The key outcome of the balloting is that Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party will not become the sole power center in India for the next five years, as Mr. Modi had hoped and predicted. Mr. Modi and the BJP will lack a free hand for further repression of civil society, imprisonment of the opposition, infiltration and takeover of democratic institutions, and persecution of Muslims. Although Mr. Modi will surely not abandon his Hindu nationalist drive, now there will be stronger checks and balances, with a revived opposition and the necessity to compromise with coalition partners. For a world suffering a retreat from democracy seemingly everywhere, this is a remarkably positive turn of events, even better because it was directly at the hands of 640 million voters. It ranks with the recent rejection of an authoritarian regime in Poland as a bright spot in an otherwise dark period.
Mr. Modi had frequently predicted that the BJP and its alliance would claim over 400 seats in the 543-seat lower house of Parliament, the Lok Sabha, in which 272 is needed for a majority. But Mr. Modi’s party won only 240 seats, down 63 from five years ago, so it will have to negotiate a coalition to govern. The long-troubled opposition Indian National Congress led by Rahul Gandhi won 99 seats, a stunning increase of 47 from the last election; also pivotal were the victories of several regional parties.
Mr. Modi’s party was shellacked in the huge Uttar Pradesh state in the north, losing 29 seats, and also lost 14 seats in Maharashtra, home to the country’s business and finance capital, Mumbai. The BJP also lost the Ayodhya constituency in the north that houses the Hindu temple to Lord Ram that Mr. Modi inaugurated on the ruins of a Mughal-era mosque — a hugely symbolic defeat in a heavily Hindu district.
Certainly, voters were unhappy about unemployment, inflation and inequality, despite India’s overall economic growth. The results map also suggests a return to older patterns of regional voting that Mr. Modi had previously defied. But the vote was in protest of Mr. Modi’s autocratic and divisive ways, too. He has been drifting toward authoritarianism for years, but voters may have worried that, if given an absolute majority in Parliament, he would attempt to change the constitution to permanently disenfranchise some groups.
Before the voting, Mr. Modi encouraged a cult of personality around his leadership. He claimed that God sent him to rule India. When his mother was alive, he said, “I had believed that perhaps my birth was a biological one,” but “after her death, when I look at my life experiences, I’m convinced that God has sent me here.” In the period before the balloting, the Modi administration froze some of the opposition’s bank accounts, jailed leaders on corruption- and tax-related charges, and basked in laudatory coverage by media outlets controlled by Modi allies.
What’s more, under Mr. Modi, social media platforms were turned into conveyor belts for hate against India’s 200 million Muslims, as The Post reported in detail last year. During Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalist rule, India has been racked by mob rule and the lynching and targeting of Muslims and Christians. While campaigning, Mr. Modi unabashedly vilified Muslims with dark warnings that they were going to somehow steal the nation’s wealth. Overall, there were valid fears within India and abroad that Mr. Modi’s rise meant the death knell of truly competitive politics in the world’s largest democracy. Fortunately, that prospect has been dampened if not blocked by the election outcome.
Elections are vital, but still are only one gear in the larger clockwork of a working democracy. Just as important is what happens in between the elections: the activity of civil society and the rule of law, the building of institutions, and the encouragement of tolerance. It is unclear how Mr. Modi will react to this setback and whether he will continue his firebrand Hindu nationalism. But now, at least, there are others empowered to stand up to his worst excesses, to prevent him from unchallenged domination and to return India to the best kind of democracy — one where competition thrives.
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