India at Crossroads: Modi's Fascism versus Gandhi's Pluralism

India's general elections, which began on April 19, 2024, to select members of the federal parliament, mark a pivotal moment in its history. These elections could either bring India closer to an extremist pure Hindu nation or return it to the pluralistic republic envisioned by Mahatma Gandhi, potentially ending Prime Minister Narendra Modi's aspirations for absolute fascism.

The elections, consisting of seven phases spanning 44 days and involving approximately one billion voters, come amidst fears of a resurgence of Hindu extremists after a decade in power. Such a victory could grant them further leeway to reshape India's landscape and oppress minorities, especially Muslims.

Modi's extremist agenda seeks to secure 370 seats out of the 543 in the parliament, up from the 303 won by his party in 2019, aiming for a two-thirds majority to comfortably push forward his Hindu nationalist agenda. 

Analysts fear that such a margin of victory could empower Modi's party to enact far-reaching constitutional changes, solidifying extremist Hindu ideology and advancing his vision of building a pure Hindu nation free from Muslims and even Christians.

However, some doubt the feasibility of achieving such an objective. The second phase of voting on April 26 occurred amid escalating Hindu aggression against Muslims and the rhetoric of Hindu nationhood.

The Importance of Elections

The significance of these elections lies in their potential to determine India's fate under the dominance of the extremist Hindu party, with its agenda to entrench the concept of a pure Hindu nation.

This implies further persecution of minorities, particularly the estimated 200 million Muslims and 27 million Christians, who have already witnessed attacks on their churches.

The voting pits Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) against a 26-party opposition alliance advocating for a return to democracy, diversity, and the protection of democratic institutions from Hindu extremism.

Indiatv CNX Opinion Poll conducted on April 17 suggested that Modi's coalition might secure a stunning victory, potentially winning 393 out of 543 seats, a significant achievement. 

This poll, aligned with Hindu interests, predicted a marginal loss for the Congress party, part of the 26-party coalition, reducing its seats to 40 from the 52 it won in the 2019 elections.

On July 17, 2023, 26 Indian parties convened in Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka state, to discuss plans for forming a united front against the authoritarian BJP, with the goal of restoring India's racial and religious pluralism against the ruling party's Hindu nationalist agenda.

These parties aim to counteract the hatred and violence manufactured against minorities amidst the BJP's politics, accusing Modi's government of treating India's Muslim minority unfairly to appease their extremist Hindu base. They focus on Hindu nationalism as a primary theme in the elections.

They fear the destruction of what remains of India's Islamic heritage and historic mosques, especially after Modi consecrated the Hindu temple complex Ram Mandir in January 2024 in Uttar Pradesh on the site of the Ayodhya mosque, dating back to the 16th century.

Vote Jihad

The extremist Hindu Prime Minister has been keen on adopting an incendiary agenda against Muslims to ensure the majority of Hindus' votes (80% of Indians are Hindu), aligning with his party's focus. Foreign reports indicate that Modi has shifted towards a fanatical hostility against Muslims since the start of the elections, playing on the card of "demonizing Muslims," believing that his party's success in the elections hinges on frightening Hindus about them.

He has been propagating conspiracy theories about Muslims, claiming they lure Hindu girls into love to convert them to Islam through marriage, and that they buy large swathes of land to seize control of India. 

As his electoral battle with the opposition alliance led by the Indian National Congress intensifies, he accuses them of pushing Muslims to engage in "vote jihad."

Similar to the extremist Bharatiya Janata Party's campaign against Muslims dubbed “Love Jihad," which alleges that Muslims focus on marrying Hindu women under the pretext of love to convert them to Islam, Modi claims there is "Vote Jihad" in the elections, meaning mobilizing Muslims to vote against him.

Modi wrote on X, alleging that Muslims are using "Vote Jihad," rallying against him and his extremist party. To incite his followers, he asked them: “Do you know the meaning of jihad? Do you know what jihad signifies?”

Modi didn't forget to accuse his main rival, the Indian National Congress, of rallying Muslims through "Vote Jihad" or "Voting for Jihad," as he claimed.

Addressing his voters, he said, "You know who the preferred vote bank of Indian National Congress is," subtly referring to Muslims.

On the same day, the Minister of Information and Broadcasting of India in the Bharatiya Janata Party, Anurag Thakur, at another gathering, stated that the Indian National Congress "wants to give your children's properties to Muslims."

Modi's latest tactic to demonize Muslims, after labeling them as "infiltrators and prolific breeders," and accusing the opposition of planning to loot Hindu women's jewelry and distribute its proceeds among Muslims, is accusing rival parties of usurping the rights of the "oppressed class" and giving them to Muslims!

