In May, Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government swept to power in India on his promise to revive investment, boost manufacturing and create jobs. “Acche din aa rahe hain”, his election slogan claimed: “Good days are on their way.” Many influential commentators — from US-based economists and centre-right think-tanks to Madhu Kishwar, a well-known Indian feminist writer — vigorously endorsed Modi’s credentials as an economic moderniser or vikas purush, “Development Man”.
Six months on, Modi’s scorecard on the development front is mixed. India’s gross domestic product has slowed from 5.7 per cent to 5.3 per cent in the first full quarter of his prime ministership. Industrial output is down and Modi’s plan to imitate East Asia’s export-oriented economies with a government-directed push for “Make in India” looks anachronistic at a time of increasing automation and slow global growth. It was left to Raghuram Rajan, the well-regarded governor of the Reserve Bank of India, to point this out tactfully earlier this month.
Fixed investment has barely budged in recent months. An industrialist asked the Times of India: “Why will foreigners come to invest here when Indians are not investing?” The Economic Times, India’s biggest business daily, reports that even some of Modi’s corporate backers, who bankrolled his rise to power, are full of disquiet.
Critics of “Development Man” are arguably being unfair, or at least hasty. India’s economic problems are structural and deep-rooted; they stem from, among other things, poor investments in education and infrastructure, and excessive reliance on crony capitalism. As I wrote after Modi’s election, any euphoria over a singular “reformer” or “moderniser” at the top — whether named Modi or Manmohan Singh — can only be a prelude to disillusionment.
However, Modi’s extended family of Hindu nationalists assesses his six months as Prime Minister differently. It measures progress by the steps India has taken towards purging foreign influences and becoming a “Hindu nation”.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the parent outfit of Hindu nationalists (Modi is a lifelong member), has long wanted India’s religious minorities to call themselves Hindu. Members of the Bajrang Dal, a militant RSS affiliate, claimed this month to have “reconverted” 200 Muslims in Uttar Pradesh to Hinduism. Senior RSS ideologues hailed this “homecoming”. The RSS, whose members fill 19 positions in Modi’s cabinet, is also seeking to Hinduise India’s Christian-majority northeastern states.
A senior minister in Modi’s cabinet claimed recently that there are two kinds of Indians: Children of the deity Rama (read Hindus) and bastards (read Muslims and Christians). Though she was forced to disavow her comments, Modi criticised her mostly for distracting from his focus on development. Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj has advocated that the Bhagvad Gita, the sacred Hindu text, should be declared the “national scripture” of India. Rajnath Singh, the Union Home Minister, claimed recently that Werner Heisenberg (whom Singh called “Eisenhower”) had derived his uncertainty principle from the ancient Vedas. Leaders of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) now routinely propose revisions in modern science as well as history. According to some, bodily emanations of the holy cow — from milk to urine — can cure corruption as well as dysentery. Apparently, the Hindu nationalist assassin of Mahatma Gandhi was a “patriot” and the Taj Mahal a Hindu temple.
How to reconcile this eruption of know-nothing chauvinism and sectarian lusts with the great expectations from Modi’s development mantra? Kishwar now claims that prime-ministership “has damaged his brain because he was not like that”.
Modi as Prime Minister has actually toned down his rhetoric and the demand that he focus on economic modernisation and suppress his followers’ retrograde cultural politics may sound sensible. But it betrays a perilous naivete about Modi’s past as a missionary of the RSS, as well as disregard for the organisation’s openly-avowed long-term project: The Hindu nationalisation of Indian society.
In the minds of many politicians, think-tanks and journalists, pragmatic interests (narrowly defined as economic) trump ideological beliefs. But such quasi-rationalistic assumptions have led to a consistent failure to appreciate the potency of ideological zeal in the world today.
It should not be surprising at all that Modi has failed to deplore wholeheartedly his supporters’ statements, let alone to make them firing offences. A politician called Giriraj Singh who, earlier this year, had advocated banishing Modi’s critics to Pakistan, has been rewarded with a ministerial position. Banned briefly during the elections for hate speech, and still facing trial for murder and kidnapping, Amit Shah, Modi’s closest aide, is now president of his party.
For these implacable culture warriors who have spent their lives fighting for a Hindu nation, “acche din” or good days have been in India since May. And regardless of what the GDP figures say and investors think, they are getting better all the time.
— Washington Post
Bloomberg View columnist Pankaj Mishra is the author of From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia.
