Attack on opposition, Hindutva form key elements of Western media's Lok Sabha coverage

As India prepares itself for the highly anticipated electoral battle, the Western media has been writing opinion pieces on India with a high focus on the 'attack' on opposition by the now Narendra Modi-led government with the rise of Hindu Rashtra.

Major Western media houses including The Times and Financial Times have been focusing on reporting the 'dark side of upcoming Lok Sabha polls.' The exhaustive reportage of the Western media of India's Lok Sabha polls sheds light on the arrest of AAP ministers and the freezing of Congress bank accounts among other issues.

'Darker side to Modi's popularity'

The Times in its leading article said “Mr Modi is likely to be recognised as probably the most significant Indian leader since independence”, putting his popularity down to spectacular growth, new technology, and welfare policies. “Modi has cultivated the image of a strongman… thumbing his nose at Western liberals and telling Indians their turn in the global spotlight has come. This plays as well with the poor as the rich elites,” it said.

However, the media house continued by claiming that 'there is a darker side to his popularity.' “Modi embraces ‘Hindutva”, playing up a nationalist Hinduism and discriminating against and passing laws that “disadvantage India’s large Muslim minority." The piece also talks about the recent arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal by saying that PM Modi was 'intolerant of the opposition.'

'India's last democratic election?'
Edward Luce, associate editor at the FT, asked on X: “Will this be India's last democratic election”, whilst Hannah Ellis-Petersen, the Guardian’s correspondent, wrote: “Analysts and opponents have warned this could be the most one-sided election in India’s history.”

With the title ‘mother of democracy is not in good shape,' The Financial Times commented “PM Modi has repeatedly called India the ‘mother of democracy’. If so, an intensifying clampdown on opposition parties suggests this matriarch of representative government is in ill health. Harassment, often by tax or legal authorities, has become common for government critics… The BJP’s muscular Hindu nationalism has eroded India’s tradition of secular democracy.”

Rise of Hindutva:
Andy Mukherjee, a columnist for Bloomberg penned down in his editorial that the "more progressive and successful part of the country" was "drifting away from the poverty-ridden north" and its "majoritarian leader." “A Hindu rashtra, or nation-state, will play well in the north. The very prospect of such an outcome fills the south with dread,” he claimed.

Most op-eds predict that BJP would win the election while Congress would face a wipeout. The Economist published a list of books on Hindutva, telling its readers that non-Indians needed to understand the origins and core ideas of the “dangerous ideology”.

'Modi's popularity attributed to economic progress'
Ruchir Sharma for FT argued that Modi had expanded his base, not because of Hindutva ideology, but because he was delivering economic progress, and that the people of India were prepared to “trade political freedom for perceived progress” in the same way countries such as Taiwan and South Korea put together long runs of rapid growth with low inflation under autocratic leaders.

The voting will begin on April 19 and the results will be declared on June 4, 2024. The term of the 17th Lok Sabha Assembly will expire on June 16, 2024. The elections will be held in seven phases. The first phase will be held on April 19, second phase on April 26, third phase on May 7, the fourth phase on May 13, fifth phase on May 20, sixth phase on May 25 and the seventh phase on June 1, 2024.

(with ToI inputs)