The Atlantic: The Gandhi Dynasty Helped Found India. It Is Now in Demise.

As the great-grandson, grandson, and son of Indian prime ministers, Gandhi’s political pedigree is not in question. Nor does his loss in Amethi mean that dynastic politics are over in India, where a new generation of politicians can trace their positions directly to their parents and grandparents. (Indeed, both his mother and his sister easily won their seats.) But the electoral humiliation of a scion of the Gandhi family, indeed the leader of the party that led India to independence from Britain, is striking in a region where dynastic politics have dominated the landscape for decades: The Gandhis in India, the Bhuttos and the Sharifs in Pakistan, the Bandarnaikes in Sri Lanka, and the descendants of Mujibur Rahman and Ziaur Rahman in Bangladesh have all been integral parts of their countries’ modern history. This parliamentary election, and Gandhi’s loss in a constituency whose past is closely intertwined with his family’s, is the most compelling sign yet that India has moved into a new era. [...]

One possible reason for this is that while the Congress Party has inexorably linked itself to the Gandhi family, Indian voters have moved on. This is a young country where half the 1.3 billion people are under the age of 27. The overwhelming majority of them are from modest backgrounds. In such circumstances, the story of Modi, the son of a tea vendor who, with no political godfather, became the most powerful Indian prime minister in decades, is a far more compelling narrative than that of Rahul Gandhi, a man who has seemingly had success hand-delivered to him.

Another possible reason is that Indian voters prioritize performance, rather than the lineage of a candidate—in fact, several regional political families won resounding victories in these elections. For whatever reason, the Congress Party, which has ruled India for 51 out of 71 years of independence, and the Gandhis, who have ruled for 36 of those years, no longer seem to fit the bill.

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Today in Focus: India is voting: will Modi win the world's biggest election?

The world’s largest ever election is nearing its conclusion in India, with voters in 20 states casting their ballots in the marathon six-week poll.

The election is being viewed as a referendum on the prime minister, Narendra Modi, a staunch Hindu nationalist who rode a wave of popularity five years ago to become the first leader of a majority government in decades.

The Guardian’s South Asia correspondent, Michael Safi, has been out on the campaign trail and tells Anushka Asthana that following the suicide bomb attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir earlier this year, Modi has focused his campaign fully on his national security credentials.

Also today: the Guardian sketchwriter John Crace on his day at Nigel Farage’s rally in West Yorkshire, where the Brexit party leader’s anti-establishment message was rapturously received.

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The Guardian: Modi's BJP suffers heavy election defeats in Hindi heartland

The governing Bharatiya Janata party’s (BJP) vote collapsed by 17 percentage points in Rajasthan state and by at least 12 points in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, all part of the Hindi heartland where Indian governments are traditionally made or broken.

Those losses, as well as the revival of a Congress party frequently written off in the past five years, had analysts revising their predictions for next year’s national polls, which Modi had been expected to win in a cakewalk. [...]

The government has contended with large protests in recent weeks by farmers in distress due to natural disasters and falling prices. Nearly 55% of India’s 1.25 billion population is directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture, and farmers form an important voting bloc for parties.

The BJP has also faced criticism from Hindu nationalist groups unhappy at the delay in building a temple to the deity Ram in his fabled birthplace Ayodhya. Unemployment also remains a problem despite high economic growth. [...]

Yet Modi’s personal popularity remains significant. In Mandsaur, a Madhya Pradesh rural town surrounded by yellow rapeseed fields, six farmers were shot and killed during one demonstration last year. The BJP lost surrounding districts on Tuesday but surprised analysts by holding Mandsaur, where Modi held a raucous campaign event in November.

