The Daily - The Rise of Modi: India’s Rightward Turn

Episode Date: May 21, 2019

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has governed as a right-wing populist whose nationalist message has often pitted Hindus against Muslims. We look at what Mr. Modi’s likely re-election this week tells us about the country’s political future. Guest: Jeffrey Gettleman, the South Asia bureau chief for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading: Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalist politics and his efforts to project a strong image of India abroad appeared to have played well among the country’s 900 million registered voters, according to exit polls.The results of the election may reveal not just a decision on Mr. Modi but also a deeper one on what kind of government India really wants.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has governed as a right-wing populist whose nationalist message has pitted Hindus against Muslims. My colleague Jeffrey Gettleman, on what Modi's likely re-election this week, tells us about the kind of country that India is becoming. It's Tuesday, May 21st.

Jeffrey, what was the political landscape in India as voters were casting their ballots in this latest election? It's a complicated landscape here. This is an enormous electorate, 900 million registered voters. That's bigger than the population of the U.S. and Europe combined. And India is very diverse, very heterogeneous, different religions, different ethnic groups, different languages. And then there's also very rigid caste distinctions in India, from Brahmins at the top, who traditionally have a lot of wealth and power, to untouchables or Dalits is the word that's most often used today. On the political landscape, there are something like 2,000 different political parties vying for the votes.

Wow. And there's a couple leading parties, and the biggest one right now is the BJP. That party came up out of a Hindu social service organization, or some people call it a far-right organization, that in its early days was a little like a neo-Nazi party for Hindus. They even sent people to fascist Italy in the 30s and to Germany to study the right-wing fascism of Nazi Germany. And they brought that back to India. And they believed that India should have a strong Hindu identity

and that anybody who was not Hindu in India didn't really deserve to be part of the leadership. And one man who was a member of this far right Hindu nationalist group was the one who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. And after that, this political movement was banned. And only decades later in the 60s and 70s did it reemerge as a political force. Had a couple different names, but eventually became the BJP. And the leader of that party is Narendra Modi, the current prime minister. So Jeffrey, how did this man come to lead this country, given the controversial and in some sense kind of ugly roots of this party? That's a really good question.

Narendra Modi is a fascinating political figure. He is the first prime minister of India who has lasted more than a couple years, who comes from a lower caste. So many of India's prime ministers were Brahmins, the highest caste, very elite, well-educated, from wealthy families. And Modi is the antithesis of that. His father ran a tea stall in the state of Gujarat, which is in Western India, highly industrialized state, one of the wealthier states in India. And Modi has developed this mythology about his upbringing, where he was very poor, worked really hard, hustled at train stations, selling tea with his brother, came from a big family and had nothing, and worked his way up step by step. So even though he was a lower caste operative of this

big organization, his cunning, his intelligence, his determination allowed him to climb up the ladder and his low caste was not held against him. In the early 2000s, he became the chief minister of Gujarat, which is a huge position. It's like governor, you're in control of the entire state. And he had enormous support because he had proven himself as a passionate Hindu who stood up for Hindu beliefs. So what takes Modi from regional leader to the national stage? So 2002 was a defining moment for Modi and for India. There was a train car full of Hindu activists that was moving through Gujarat. And supposedly, according to many people on the Hindu right side, a mob of Muslim men attacked this train car and killed many people.

Hindu-Muslim relations in India have been tense historically. India is about 80% Hindu, 14% is Muslim, and after that train car was burned and dozens of Hindus were killed, there was this intense thirst for revenge, and this anger just exploded. Hindu mobs raged through the state, burning their neighbors alive and raping women, whilst the police and authorities were accused of standing back and at times encouraging it. Hindu mobs across the state began to mobilize and attack any Muslims they could find. And the police services and the state government did very little to stop this violence

before it had killed a thousand people. Now, guess who was in charge of the state at that time? Narendra Modi. And he was accused of standing by and letting these Hindu mobs eviscerate the Muslim population. And he's been asked many times since then, why didn't you do more? And he said that he couldn't. And there was even a comment that he made something like, of course, he was upset in the same way you'd be upset if a puppy was killed. So he compared the Muslims to a dog.

