganized sectors of farmers, laborers, and people at the periphery were affected due to his mischievous move. Modi remained unmoved by the poor’s plight that demonetization caused. What is most disgust is that Modi has refused to discuss the demonetization issue (recalling of 500 and 1000 bills) in the Parliament and answer intelligibly the questions of his Opposition on the floor of the Parliament. Again, he is evasive in this regard.
During this political campaign in 2014, Modi promised that once voted to power, he would create 10 million jobs. Almost four years have passed and a year to go before the general election next year, Modi’s promise of creating job has not taken place. It is merely an illusion that he created. Meanwhile, a recent World Bank report says that India needs to create more than 8 million jobs a year to maintain its employment rate which has been declining over the past decade. “Every month, the working age increases by 1.3 million people and India must create 8.1 million jobs a year to maintain its employment rate, which has been declining based on employment data analyzed from 2005 to 2015, largely due to women leaving the job market,” the report said. Modi does not speak on this as well.
Another case of Modi’s refusal to speak is about Nirav Modi’s, one of fugitive Indian jeweler, who is the main accused in the US$ 2 billion fraud bank fraud. Nirav is a regular on the lists of rich and famous Indians since 2013, along with his group companies — Diamond R US, Stellar Diamond and Solar Exports, and an uncle and business partner and others have been named in the huge scam, admitted by the Punjab National Bank in February and leading to a massive upheaval in the country’s banking system. The country wants to know about this bank fraud, but Prime Minister chose to remain silent.
Thousands of farmers across the country have committed suicide over the erratic weather conditions and their subsequent crop loss and the burden of loan that they are unable to pay to the lending agency. The farmers’ agricultural-related distress and plight have become a matter of great concern as India is an agrarian economy-based democracy. Modi has hardly spoken on this matter as well.
The litany of Modi not speaking on pressing issues (economy, human rights, human dignity, social justice, employment, communal violence, law and order, women’s safety, the lynching of Muslims as well as the baiting of Dalits, issue of education, and so on) that affect the vast majority of the population.
Modi chooses silence over speech on several matters during his tenure. As he enjoys populist, he or his people at the helm affairs in several states in the country cannot tend to misuse the authority of government so that those who do that must not think they can get away with it saying law and order is the responsibility of state governments. The BJP government at the Federal level-led by Modi could send instructions to its state governments to ensure that law and order are properly enforced, and minorities and Dalits and women are treated properly.
Farmers, indigenous people, victims of social injustice, girls and women and every citizen should enjoy human rights, human dignity, social justice and improvement of livelihood of people. If these issues and concerns remain unmet and Modi remains silent to speak and address them adequately, Modi’s populist tactics are detrimental to democratic improvement in India as Patel argued.
Your point about Modi’s populism is well-informed; Modi certainly employs populist tactics to define India as a Hindu nation and propagate the Hindutva ideology. The employment of this rhetoric is, as you mention, dangerous for Muslim citizens of India, who are cast by the BJP’s Hindutva platform as essentially enemies of the state who need to be treated as second-class citizens. Hindutva nationalists who have committed abhorrent crimes against Muslim citizens, (including the recent rape, torture, and murder of an eight-year-old Kashmiri Muslim girl) have not been roundly condemned by all politicians but instead openly defended by some members of the ruling BJP party, which suggests the fundamental struggle between secular, democratic pluralism and extremist, chauvinist, exclusionary majoritarian rule.
I think the demonetization scheme that Modi devised was designed to appeal to those who may have voted for him in opposition to the perceived corruption of the Congress Party and wealthy elite. It was likely meant to be an anti-corruption initiative to counter the plethora of “black money” in the Indian monetary system, albeit a failed one; as you mention, it has impoverished many who are dependent on liquid money for their livelihoods, including farmers, shopkeepers, and countless others. Additionally, the government was ill-prepared for the execution of this plan, underestimating the number of people demanding to deposit their money and requesting other bills. It is true that Modi does not seem to have contributed positively to economic growth in India; in fact, demonetization seems to have curbed the growth of its GDP. However, I do not see a direct correlation between your argument about Modi as a populist who is facilitating the decline of democracy in India and the demonetization plan he suddenly implemented on November 8, 2016 with very little notice.
Furthermore, you failed to mention how the decline of democracy in India has also been facilitated by increasing restrictions on free speech and non-governmental organizations, with sedition laws being used as a means of stifling dissenting opinions across the country. Foreign NGOs who have attempted to do work in the country have found themselves restricted by license withdrawals, draconian finance laws, and Indian intelligence reports that NGOs like Greenpeace and Amnesty International have been curbing economic growth by opposing projects on the basis of environmental health and human rights respectively. The restrictions on free speech and non-governmental organizations threaten to chill the growth of Indian civil society and restrict its activities significantly, limiting citizens’ ability to advocate for certain policies or against government actions. So while I think your point about communal tensions being stoked by the BJP has certainly contributed to democratic decline in India, the demonetization scheme is a far less effective example than the stifling of civil society.