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The New York Review of Books: A Mighty Wind

Yet before Modi was plucked from his post as chief minister of the state of Gujarat (roughly equivalent to an American governor) and made the party’s candidate for prime minister, the BJP had seldom excelled outside the “cow belt,” a socially conservative and largely Hindi-speaking northwestern wedge of the Indian diamond. Other Indians, whether minority Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, or just differently observant Hindus, generally shunned the Sangh “family”: they were earnest and devoted, yes, but also frightening; it was an extreme Hindu nationalist, after all, who shot Gandhi in 1948. The BJP could raise an occasional clamor, but the actual agenda of Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism—demands such as banning beef, ending the alleged “appeasement” of minorities by politicians seeking their votes, building a temple to the god Ram on the ruins of a mosque at his supposed birthplace, being extra-tough on Pakistan, or replacing “Western” modes of thinking and behaving with ostensibly “authentic” Indian ones like Ayurvedic medicine or rather vague notions of “Indian” economics—gained only slow and uneven traction in practice.  [...]

More political triumphs have followed. Having started with just seven in January 2014, the party and smaller allies now control nineteen states and territories that together account for nearly two thirds of India’s people—a feat not paralleled since Congress’s heyday in the 1960s. In March 2017 the BJP captured the biggest prize, Uttar Pradesh, a state with 220 million people, winning a stunning three quarters of all seats in the state legislature. In December it won an unprecedented sixth term in Gujarat, Modi’s home state, despite furious efforts by Congress to rally what has traditionally proven to be India’s most reliable political force, anti-incumbency. And in March the BJP captured three small states in the remote, ethnically complex northeast, proving its growing strength beyond the Hindi-speaking heartland. [...]

While Modi’s benign fatherly image has raised respect for the movement at home and abroad, his government has quietly inserted loyalists wherever possible in India’s establishment, from the boards of state-owned companies to top posts in state universities and research institutes. It has also aggressively—and quite effectively—bullied much of India’s mainstream press into toeing the party line. The Fox News–like stridency of Modi’s media claque does not seem to bother most voters, and many have also cheered what amounts to a quiet purge of the Congress-era mandarins who have long occupied the commanding heights in public life. Yet even among those who welcomed the BJP’s 2014 promise to make India “Congress-free,” some have begun to suspect that team Modi’s aim may be not merely to overcome but rather to destroy the once-dominant rival party, and not just to guide the national agenda but to capture the Indian state and hold it for keeps. [...]

In many of the BJP’s most successful campaigns, this politics of intercaste resentment has proved just as crucial as the party’s carefully cultivated grudge against “nonindigenous” religious minorities. (Hindutva ideologues make a pointed distinction between Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs, who are considered properly Indian, and Muslims and Christians, who are somewhat suspect—regardless of the fact that these big monotheistic faiths reached the subcontinent 1400 and 1900 years ago, respectively.) [...]

This is an expensive business. Vaishnav cites one study that puts the overall cost of India’s 2014 national election at $5 billion, in the same ballpark as the $6.5 billion that the US—a country whose GDP is almost ten times greater than India’s—spent on presidential and congressional elections in 2016. His candidate friend personally shelled out close to $2 million in a race for the Andhra Pradesh state assembly. That is more than thirty times the legal limit, yet Vaishnav was laughingly told that other candidates spent far more. In some states, inducements are paid in kind rather than cash. Kitchen appliances are the favored payoff in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. Election officials in Gujarat, an officially dry state, seized 500,000 bottles of liquor during its 2012 state elections—most of this presumably intended as sweeteners for voters.  

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Scroll: Congress believes Modi won’t stay on as prime minister even if BJP retains power in 2019. Here’s why

Boosted by its performance in the Gujarat Assembly election in December and victory in the Rajasthan bye-polls this month, the Congress has come to believe that Narendra Modi’s days as prime minister are numbered even if his Bharatiya Janata Party retains power in 2019. The logic runs thus: the BJP will lose its majority in the next general election, which means its allies will get to decide the leader – and they will prefer anyone but Modi. [...]

Another top leader argued that the Congress’s “tough challenge” to the BJP in the prime minister’s home state of Gujarat has demonstrated that Modi is not invincible. Moreover, Congress leaders believe anti-incumbency is rising against the BJP governments in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Haryana which, they said, will be reflected in its reduced strength in the Lok Sabha. The BJP had scored heavily in these states in the last election primarily because of the unpopularity of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government and Modi’s personal charisma. As a result, the Congress, was reduced to a paltry 44 seats in the last Lok Sabha election. [...]