On April 14, 2024, Modi claimed during an electoral rally in Rajasthan that the previous regional government led by the Indian National Congress leader Manmohan Singh believed that "Muslims are entitled to the nation's wealth."

He described Muslims as "infiltrators" and claimed that if the Indian National Congress wins, the wealth "will be distributed to those with the largest number of children. It will be distributed to infiltrators (meaning Muslims whom Hindus claim infiltrated their country from other nations)!"

Addressing Hindu voters, the Prime Minister said, "Do you think your hard-earned money should be given to infiltrators [Muslims]? Do you accept that?"

This prompted the Indian National Congress to file a complaint with the Election Commission, accusing the Prime Minister of "blatant targeting" of the Muslim minority in the country during an election speech, involving "blatant and direct violations of election laws."

Abhishek Manu Singhvi, member of the Indian National Congress, stated that Modi's statements violated provisions of the law that prohibit candidates from urging voters to vote or refrain from voting for any person on the basis of "religion," "community," or "religious symbols," according to Reuters.

India prohibits hate speech under several sections of the Penal Code, including the section that criminalizes "deliberate and malicious" acts intended to outrage religious feelings, but Hindu nationalists escape prosecution thanks to complicit judges.

During Modi's rule, Hindu nationalists have been appointed to top positions in key government institutions, giving them the power to make sweeping changes to legislation that human rights groups say target Muslims.

School textbooks have been rewritten to downplay the importance of ancient Muslim rulers in India; cities and streets have been renamed.

In 2019, Modi scrapped the special autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir — the only Muslim-majority state in India — and placed it under direct control of New Delhi.

In the same year, his administration issued the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act that excludes Muslim immigrants, leading to deadly riots, and revisited it in 2024 as an electoral promise.

A report released by the Indian Hate Lab (IHL) based in Washington on February 25, 2024, showed a significant rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric. It documented 668 cases of violence and attacks against them in just 2023.

Media Monitoring of the Fascism

During his quest for a historic third term, Modi and leaders of his party launched scathing attacks on Muslims, escalating his "incendiary" rhetoric against them and seeking to exploit religious divisions, as reported by The Guardian on April 26, 2024.

Quoting analysts and experts, Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister, was said to have escalated his anti-Muslim rhetoric targeting a minority that makes up about 14% of the country's population to gain more seats for his party in the upcoming parliament.

Since coming to power in 2014, Narendra Modi and his political party have imposed a vision of India steeped in Hindu nationalism, as reported by La Croix on April 26, 2024.

The newspaper explained that Modi pursued this in his policy "when he inaugurated the temple, built on the ruins of a mosque destroyed in 1992 by Hindu extremists. It is an era where India would finally break 'the chains of the slave mentality'."

The Financial Times reported on April 29, 2024, quoting Muslim analyst Asim Ali as saying, “I don’t think I have seen a prime minister speak such inflammatory rhetoric,” said Asim Ali, an independent political analyst, adding that Modi was trying to “energize the Hindutva [Hindu nationalist] base”.

“Because the prime minister is saying this now, local-level BJP operatives are free to take it up.” 

According to the Associated Press (AP), after spending 10 years in power since his party won the government in 2014, Modi the Hindu nationalist became dominant after once being "marginal" in Indian ideology.

It clarified on April 19 that his political philosophy and aspirations were due to his joining the largest, semi-military, right-wing Hindu extremist group founded in the late 1960s, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

AP quoted Ambalal Koshti (76), a member of this extremist organization, as saying that “he was the first to include Modi in the political wing of the organization in the late 1960s in their state of Gujarat, where he learned to fight and protect the Hindu nation.”

In the 1940s, after India's independence, while Mahatma Gandhi called for unity between Hindus and Muslims, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh called for India - by force, if necessary - to be turned into a "Hindu nation."

One member of this organization, RSS, shot Gandhi three times in the chest in 1948, killing him months after India gained its independence. The Bharatiya Janata Party, currently in power, emerged from this extremist Hindu organization.

That's why CNN warned in early May 2024 that the rise of Hindu nationalism leaves Muslims fearful.

Quoting Amit Pandey, the Secretary-General of the Youth Wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Varanasi, he claimed that India is a Hindu nation and all Indians in the country were forcibly converted to slaves (Muslims) by changing their religion centuries ago.

Some Muslims in Varanasi told CNN that the worst will happen if Modi is re-elected.

His followers have perpetrated numerous violent acts against mosques, Muslim homes, and properties. Police have even resorted to kicking Muslims as they pray on the roadside in New Delhi, while his extremist group relentlessly targets historical sites and mosques.