That's how it was interpreted. He might argue that he was saying that you would be sad if any innocent life was lost. But this became a defining moment to both sides. So the Hindu right saw Modi as a very strong warrior protecting their interests. In Muslim quarters, it was the absolute opposite. They saw Modi as an agent of the Hindu right who used this spark of religious violence as pretext to let more than a thousand Muslims be killed. In the end, though, that criticism of him didn't hurt him all that much politically. In the end, though, that criticism of him didn't hurt him all that much politically. In Gujarat, it played quite well because he was a forceful figure. He had a strong Hindu following.

But there's another dimension to him which is quite interesting. And that is he's very pro-business. And he's organized. And he's decisive. And Modi is credited with first doing a good job in Gujarat, opening up the community to business, eliminating corruption and red tape, and really pushing infrastructure and a business-friendly climate. And he rode this wave of growth, of annual GDP increases of 6%, 7%, 8% year after year after year, which delivers jobs for lots

of people and brings in wealth and can change people's entire lives. And he presented himself as somebody who could do that for the entire India. The other big party on the landscape here is the Indian National Congress. This party led India to independence from the British. This is the party of Mahatma Gandhi. This is the party of Nehru, who was India's founding father and the first prime minister after independence in 1947. The Congress Party historically was the most powerful political force across the landscape in India. But over the years, like we see in other parts of the world, it becomes corrupt, dynastic, and ineffective. So as Modi is leading this big state in Western India,

the Congress Party is getting weaker and weaker. And it was seen as an elitist party that was out of touch with the average Indian. So Modi is able to use this economic message and this biography and this anti-elitism to go all the way to the prime minister's office. Yeah, 2014 was a landslide election. The BJP has won the India 2014 election. The BJP won more seats in the parliament than any party had won in India for decades. This massive election in the most populist democracy on the globe has today produced a result

that people are calling the biggest turnover in power in India since the country became independent from Britain in 1947. It was a stunner. And Congress, meanwhile, did the worst it had ever done in the history of Indian politics, winning 44 seats out of 545, barely making a dent in the parliament. One thing to say, the Congress has done pretty badly. That has to be the understatement of the decade.

They were almost completely wiped out. And there was no question of who was in control. There was no question that Modi had packaged the ideology and the message of economic growth and opportunity and prosperity and he drew support not just from the people who loved his Hindu ideology and saw him as a real crusader for the Hindu cause, but he also got a lot of support from business people, from educated people, from middle-class people who were fed up with the Congress Party.

Even some intellectuals were willing to give Modi a chance and turn kind of a blind eye to his Hindu right politics because they thought that he was a decisive leader that could really strengthen India, both internally and externally. But I wonder, to what extent did that far right history within the party and his history with Muslims seem at the forefront in that election. He did a really interesting thing in that election in 2014. He talked almost nothing about the Hindu right politics. He ran almost exclusively on economic growth and prosperity and his visions for more infrastructure, for more anti-poverty programs, for projecting an image of India as a strong country abroad. Those were his messages. And the reason why he could do that and still get the Hindu right is everybody knew his background. Here's this poor kid who rose up the ranks of

this Hindu organization and had presided over Gujarat at a time when a thousand Muslims were massacred. And so nobody doubted his Hindu credentials. So that's how he was able to appeal to both communities, and that's why they won this stunning amount of parliamentary seats in 2014. So what happens once Modi takes office? So when Modi takes office, a few things happen. Last October, in a village not far from India's capital, Delhi, a 56-year-old Muslim man was beaten to death and his son gravely injured by an allegedly Hindu mob. One of the first and most disturbing is the advent of Hindu lynch mobs that start killing

people across the country for slaughtering cows. In a horrific incident, a Muslim man was brutally beaten to death by cow vigilantes over suspicion of smuggling cows. So cows are a sacred animal in Hinduism, and there are laws on the books of many states in India that cows should not be slaughtered, or if they are slaughtered, there has to be certain reasons why they're slaughtered. And so vigilantes, empowered by the rise of this Hindu movement and politics,