The recent show of muscle-flexing by the BJP’s allies, Congress leaders believe, is another indication that the saffron party’s ratings are slipping. The Shiv Sena has declared it will not ally with the BJP in the next general election, the Telugu Desam Party is threatening to walk out of the ruling National Democratic Alliance because the Modi government’s promised financial package for Andhra Pradesh has not materialised, and the Shiromani Akali Dal has counselled the BJP to treat its partners better. While all this could well be put down to posturing before the next election, the Congress sees it as a sign of the BJP’s diminishing dominance.

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Al Jazeera: What India's BJP lost in the Gujarat elections

The narrow victory India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured in the assembly elections in the western state of Gujarat and northern state of Himachal Pradesh has brought some relief to its leadership. [...]

Yet not all was quiet and smooth in Gujarat. Before the elections, the state saw massive protests by traders against a new taxation regime introduced by the central government. There were reports of widespread resentment in rural areas and farmers were on a war path against the ruling party. Repeated atrocities against Dalits had shaken the conscience of the country, and the Dalits were out on the street, blaming the BJP for the violence. [...]

The emergence of these three leaders was significant, as they were opposition voices coming from within Gujarat. Earlier efforts against the Gujarat government did not have strong local or indigenous voices to back them. Modi as State Minister succeeded in convincing the Hindus of Gujarat that opposition to him was actually an insult to them and Gujarat. But it seems that since he's moved from Gujarat to Delhi, other local party leaders were not as successful in controlling public opinion. [...]

Gandhi also framed his campaign in economic language, constantly talking about the distress of the farmers and the unemployed youth. He presented himself as a devout Hindu, thus deflecting BJP attempts to brand him an imposter and pseudo-Hindu. Gandhi also strategically refrained from talking about the atrocities and isolation faced by the minorities in Gujarat. [...]

Modi's image, despite the electoral win, has taken a severe blow in the eyes of the public and the media. This has opened up many possibilities for politics of India and the 2019 parliamentary election which till yesterday was seen as yet another easy win for the BJP. Suddenly, it now seems that the 2019 vote is open game.

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Quartz: In Gujarat, a moment of reckoning for Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi

Now, Gujarat is set to vote again in a two-phase election on Dec. 09 and Dec. 14, with the results for all the 182 seats to be declared on Dec. 18. But the going’s gotten tougher for Modi’s BJP, which has ruled the state for 22 straight years now. Gandhi, meanwhile, has managed to make his presence felt, though nobody’s counting on this necessarily translating into electoral gains. [...]

Gujarat is India’s third-most industrialised and fourth-most urbanised state. It accounts for 7.6% of India’s GDP and has consistently grown at a faster rate than the country itself. But most importantly, it is Modi’s home state and its economic development has for long been his calling card. [...]

Meanwhile, for the battered and bruised Congress, this could be the last chance at regaining some respectability. If it wins—a humongous “if,” that is—redemption could be instant (and recent polls do underscore this possibility). In fact, even if the party loses but considerably improves its tally from the last time (60 out of 182), it would be a shot in the arm. [...]

The Dalit anger may not effectively translate into electoral trends considering that they form less than 8% of Gujarat’s population—and that, too, mostly scattered across the state. However, some of them may be looking to join hands with other agitated communities to make a mark. [...]

“Modi is today inaugurating projects that he first inaugurated in 2002, then in 2007, and yet again in 2012. People are asking why projects are not being completed? Even his showpiece monument, the big Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel statue (slated to be the world’s largest statue), is being built in China. So what happened to Make in India? This is a joke,” said Lalji Desai, general secretary of the Congress party in Gujarat. “No wonder there is anger in almost every section of the Gujarat society.”

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Bloomberg: Modi Remained Popular Even After His Cash Ban, Poll Says

The Pew Research Center poll conducted between Feb. 21 and Mar. 10, 2017 shows Narendra Modi remains the top choice among the current national leaders. His popularity has risen in the past year, including in southern and eastern parts of India where his party has not traditionally held power. Public confidence in the economy and the overall direction of the country also improved. 

