India under populist domestic policy since 2014

Dennis, 1 July 2024

At the national elections of 2024 the BJP has won again and Modi can start at his third term as the Prime Minister. So he is not a one-hit
wonder[1]. But how do we explain this radical turnaround in the political situation in India since 2014? As to be able to explain this we have
to go back in time and look what have been the conditions in which the BJP of Modi won the elections and gained the majority in 2014 for
the first time. In this contribution I intend not to make an appreciation of the success (or not) of the policy of the two Modi regimes. I only
want to show how his populism has been a leading orientation in his policy and how it was concretised for instance in the field of economics.

The revolt of the middle class

“In the first seven to eight of the last 10 years of Congress rule, India sustained a growth rate of about eight to 10 percent, but after the crash
of the world capitalist economy in 2008, the Indian growth rate, along with the other so-called emerging economies, started to lose steam
and it collapsed to 4.4 percent. India’s growth story has come off the rails. [2] This fall particularly started to hit the middle class, which is
more than the total population of the US, about 300 million [and probably much more today]. The pain of this contraction caused alarm and
panic amongst this upstart petit bourgeoisie and the violent swings of its capricious moods also had an impact on the lower strata of the
population” (Modi’s devious rise I, Lal Khan, May 24, 2014).
“Under the pressure of accelerating decomposition, tendencies towards every man for himself, the exacerbation of clique wars and
indiscipline are tending to impose themselves on the bourgeois political landscape, marked essentially by a tendency to lose control of its
political game.” (Draft resolution on the situation in Italy, Spain and France for the 26th RI Congress).
For instance, of the 543 men and women elected to India's Parliament in 2004, 125 were facing criminal charges ranging from murder and
rape to corruption. Seemingly endless multi-billion dollar corruption scandals came to define the decade-long rule by Mr Singh's Congress
government and prompted the resignation of several cabinet ministers. India was ranking among the most corrupt countries in the world. In
2011 endemic corruption provoked a public outrage that prompted hundreds of thousands of Indians to take to the streets, from 4 April 2011
till 28 December 2011, in a “non-political protest” to demand substantive legislation to combat graft. (See: 2011 Indian anti-corruption
movement) It is not by accident that ending corruption represented a central theme of Modi’s campaign in the elections of 2014.

The Modi government

In the 2014 election India’s voters were calling for change. For decades they have cast ballots based on community identity, but this changed
in a dramatic way during the elections of 2014. New voters - including the young and newly middle class – turned out to vote against the
worsening economic situation and high corruption, identified with the more than 50 years ruling Indian Congress Party. “The wily Modi and
the BJP cleverly used these economic issues and the corruption of the incumbents, hypocritically promising jobs, development and
alleviation of poverty as main election stunts” (Modi’s devious rise I, Lal Khan, May 24, 2014)
“Ideological decomposition affects first and foremost the capitalist class itself, and by contagion the petty bourgeois strata who have no
autonomy as a class. We can even say that the latter identify especially closely with this decomposition in that their own specific future,
without any future as a class, fits perfectly with the major cause of this ideological decomposition: the absence of any immediate perspective
for society as a whole.” The effects of unemployment “make it an important element of this decomposition” and “today a powerful factor in
the ‘lumpenisation’ of certain sectors of the class, especially of young workers” (Theses on decomposition).
“If Modi’s electoral successes have capitalised a class revolt, this expression has to be understood correctly. The reference here is not to
class in a Marxist sense. It is simply to primarily young, small town, semi-urban people – or even rural folk, exposed to or associated with
city life and the city economy – usually from non-English-speaking backgrounds. They are hungry to learn the language (…) simply to get a
job. They are too well-off to be satisfied by an anti-poverty dole programme (favoured by the previous Congress government) but too poor to
be genuinely middle class. They see themselves as socially underprivileged and their progress as thwarted by invisible social hierarchies that
set up complicated, if not impossible, rules for entry – for professional advancement as much as political office – that usher in only the
initiated. (…) Modi’s voters are motivated by a complex mix of emotions. There is undeniable ambition here, from talented people who have
simply not been given the opportunities they deserve. There is also a degree of resentment and anger, sometimes excessive.” (The India that
made Modi, Ashok Malik, October 2020).
The medicine for the abuses in the Indian society, proposed by Modi, is popular sovereignty which has been the strength of Hindu culture all
along in history. According the Hindutva ideology Indian civilisation was very rich and dates back 5,000 years or more. To support the
argument of anteriority, it asserts that the Indus civilisation (24th-18th century BC) was already Brahman and Indo-Aryan. India was so to
say the cradle of Indo-Europeans culture. It has a glorious past but this was destroyed by Muslim and Christian invaders. Even after Indian
independence in 1947 the Hindu population had been held back by the “corrupt elites” of the Indian National Congress (INC), backed up by
the western bourgeoisie. According to Modi the Hindu population must “take back control”.

