Elections, democracy, the Modi phenomenon, and his inevitable march to victory in 2024.

(Note: When I finished writing the essay, I realized that this is my 600th published piece. I began writing these essays to explore my thoughts on a subject, but over time, your readership and support helped sustain my effort—for which I am immensely indebted to all of you. Thank you for your support and time.)

2024 is a massive year for democracy. About 65 countries head to elections, and around four billion people are expected to vote. India and the USA, the two biggest and most vibrant democracies, will go to the polls. Free and fair elections are crucial for the identity of a democratic nation. But in recent decades, elections seem to have lost their sanctity. Increasingly, governments have begun orchestrating the drama of fair and free elections to show the world that they are elected through a democratic process, even though the intervening years don’t justify the status of a democracy. It is like a school that doesn’t bother about the quality of its education as long as it can produce a 100% pass percentage. Even countries that are clearly under authoritarian rule, say Russia, for instance, Putin’s Government, will make all efforts to orchestrate a “democratic” election even though the world knows there is hardly any opposition worth talking about there. Governments go through a lot of trouble to stage such polls. Such validation in the eyes of the world has become the benchmark for governments to proclaim themselves as democratic. Political rights, civil liberties, and government policies are swept under the carpet, and the electoral process becomes a game of numerical advantage and nothing more. The question of freedoms – individual, civil, political, and religious- is sacrificed at the altar of electoral mandate.

How do we measure the quality and actual extent of freedoms available in different democratic nations as objectively as possible? Not an easy task at all. But that is precisely what Freedom House, a non-profit, nonpartisan organization founded in 1941 in the United States, has been doing for several decades. It was created during a time when fascism and totalitarianism were on the rise in Europe, and it was set up to support the Allies’ fight against the Axis powers. Prominent Americans, including Wendell Willkie, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Herbert Hoover, were involved in the organization during that time. After the war, the organizational focus shifted to monitoring and advocating for democracy, political freedom, and human rights around the world. The institute is known for the rigor of its research, the objectivity of its analysis, and its advocacy of freedom globally. One of Freedom House’s most well-known and influential publications is the annual “Freedom in the World” report, which charts the state of political rights and civil liberties across countries. The report was first published in 1973, and since then, it has been widely used by policymakers, researchers, and activists as a benchmark to study and assess democracies. Despite occasional criticism of its methodology and alleged political biases in arriving at its scores, Freedom House and the work they do has remained a prominent and respected voice in measuring international human rights compliance and the freedoms of the democratic community. This year’s report, “Freedom in the World 2024”, published not long ago for the year 2023, highlights a continued decline in global freedom for the 18th consecutive year, with political rights and civil liberties tangibly diminishing in 52 countries and only 21 countries registered marginal improvements. For a closer look at this, visit https://freedomhouse.org/explore-the-map?type=nit&year=2023. Very insightful about how democracies can be assessed. Will raw electoral numbers alone do? Judge for yourselves.

In India, the 2024 national election is a foregone conclusion. BJP is coming back to power, and Narendra Modi will step into his third term as the Prime minister. Any other prediction is inconceivable at this time. There is no opposition worth the salt that has shown even the slightest strength or resolve or capability of measuring up to the stature of the BJP or, more importantly, the impact of Brand Modi. The only excitement in this election is to see how many MPs from which alliance parties will get a chance to sit in the Lower House of the Parliament. Other than this, 2024 is a formality to be completed. One would have thought that after the 2019 debacle, Congress would resurrect ( or is resuscitate a better word?) itself, realign its strategy, sport the right leader ( certainly not Rahul Gandhi), and give the BJP a run for its money in 2024. That hasn’t happened. Just about a month away from the elections, Congress and its alliance partners do not have a unified agenda, a persuasive message, or even a common ideological platform that matters. It is my opinion that it might save the country’s exchequer billions of dollars if we can skip conducting the elections this year and request Modi to continue. Such is his popularity and unparalleled sway. The Modi juggernaut looks unstoppable, and nothing short of the wildest miracle, like the ocean parting for Moses, can pave the way for the opposition to win.

The Indian National Congress is tottering its way into obscurity. It is sad, but that is what happens when a political party does not periodically reinvent itself. For sixty years, Congress ruled the country without any creative direction and couldn’t foresee the impact that economic liberalization in the 1990s would bring to the thoughts and aspirations of people. The real independent India was born the day we opened up our borders to the world and were relieved from the stranglehold of state-determined socialist policies. BJP proved better at reading the signs of that seismic change and capitalized on key economic, political, and social moments of the times. The tide began to turn BJP’s side with the Ram Janma Bhoomi issue, a fuse that triggered and revived deeply buried emotions and identities. BJP used the passions that were whipped up in the process to gain space and momentum in their political journey. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in his brief time as Prime Minister, showed Indians glimpses of how different India can be and how much more confidence and authority it could have on the world stage with focused and nation-centric governance at the top instead of pocket-filling congress party members who looked after themselves at the cost of the nation. As the BJP rose in stature, Congress was left flapping its wings in vain. Riddled with corruption and nepotism, the party that had played a key role during our struggle for independence had lost its nerve, vision, and capacity to fly, not to mention effective leadership. And all this was way before the Modi phenomenon happened.

