LONDON: Opinion pieces on the Indian elections have been appearing thick and fast in the Western press.
On Monday, the Times ran a “leading article” saying: “Mr Modi is likely to be recognised as probably the most significant Indian leader since independence”, putting his popularity down to spectacular growth, new technology, and welfare policies.
“Modi has cultivated the image of a strongman… thumbing his nose at Western liberals and telling Indians their turn in the global spotlight has come.This plays as well with the poor as the rich elites,” it said.
But “there is a darker side to his popularity,” the editorial continued. “Modi embraces ‘Hindutva”, playing up a nationalist Hinduism and discriminating against and passing laws that “disadvantage India’s large Muslim minority”. It said Modi was “intolerant of the opposition”, referring to the arrest of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, and claimed that “heavy pressure has been imposed on India’s once lively press to toe the government line,” including occasional harassment of the BBC.
The arrest of AAP ministers and freezing of Congress bank accounts have been frequently mentioned.
Edward Luce, associate editor at the FT, asked on X: “Will this be India’s last democratic election”, whilst Hannah Ellis-Petersen, the Guardian’s correspondent, wrote: “Analysts and opponents have warned this could be the most one-sided election in India’s history.”
The FT’s editorial board penned an article titled “The ‘mother of democracy’ is not in good shape”, saying: “PM Modi has repeatedly called India the ‘mother of democracy’. If so, an intensifying clampdown on opposition parties suggests this matriarch of representative government is in ill health. Harassment, often by tax or legal authorities, has become common for government critics… The BJP’s muscular Hindu nationalism has eroded India’s tradition of secular democracy.”
Bloomberg columnist Andy Mukherjee wrote that the “more progressive and successful part of the country” was “drifting away from the poverty-ridden north” and its “majoritarian leader.” “A Hindu rashtra, or nation-state, will play well in the north. The very prospect of such an outcome fills the south with dread,” he claimed.
In the FT, Ruchir Sharma argued that Modi had expanded his base, not because of Hindutva ideology, but because he was delivering economic progress, and that the people of India were prepared to “trade political freedom for perceived progress” in the same way countries such as Taiwan and South Korea put together long runs of rapid growth with low inflation under autocratic leaders.
All the op-eds predicted BJP would win the election and Congress faced a wipeout. The Economist published a list of books on Hindutva, telling its readers that non-Indians needed to understand the origins and core ideas of the “dangerous ideology”.
“The residual Congress ideology is a sort of English Fabian socialism left out too long in the sun. The Congress manifesto was a standard left-of-centre list of desirable state handouts.It said little about more inclusive growth. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that Congress deserves the obscurity to which it is headed because of its acute intellectual shortcomings,” Philip Collins wrote in the Times.
On Monday, the Times ran a “leading article” saying: “Mr Modi is likely to be recognised as probably the most significant Indian leader since independence”, putting his popularity down to spectacular growth, new technology, and welfare policies.
“Modi has cultivated the image of a strongman… thumbing his nose at Western liberals and telling Indians their turn in the global spotlight has come.This plays as well with the poor as the rich elites,” it said.
But “there is a darker side to his popularity,” the editorial continued. “Modi embraces ‘Hindutva”, playing up a nationalist Hinduism and discriminating against and passing laws that “disadvantage India’s large Muslim minority”. It said Modi was “intolerant of the opposition”, referring to the arrest of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, and claimed that “heavy pressure has been imposed on India’s once lively press to toe the government line,” including occasional harassment of the BBC.
The arrest of AAP ministers and freezing of Congress bank accounts have been frequently mentioned.
Edward Luce, associate editor at the FT, asked on X: “Will this be India’s last democratic election”, whilst Hannah Ellis-Petersen, the Guardian’s correspondent, wrote: “Analysts and opponents have warned this could be the most one-sided election in India’s history.”
The FT’s editorial board penned an article titled “The ‘mother of democracy’ is not in good shape”, saying: “PM Modi has repeatedly called India the ‘mother of democracy’. If so, an intensifying clampdown on opposition parties suggests this matriarch of representative government is in ill health. Harassment, often by tax or legal authorities, has become common for government critics… The BJP’s muscular Hindu nationalism has eroded India’s tradition of secular democracy.”
Bloomberg columnist Andy Mukherjee wrote that the “more progressive and successful part of the country” was “drifting away from the poverty-ridden north” and its “majoritarian leader.” “A Hindu rashtra, or nation-state, will play well in the north. The very prospect of such an outcome fills the south with dread,” he claimed.
In the FT, Ruchir Sharma argued that Modi had expanded his base, not because of Hindutva ideology, but because he was delivering economic progress, and that the people of India were prepared to “trade political freedom for perceived progress” in the same way countries such as Taiwan and South Korea put together long runs of rapid growth with low inflation under autocratic leaders.
All the op-eds predicted BJP would win the election and Congress faced a wipeout. The Economist published a list of books on Hindutva, telling its readers that non-Indians needed to understand the origins and core ideas of the “dangerous ideology”.
“The residual Congress ideology is a sort of English Fabian socialism left out too long in the sun. The Congress manifesto was a standard left-of-centre list of desirable state handouts.It said little about more inclusive growth. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that Congress deserves the obscurity to which it is headed because of its acute intellectual shortcomings,” Philip Collins wrote in the Times.
