Narendra Modi’s election win in May, which secured his second term as India’s prime minister, was defined above all by its naked appeals to Hindu majoritarianism. In 2014, Modi ran on a platform promising “development for all”, but vicious identity politics set the tone for his re-election campaign.
During his first term, Modi’s government demonstrated a clear disregard for tenets of liberalism such as religious pluralism and protection of minorities; attacks on academic freedom, independent media, and minority citizens have also risen. The ostensible abandonment of India’s secular values has arguably found greater ground with Modi’s landslide victory. The beginning of his second term has already coincided with the lynching of a Muslim youth in a purported case of religious violence, one of hundreds of religious, caste or tribal-identity-based hate crimes reported in the last few years. Is Modi’s new mandate the clearest signs yet of a rupture between liberalism and Indian democracy?
One could argue that democracy as an idea ultimately boils down to the will of the majority, which need not be conflated with liberalism at all. At its most minimum, democracy entails that the executive and legislative branches of government should be elected, there be an alternation of power, the presence of an opposition, and non-interference in government from the armed forces. The majority forged in a democracy is presumed to be a shifting one. In this regard, liberal ideas and institutions ensure that in societies with deep social cleavages, majoritarian proclivities are checked. But they are not a precondition for democracy. The phrases illiberal democracy, electoral authoritarianism, majoritarian democracy, are now well-recorded and believed to be in practice in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, Russia, among others. And there are now widespread anxieties in liberal circles that India has joined this club. To assess how cogent such concerns are, we should begin with tracing how deeply rooted liberal democracy has been in India.