Populism in the economic field

“The BJP of Modi strongly favors the small business owners and traders who have always been its core supporters, and it wants to give them
special protection rather than risk their failure in open competition with large companies. It is wary of global institutions, such as the World
Trade Organization (WTO), the IMF, and multinational corporations (MNCs), whom it suspects of being political tools of Western powers.
The party thinks MNCs have unfair advantages because of global networks and cheap capital. It is pro‐business but also believes strongly in
a caring welfare state. It espouses antodaya, which means the uplifting of the very poorest in every habitation.” (India’s New Protectionism
Threatens Gains from Economic Reform, October 18, 2018 • Policy Analysis No. 851, Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar)
When Modi came to power in 2014, he promised to boost India's economic growth. He presented himself as a liberaliser, bearing the slogan,
“Minimum government, maximum governance”. In fact, he expanded the role of government in well-being, while liberalising the economy
incrementally.
A first pillar under this policy, but certainly not the most characteristic, is the privatisation of more of India’s floundering state-owned assets.
For the nation’s business elite, that message was a clarion call to rescue an inefficient public sector. However, since 2014, only one major
firm has been privatised, only India Air has been acquired by the Tata group, but several other Indian candidates have stalled. And the
populist policy excludes a sale to foreign companies.
A second pillar under this policy is protectionism. To achieve this, India has erected the highest tariffs "of any major world economy" -
averaging 13.8% and banned foreign retailers such as Amazon from striking exclusive deals with local goods sellers. In its latest report on
global trade barriers, the US trade department describes Indian trade policy as opaque, unpredictable. In the past, western multinationals were
the target; today China is above all seen as a rising threat. The government is anxious about the ability of China to dump enormous quantities
of cheap goods on the Indian market.
A third pillar under this policy is boosting domestic manufacturing. Flagship government policies such as “Make in India” have aggressively
courted foreign direct investment while seeking to boost domestic manufacturing. “Modi’s new protectionism goes beyond global value
chains to blanket protection of relatively simple manufactures, ranging from electronic components to a wide range of consumer goods. On
a TV program, a Finance Ministry official said the duties were levied on ‘simple’ items that could easily be manufactured in India by small
manufacturers.” (India’s New Protectionism Threatens Gains from Economic Reform, October 18, 2018 • Policy Analysis No. 851,
Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar)
Consistently raising tariff rates on imports to shield the domestic industry; trade protectionism and buy local products. The nationalist-
populist approach is that national law and politics should prevail over international law where the latter is perceived to be detrimental to the
interests of ‘pure people’. It is in this framework that the government had launched the campaign ‘Vocal for Local’ urging citizens to
prioritize and advocate for goods produced locally, thereby strengthening domestic industries.
One of Modi’s other aims on coming into office was to boost military production and accompanying jobs. Even if India has increased this
production, it remained the biggest global importer of arms. According to SIPRI it went from 9.1% in the period 2014-18 up to at 9.8% in the
period 2019-23. But import tariffs have not been increased for these materials. The country was importing arms and equipment from Russia
for decades, but now it is sourcing its requirements from various countries, including Israel, France and the US.

Populist ideological offensive

The “pure people” in Prime Minister Modi’s India are Hindus while Muslims are the “other” or even “infiltrators and termites”, as Amit
Shah, the president of the BJP, said. But the emphasis on a singular Hindu identity excludes and marginalises religious minorities, leading to
discriminatory policies, social alienation, and even violence. Incidents of hate crimes against minorities have reportedly doubled. For
instance the politics of Hindu supremacy, xenophobia and religious polarisation lit the fuse for the unrest in 2023 in Manipur, leading to the
murder of 150 Muslims. Hindu mob attacks have also become so common in recent years that India’s Supreme Court warned that they could
become the “new normal” – with the government not taking any action to prevent or even condemn such violence.
A populist usually puts pressure on civil society, seeks to control the media and operates an effective propaganda machine. If required, he
will undermine the state institutions. The Modi regime is transforming the rules of the game in essential respects and one of them is the
changing of the Supreme Court’s composition and the appointment of judges. The period from 2015 to 2016 represented a “war of attrition,”
with the government attempting to wear down the judiciary. Since his installation as Prime Minister Modi was in a war of words with the
Supreme Court over judicial appointments. In 2014 Modi tried to pass a law with the intention to change the appointment process for judges.
The Supreme Court eventually declared the proposed law unconstitutional, but Modi still got his way: his government regularly sabotaged
and blocked the nominations of new judges proposed by a “collegium” of the Supreme Court, and pushed its own de facto nominees by
clearing the files of candidate judges it favours.
Modi is also known for his hostility to the mainstream media. His first term in office began therefore with a process of delegitimation of
these media, which “was denied access to government sources for primary news gathering, while the Prime Minister and his ministers used
the state-owned media and social media to communicate with the citizenry”, as senior journalist and media scholar Sevanti Ninan told.
Modi’s second term has gone even further. Since print and television news no longer provoked the government in a major way, the focused
was changed to the digital media, the social media in particular. New Delhi also raided the homes of many prominent journalists, linked to
left-leaning news organisations known for their scrutiny of the Indian government. During the elections this year several news channels were
banned or demonetized.
In a pretentious campaign Modi glamoured his poor background, claiming to be part of the “pure people”. As the son of a tea seller from
Gujarat, he used his humble origins to tell the crowd that he is their spokesman. Modi used fashion and clothes to articulate his populist
leadership: identification with the Hindu majority, the anti-elitist discourse, and the presentation of himself as the saviour. Beneath his
paternalistic exterior, he established a veritable cult of personality: posters bearing his effigy are everywhere; he hosts a radio programme and
is omnipresent on social networks. He is India’s first Prime Minister who cast a shadow far larger than his substance.

[1] Between 1999 and 2004 the BJP, the party of Modi, had also participated in the government, but in those years Modi was not yet the
political leader.
[2] Besides the fall in growth the Indian economy was also hit by a devaluation of the rupee with 25 per cent, a 17.8 per cent inflation, a rise
of unemployment with 6 percent, and a 2.8 per cent increase of the poverty rate.