Modi has come under some stinging criticism recently for his handling of the economy and the botched roll-out of the goods and services tax, including by a former finance minister of his own Bharatiya Janata Party. The survey of 2,464 Indians was conducted prior to data that showed growth slowing to levels last seen in 2014, a development economists have blamed largely on the disruptive demonetization policy. [...]

"The common man doesn’t understand all these issues, if the economy picks up or not, they just see if prices go up or come down," Kumar said. "People might be unhappy with the government’s policies on demonetization or GST, but they will vote for the BJP on other factors."

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Quartz: Why India has never seen a military dictatorship

Military dictatorships have been a common phenomenon in the post-colonial states of Asia and Africa, and in the 1950s and 1960s, a dictatorship in India was not an impossibility. In fact, while covering the 1967 general elections, The Times correspondent, Neville Maxwell, prophesied that these might well be the last elections ever in the country. And he was not the only one who believed that sooner or later, India would fall under military rule. [...]

The question why the Indian Army never attempted to seize power has sometimes been attributed to the fact that it is disciplined, highly professional, and steeped in proud 250-year-old traditions inherited from the British. But this theory doesn’t work, because the Pakistani army was born out of the same traditions and that didn’t seem to stop it from assuming power. [...]

In order to understand what didn’t happen in India, it is perhaps useful to first look at what did happen in Pakistan. The military dictatorship in Pakistan has had an interesting pre-history. It begins in undivided India, where the largest single component of the army was drawn from the undivided Punjab. Hence at the time of Partition, of all the institutions that Pakistan inherited, the most substantive was its army.

Moreover, while in India the Congress Party was a highly evolved, durable organisation, in Pakistan the Muslim League was not much more than “Jinnah and his Private Secretary.” Hence, there was a dangerous structural imbalance in Pakistan, especially after Jinnah’s death in 1948. [...]

Wilkinson explains how this ‘coup-proofing’ was implemented, through a package of carefully thought-out measures, ranging from diversifying the ethnic composition of the armed forces to setting up rugged command and control structures, re-casting the order of precedence between civil and military authorities, paying close attention to promotions, disallowing army officers from making public statements, creating a counter-balancing paramilitary force, and topping off this entire effort with little touches like ensuring that retired chiefs of staff are usually sent off as ambassadors to faraway countries.

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Quartz: Slowly but surely, India’s queer community is winning the battle for sexual equality

In 2015, a student at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru was blackmailed and threatened with being publicly exposed for being gay. When he refused to pay extortion money, the private letters turned into notices pinned on noticeboards on campus. The words were sharp, relentless and inhumane: “I think it’s completely shameful, bad, immoral and disgusting. You should go kill yourself. Why do you think it’s illegal to be gay in India?” [...]

The law is not the only force behind this violence, but it is an important one. “Why do you think,” the blackmailer asks, “it’s illegal to be gay in India?” When petitioners in the Naz argued that Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (which criminalises “voluntary carnal intercourse against the order of nature”) played an important part in shrouding our lives in criminality and legitimizing violence, this letter was one of many that we wrote against in our heads. In 2009, Naz gave many of us—not all, never all, for the law does not have such power by itself—a feeling of complete personhood. [...]

So what does it look like from within our fears? What has happened since the Supreme Court reversal of Naz? In one sense, it has been extraordinary. The reversal drew widespread condemnation in different forms and sites, from an extraordinary range of voices. The then-ruling government, led by the Indian National Congress, came out for the first time in strong and public support of queer rights as did several other parties including the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Janata Dal (S) and the Aam Aadmi Party. [...]

Progressive groups, state bodies like the National Human Rights Commission, teachers’ associations, professional associations including the medical and mental health establishments, women’s groups, student groups, trade unionists and private companies came out publicly against the judgment. Thousands across the country stood together, repeating the chant that brought together our resistance: “No Going Back.” A week after the judgment, “No Going Back” protests to mark a “Global Day of Rage” took place across thirty-six cities in the world, including seventeen in India. That resistance remains amidst the uncertainty and the fear, unwavering, unafraid.

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