These Elections May Seal the Fate of Modi’s Project
Has the BJP’s project gone as far as it conceivably can?
Photo: Samir Jana/Hindustan Times/Getty Images
Over the next month, four Indian states — the eastern states of Assam and West Bengal, and the southern ones of Kerala and Tamil Nadu — will vote in new legislators. These are not the country’s richest states, nor are they its largest. But for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, the elections are nevertheless of surpassing importance.
That’s because this isn’t just another test of Modi’s governance or his popularity. The BJP – and its parent organization, the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh — have a deeper, more significant project in hand: The remaking of India, and the homogenization of its multiple cultures, languages, and ways of worship.