Debate: What a Second Term for Narendra Modi Means for India

The exit polls predict the return of Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister of India. What does a second term for Modi mean for India? What are its implications on the idea of India as a diverse, secular, plural society and what Indians stand for?

In a conversation with the BloombergQuint, James Crabtree of LKY School of Public Policy said that the return of Modi as Prime Minister does not mean the collapse of the multicultural idea of India which the liberals fear. “I think we are more likely to see a continuation of what we saw in the first Modi term,” Crabtree said.

“I think among Indian liberals, there is a sense that if Modi comes back to power, this is going to be a liberal apocalypse. Some of the trends you saw in the first term, the alarm among minorities or the decline in institutions is accelerating dramatically – People fear one will see a scenario similar to Turkey or Russia. I don’t think that’s quite right.”

James Crabtree, LKY School of Public Policy

Talking about mainstreaming of the fringe, Resident Fellow at American Enterprise Institute Sadanand Dhume said, incidence of anti-Muslim bigotry has proliferated under the ruling elite. “They just have no sense of judgment. They have no breaks, no common sense. There doesn’t seem to be anybody else, either in the party or in government or outside government, who can counsel them to take a wiser path,” Dhume said.

Citing the appointment of Yogi Adityanath as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and fielding Malegaon blast accused Pragya Singh Thakur from Bhopal for the Lok Sabha elections, Dhume said, are examples of leaders encouraging collective violence and collective retribution.

“If the system was functioning properly and there was some kind of wisdom that was operating, someone would say, this is really going too far, it’s not good, it’s destabilising for India, it’s also terrible for international image, you need to rethink this. Unfortunately, in India where we are in today, there’s no one out there to make that point,” he added.