Narenda Modi became Prime Minister of India in May of 2014 in what was the biggest democratic election ever. He ran as part of the Bharatiya Janata Party which won a dominant 282 out of the 534-seat lower house of the Indian Parliament. To add perspective to that number, the party that won the next largest number of seats was the Indian Congress Party with 44 seats. Modi and the BJP have a massive electoral mandate and a strong position to enact real change in India. This should scare all of us.
Perhaps the most frightening fact about Modi is that he is a Hindu nationalist leading a government made of Hindu nationalists. Hindu nationalism has been on the rise in the last few decades in response to political mobilizations by the lower classes in India. Note that this in not Indian nationalism, but Hindu nationalism. India is an amazingly diverse country with Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and almost every other religious sect. Yet Hindu nationalists like Modi clearly value Hindu interests over those of any minority, as is apparent by a proposed anti-conversion law aimed at preventing people from leaving Hinduism. This mindset, which values one group of citizens over all others for an arbitrary reason, is eerily reminiscent of fascist principles.
The clearest example of fascist practice and ideology in India is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a right-wing organization of which Modi was once a member. The RSS boasts being the world’s largest charity with over six million members. However, charitable aid is not the main goal of the RSS — just looking at the RSS website gives quotes like “the ideal of the [RSS] is to carry the nation to the pinnacle of glory, through organizing the entire society and ensuring protection of Hindu Dharma.” There is no reference to charity on the website, but instead a great deal of Hindu nationalistic rhetoric. In addition, the RSS has an army. The RSS recruits and trains people to fight with traditional Hindu weapons while indoctrinating them with right-wing Hindu ideology. While Modi might not completely embrace the fascist ideology of the RSS his membership in and support of it reflects a scary right-wing attitude shaping governmental policy.
Perhaps I should be skeptical of Modi, as prime minister, doing anything to blatantly encourage or aid an extremist group such as the RSS, but given his history I am not. Before becoming the prime minister, Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat, a state in western India with a population of over sixty million. Under his leadership, the 2002 Gujarat riots occurred. A train was set on fire, allegedly by Muslims, which sparked what many have argued were Muslim pogroms. More than a thousand people were killed in the riots — most of them Muslims — while many others were raped or had their property damaged or destroyed. Tellingly, the state government did very little to stop the killings, and a later report even revealed that many police and politicians were at least complicity involved. Later, in an interview, Modi was asked what he would have done differently during the riots. He replied that his only regret was that he did not handle the media better. The man who is now the leader of the country views a riot that occurred under his leadership as only a public relations problem. While Modi may not try to incite more riots, there is still a poisonous, anti-Muslim, pro-Hindu mindset that shapes how Modi handles the government.
Modi wouldn’t be nearly so scary if he weren’t also amazingly charismatic and likeable. He has received the approval of Arnold Schwarzenegger and is on friendly terms with President Obama. Playing up his celebrity, Modi wore a jacket with his name written on it when Obama recently visited, which the Indian people loved. His charisma makes it very hard to focus on the dubious aspects of Modi’s character and history. We all need to look past the charm and understand the scary fact that India is headed by a popular nationalist leader who is backed by millions of trained patriot-soldiers.
India has a strong multi-party system centered on coalition governments that make it very hard for Hindu nationalism to run rampant. Yet in India there is a strong thread of nationalist exclusionist thought that has the potential to become dangerous. Modi’s powers might not be so unlimited, but a nationalistic man leading the Indian state should be very scary to us all.
Bobby Doyle is a Viewpoint writer.
Correction: a previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Prime Minister Modi is currently a member of the RSS.
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