Narendra Damodardas Modi was born in 1950 to a lower-caste family in the small town of Vadnadar, Gujarat. His father, Damordas, earned his living by pressing cooking oil. Modi lived with his family of six siblings in a muddy house close to the old town. The village was poor and without power or running water but had some historical importance in that it was a minor Buddhist center in the sixth century and a trading post sometime later. After ten years of Modi’s government, Vadnagar hasn’t changed much. It is still a small and gloomy hamlet. The Damordas tea stall, where Modi worked, is no longer there. But enough fables have grown around Modi in Vadnagar, largely due to a comic book titled “Bal Narendra” published in 2014, the year Modi was elected for his first term as the Prime minister. There are incidents in the book of how the young Narendra braved himself to save a boy from drowning in the town’s crocodile-infested lake and how he brought a crocodile home, much to his mother’s chagrin. Like these, the picture book is filled with tales of courage, bravado, and leadership qualities. None of them are substantiated, but it doesn’t matter because, by the time the comic book was published, Modi had become a larger-than-life figure in Indian politics. The veracity of these stories wasn’t even a point to be discussed and questioned. It was deemed true. There is enough evidence, though, that Modi was a good student at the only school in the town, and at a young age, he could hold an audience when he spoke. People in Vadnagar who are old enough to recall Modi from his younger days remember his active participation in the RSS branch meetings held on the town grounds. The discipline, agenda, and force of the RSS ideology had a profound impact on him, as did it on others. But for young Modi, It was transformational. When Modi was nineteen years old, he married Jasodaben, a union that was decided by the family when both of them were children. Modi was against formalizing this relationship but went through with the ceremony.

A year later, he left his wife and family behind for a two-year pilgrimage across the country with a mission to understand his country, its culture and people, and his future role. It is not clear where he traveled and what he did during this period. Just as Swami Vivekananda ( Modi’s idol) pilgrimaged in the late nineteenth century across the length and breadth of India to understand, absorb, and feel the spiritual undercurrents of this ancient country before emerging as a world-renowned evangelist of the Hindu faith, Modi returned home after his two-year peregrination a changed man deeply infused with the greatness of India’s past and the shape of its future. He stayed just for a night, and the following morning, he bid goodbye to his mother and left the small town of Vadnagar for good. In later years, except for his mother, whom he periodically met, Modi completely severed relationships with all other branches of his family. He knew even then that for the role he wanted to play as a politician, family would become an impediment. He shifted base to Ahmedabad, the party’s regional headquarters, and there he lived a spartan life. He slept on a mattress on the floor, served senior members in all capacities, learned the art of politics, refined his speaking skills into that distinctive Modi style, and remained a teetotaler, vegetarian, and celibate bachelor. When his father died in 1999, he visited Vadnagar briefly to pay his last respects and never returned. From then on, the nation became Modi’s family, the RSS, and the BJP – his abode, sustenance, and destiny.

While the Congress party was busy promoting dynastic politics, it was to the credit of the BJP that it was building and nurturing men and women like Modi, who had no financial axe to grind, no family to serve, fired by a vision of a stronger India, essentially incorruptible, and, therefore, able to dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to the task of nation-building. When the world waited for India to disintegrate as a democracy shortly after the violent partition it went through in 1947, the Congress party stabilized democratic India, mainly due to the force and charisma of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime minister of the country. However, decades later, Congress became more of a burden and a liability than anything else. It was time for the baton to pass to others. In 1991, India, on the brink of a financial collapse, had no choice but to release the stranglehold of its socialistic and protectionist financial policies. Overnight, the complexion of the country changed. A new globally competitive India emerged. The internet opened up the media, and more and more people understood the disastrous effects of complacent, nepotic, and corruption-filled congress governments that had kept the country under its dynastic grip. History is witness to the fact that whenever there are fundamental changes in society, the question of national identity rises again and again. Post 1991, a new generation had come up who wanted nothing to do with the past 50 years. They were born to be global citizens, and they hoped for an assertive identity. The BJP seized on this wave of redefining India’s identity. Its idea of a Hindu nation found resonance across large swathes of the country. BJP’s firebrand leaders, trained in the crucible of the RSS, brilliant orators, and each one of them intellectually and emotionally convinced of their vision, stood in stark contrast to the submissive white-kurta and topic-clad congress members who represented everything that had gone wrong in independent India.

