Narendra Modi’s India
https://www.nytimes.co
m/2024/06/06/briefing/modis-india.html
*WHITHER NEXT MODI?
India’s founders crafted a constitution for a diverse and secular republic. Modi has been recasting the country as an explicitly Hindu nation. He converted Jammu and Kashmir, the country’s only Muslim-majority state, into a heavily policed federal territory. He built a giant Hindu temple on a disputed site where mobs had torn down a mosque. During the campaign this year, he called Muslims, who make up 14 percent of the population, “infiltrators.” India’s Muslims say they have been turned into second-class citizens.
Modi’s third term will be a test: Has the Hindu nationalist project been fulfilled, or is there more he can do to assert one faith’s supremacy? The call to put Muslims in their place is the lifeblood of Modi’s party, creating winning majorities within a hugely diverse and caste-riven Hindu population. In a third term, Modi could choose new targets, for instance by agitating for more Hindu temples to replace historic mosques. He may be constrained, however, by his new political partners, who are not beholden to his party’s Hindu-first projects.
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