started taking the law in their own hands, and they would pounce on people who they said were trading in beef or slaughtering cows, and they'd kill them in broad daylight in front of hundreds of people filming the scenes with their cell phones. Wow. The cow slaughter vigilantism is ISIS in India. Wow. The cow slaughter vigilantism is ISIS in India. No sane person can defend or support or even offer excuses for what is done in the name

of the cow. And the police often stood by, and if they made any arrests, the culprits were usually let out of jail or charges were dismissed. And sometimes it went even further, where members of Mr. Modi's party would rally to the defense of the killers, help pay their legal fees, invite them to public events, and say that they were standing behind these men because these men were trying just to defend the faith. So that was one of the first troubling signs of the side effects of this Hindu right political agenda. Now, again, nobody believes Modi ordered these killings or had a direct role in this. But the belief is that he's created this climate of intolerance where Hinduism is seen as the dominant religion and anybody who goes against it is going against it at their own

risk. Economically, Modi struggled a bit. He promised a lot. He promised creating something like a million jobs a month. He promised new train lines and new bridges and entire new infrastructure for India that would lift it out of its developing nation status into a very prosperous country. Much of that has not happened. Today, I'll be speaking to you about some critical issues and important decisions. And then Modi did a couple of things that were very controversial. We have decided that the 500 rupee and 1000 rupee currency notes presently in use will no longer be legal tender. He decided that he was going to take out all the big bills from Indian currency because he thought that criminals were hoarding lots of money and cash.

And if he made everybody turn in all their money to get new bills, that the criminals would be left with these piles of cash and their illegal fortunes would be wiped out. That didn't happen. What happened was there was a huge crisis of currency in this country for several months where nobody could get any bills. ATMs ran out of money, banks ran out of money, people didn't have any cash in their pockets.

All the industries that rely on cash, like rickshaw drivers or manual labor, weren't able to get paid. And that had a longstanding impact on the economy, a bad one. And a lot of people were very upset about what happened and blamed Modi for it. So he turns out to be a better steward of Hindu nationalism than the economy. Yeah, it looks like it. But he did, in his defense, he had these grand social initiatives. One of them was building 100 million toilets for India.

Wow. Because public sanitation is a real problem in a poor, crowded country like India. And he was the first prime minister to come up with this vast plan to build that many toilets so fast. And they mostly did it. So his record domestically was mixed. But at the same time, he was very forceful in projecting the strong image of India abroad, traveling to different conferences, meeting with world leaders. So he gets a pretty good report card in terms of global affairs and how he's just boosted the image of India across the world. So Jeffy, I'm curious what life has been like under Modi for India's Muslims. So it's been pretty bad. There's a lot of fear. I travel across this country into all different corners and different walks of life. And that is the feeling I get among almost every place I go where there's a large Muslim community is the sense of fear.

and marginalized in their own country. And they've changed their behavior. I've talked to people who said that they don't wanna walk around at night. They don't like letting their kids out of their sight. They often call each other, their friends and family members to check in on them. There've been stories of Muslims riding trains and a bunch of young guys grab them

and start punching them in the face and throw them off the train. Nobody gets in trouble and everybody laughs. And so, you know, enough of those stories get passed around and it makes everybody really scared. So bring us up to today with all of this as the backdrop. How has this election been playing out? So it looked like Modi was losing support late last year and the beginning of this year.

There was growing grumbling that he had not delivered on his promises. The economy was much weaker than it should be. And there were some elections in a couple states in December that his party lost. And so there was talk that maybe Modi was a lot weaker than he had seemed. But then in February, everything changed. Scenes of devastation. Body parts strewn across the Jammu-Shrinagar Highway in Indian-administered Kashmir. There was a militant attack in the disputed area of Kashmir,

which is a beautiful Himalayan mountain territory between India and Pakistan that they both claim. Dozens were killed when a car packed with explosives rammed into a truck. The militants rammed a small truck packed with explosives into a busload of Indian soldiers. India has said it will ensure the complete diplomatic isolation of Pakistan following the attack, the deadliest to hit the disputed territory in decades. And Modi blamed Pakistan for supporting the militants. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi observed a moment of silence