The rest is history. On May 16th, 2014, when the BJP won the national elections, we could feel in our bones that a new era was born. Though the BJP was in power a decade ago for a brief period under Vajpayee, it was only in 2014 that we felt that the BJP had indeed arrived and Modi was the man who could actualize India’s potential. Ten years later, that positive feeling and the sense of destiny haven’t diminished. If anything, It has only gotten stronger. The creation of the brand Modi is one of the most carefully constructed and orchestrated political campaigns ever, and Modi is the image of the party on the global stage. The transformation of Modi from a rigid, dogmatic, and highly opinionated leader, typical of the RSS cadre, to a savvy, seasoned, and development-oriented leader of the largest democracy in the world, carrying the responsibility of a new India on his shoulders – is remarkable indeed. Always impeccably dressed in colorful kurtas ( except green), calm, confident, well-prepared, seasoned, with an effortless flair for words blending into masterful oratory, is nothing short of genius. He oozes power in every pore. Whether one agrees with the BJP ideology or not, whether one is aligned with their policies or not, it is impossible to deny the respectability, dignity, and power that Modi has brought to his leadership role. Shobha De, the audacious Indian essayist and Novelist, recounted in one of her television interviews a couple of years ago how Modi’s presence was such a palpable quality in a room full of people. She said, ” You could almost feel his magnetic personality, and his ability to be completely present and respond in the moment was amazing.” This is true of Modi, even for those of us who watch him only on television. He is focused on whatever he does – whether it is delivering a speech, giving an interview, inaugurating a facility, praying at a temple, or mingling with people. His measured actions have a reassuring effect on people.

Some may accuse me of being biased in my view of Modi and the BJP. There is merit to this criticism, and I will not shy away from it. I have my reasons. For the first time in my lifetime, I see a prime minister who is confident, charismatic, and steadfast in his vision. There are blindspots in that vision; I agree, but there is clarity in where the nation is heading, and the strides made in that direction are confident. I have admired the intellectual acumen of Narasimha Rao and the academic brilliance of Manmohan Singh, but to me, they failed as leaders of the nation. They performed their roles within the shadow of a family. For decades, the congress governments have procrastinated, dodged, or remained indecisive about questions that have been haunting the republic since independence. Indecision is the worst form of paralysis, both at an individual level and for nations. Modi is decisive. Both his party and he speak in one voice without dissent. In a country of more than a billion people, not all decisions are likely to find unanimous approval. It seems to me that the current criticisms leveled at some of the policies on citizenship, etc, are more on hearsay than anything else. The taste of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. From what I have read of these acts available in the public domain, I am convinced that the alleged threats to democratic rights and freedoms are more emotionally driven than by a clear reading of the text. Of course, there is always scope for debate and modifications, but it would be foolish to deliberately criticize and attempt to throw away the baby with the bathtub.

In Francis Fukuyama’s landmark and highly debated 1992 book ” The End of History,” he reasoned that liberal democracies are the highest form of political arrangement, and societies that have achieved this state have nothing more to strive for. India moved away from socialism and became capitalistic in 1991 when we transitioned into Western-style free markets, but are we liberal and democratic? Are the fundamental rights of an individual as enshrined in the constitution a reality for all? These are important questions, and at present, there are no clear answers. The opposition insists that human democracy under Modi is under threat and doesn’t miss an opportunity to label the BJP as a divisive party, a fascist regime – as some mistakenly like to point out. I don’t want to get into this, but I only wish to point out that in BJP’s rhetoric, secularism means India first and not any specific faith. Modi’s government has been bringing India structural changes to the country. With the BJP poised to win a third term, this agenda will only become even more irreversible and fortified.

The Freedom House report that I alluded to in the earlier paragraphs of this essay downgraded India’s democracy index from “Free” to “Partly free.” That doesn’t mean that we are in a precarious position, democracy-wise. It just means that some of the parameters on which this index is based are currently under debate in the country. There is unrest and mixed opinions among people. This is inevitable in a big democratic nation attempting to forge new pathways. However, it will be among the Modi government’s critical responsibilities in the coming term to demonstrate the value of the reforms and decisions made for the nation’s greater good. From demonetization to Ramjanmabhoomi, the BJP has shown that it can orchestrate large-scale changes and focused action. I still remember the vivid pictures in Doordarshan in 1992, when the Babri masjid was broken down, and thirty years later, I watched Prime Minister Modi ( who in 1992 was just about beginning his ascent within the party) perform the inauguration ceremonies in Ayodya. Even the Gujarat riots of 2002, one of the blackest days in Indian history and which happened under Modi’s watch, is now behind him. Other nations of the world, who had once denied Modi visas, today look upon him as a leader of great stature and welcome his presence with both arms. The man himself has grown into a brand, an icon. Even the opposition knows that they have no candidate to match Narendra Damordas Modi’s charisma and image. He stands alone and tall. The “Modi guarantee,” a phrase that has come to mean confidence in his promises, is resonating across the country. Even in states such as Tamilnadu, where the BJP was politically irrelevant for a long time, today, they are fighting the 2024 election on equal terms with the regional parties. They may not sweep the polls in Tamilnadu this time, but they will no longer be a marginal party either. But again, they could throw up a surprise and upset the decades-long hegemony of the regional parties. Can the Modi magic achieve that?

The nation will decide in a couple of months. As I said earlier, only a miracle can change the 2024 electoral results.