before he gave a strong warning. I want to tell the terrorist groups and their patrons that they have committed a huge mistake and they will have to pay a big price for this. And Indian flags went up around the country. People rallied behind Modi. Calls for revenge across India. We demand that one life is avenged with 100,000 lives in Pakistan. It played perfectly to his strengths as a decisive leader who had been stoking nationalism and trying to make India stronger. And then in late February, Modi ordered airstrikes on Pakistan. And several Indian warplanes crossed over into Pakistani airspace,

dropped some bombs on a place that they said was a terrorist training camp. And the support for this response was enormous. Everybody was rallying around Modi. And it ends up that it looks like those bombs missed their target. But there was this intense burst of jingoism that India had to stand strong against Pakistan. And Pakistan was an existential threat. And Modi was this big, strong, decisive leader standing up for India. And that changed the dynamic of the election 100%.

So all the concerns about Modi stoking religious tensions all kind of fade into the background. Yeah. So what's interesting about India is it made a deliberate decision at independence to be a secular country that would respect minorities. It's even in the preamble of the constitution, and this was added later in the 70s, that India is a secular nation. So the decision always was, yes, Muslims are going to be in the minority. And when India was created

in 1947, a parallel country, Pakistan, was created next door to be a Muslim nation. And that country has a strong religious identity. It's called the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Islam is a state religion, and there's many laws that enforce that. But India did not set itself up as a Hindu equivalent of Pakistan. It made a decision to be a tolerant, multicultural, multi-religion, secular country. tolerant, multicultural, multi-religion, secular country. And so that's what's really interesting about this election is what direction is it going to go in? And is there going to be space for these minority Muslims? Because on the books, they have an equal stake in this country. But on the streets, there's a sense of hopelessness. Good evening. The exit poll numbers are in.

So it's Monday evening in India. You reported this morning that the exit polls are showing that Modi and the BJP are very likely to have won another round in power for the next five years. 72 to 78, the Bhartijanta Party clearly in the lead. Best position to form the government. Yeah, so all the information we have received from more than half a dozen different exit polls conducted with hundreds of thousands of voters show that the BJP did really well in this election. Modi is likely to return as prime minister. Now, these are just exit polls. It's an imperfect science. We'll find out the true results on Thursday

when all election results are released. But it's just not close. Jeffrey, you started by telling us what a big, messy country India is. And yet, here we have this country seeming to move away from this parliamentary democracy that reflects all that messiness toward one leader who is consolidating power.

I think people were pretty fed up with the messiness. And so there's just a craving for an assertive leader who can speak to the people and who can get things done. And Modi had a reputation of doing that. And I've heard from so many people, you know, Congress was in power for 50 of our 70 years. These guys have been in power really for just the past five years. Let's give them another term to see what they can do. And the hope is there just won't be too much damage

to this very delicate social fabric. So if Modi wins, that means that's who most Indians wanted to lead them. Jeffrey, thank you very much. We really appreciate it. My pleasure. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. What about McGann? Have you made any progress bringing him in on Tuesday? He's supposed to come in on the 21st. He's under subpoena.

And if he doesn't come in, we'll do what we have to do then. The Times reports that President Trump is preparing to instruct his former White House counsel, Don McGahn, to defy a congressional subpoena to testify today before the House Judiciary Committee. today before the House Judiciary Committee. If McGahn follows that advice, he's likely to be held in contempt of Congress by the committee's Democratic majority, setting up the latest legal showdown between the White House and House Democrats over the Russia investigation. And on Monday, the Trump administration's crackdown on Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, cost the company a major U.S. business partner when Google said it would stop working with Huawei. The administration's decision last week to put Huawei on a list of companies that pose a risk to U.S. national security prompted Google to end sales of its software and hardware to Huawei.

That will deprive Huawei, the largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world, of access to Google's Android platform and many of Google's most popular applications, including Gmail and Google Maps. The decision is a sign that the growing Cold War between the U.S. and China over technology and trade will hurt both Huawei and the U.S. companies it works with.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.