Caution and Narendra Modi
The Modi wave has swept across India and is still ongoing. In the 2014
Parliamentary elections Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 282
seats, gaining an absolute majority in parliament, while the ruling United
Progressive Alliance (UPA) spearheaded by the Congress Party suffered a
devastating defeat, losing 162 seats. The Congress Party was reduced to only 44
seats.
The BJP wants to ride this wave to gain absolute majorities in all Indian states and
intends to create a “Congress free India.” So far, it has worked. The BJP won
absolute majorities in legislative elections in Haryana and Maharashtra on
October 15, and intends to engineer similar outcomes in current legislative
elections in Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir.
The BJP achieved such spectacular results by highlighting Narendra Modi as its
standard bearer and the putative savior of India. Modi soft-pedaled the party’s
former Hindutva (Hindu nationalist agenda) while presenting the BJP as the party
of economic reform. Modi ran against the lackluster economic performance of
the UPA government, and India’s pervasive economic problems, including a high
inflation rate.
Modi painted himself as the ultimate free market capitalist bent on freeing India
from red tape, regulation, big government, and powerful labor unions, and open
its economy to free trade, foreign investment and trade. In power for only six
months, the BJP has not put much of its economic reform program in place.
While the party takes credit for the falling inflation rate, objective economists
confirm that this is due primarily to a worldwide fall in commodity prices rather
than specific BJP policies.
Although the promised economic revival has yet to materialize, Narendra Modi
has met with world leaders to encourage foreign investment in India and
improved trade ties. As part of this agenda, Modi has courted the United States
of America. In the United States to address the UN General Assembly from
September 26-30, Modi addressed a gathering of expatriate Indians and Indian-
Americans in Madison Square Garden on September 28, and met with President
Obama on September 29.
Modi’s economic reform agenda resonates well with the American leadership,
which has long wanted to see India cut red tape, further liberalize its economy,
open its markets to American products and open the country to American
investment. The American power elite find Narendra Modi and his economic
liberalization rhetoric very attractive.
Modi capped off his courtship of the United States with an invitation for Barack
Obama to attend India’s Republic Day parade on January 26 as the Guest of
Honor. This is the first time in the history of India that an American head of state
has been extended this honor. The President has accepted Modi’s invitation.
The U.S. should be cautious regarding these overtures, as the BJP is not in sync
with Western liberal ideals.
The BJP is jingoistic. It espouses an extreme form of Indian nationalism. It calls
for the destruction of Pakistan and Bangladesh and their absorption into greater
India. The BJP wants India to forcefully take all of Kashmir and abnegate all
agreements providing special status to Kashmir as a Muslim majority state.
The BJP is anti science. It wants to introduce new Indian school textbooks that
describe India is a Hindu state that experienced a golden age under Hindu rule.
Prominent BJP leaders claim that Hindus invented nuclear weapons, plastic
surgery, air travel and many other wonders during their ancient past. They
present this as evidence of the inherent superiority of Hindu civilization. BJP
leaders want to make the study of Sanskrit compulsory for all Indian.
The BJP is anti-environment. The BJP will not join worldwide efforts to combat
climate change by reducing carbon emissions. It has rejected calls for India to join
the USA/China Agreement on climate change signed by both countries on
November 12. Instead, the BJP intends to continue its economic development
program regardless of the consequences to the world environment. The BJP has
little interest in environmental initiatives and does not pursue energy
conservation or encourage renewable energy.
The BJP government of Narendra Modi is trying to manipulate the United States
for its own ends and has launched a charm offensive to woo American elites. An
accomplished politician and a master manipulator, Modi is currently
demonstrating his skills on the Indian public. So far, it is working. Many Indians
are entranced and enthusiastically go to the polls to vote for the BJP. He is trying
these same skills on the American leadership.
Modi acknowledges that the United States remains for the time being the world’s
sole superpower and will remain a major player in the world for some time to
come. The BJP it determined to enlist US support to gain international credibility.
The BJP increasingly represents Indian elites who share a similar value system
with their American counterparts, especially those within the Republican Party.
Both groups want to give business a free hand and shrink the role of government
in the economy. Both groups believe economic liberalization will unleash pent up
economic power, and encourage high growth that will result in prosperity and
poverty reduction.
However, this overlap in values should not be over-emphasized. American and
Indian elites share a similar economic agenda and the BJP and the Republican
Party share a similar political agenda, but the overlap between these groups is
limited. The value system underlying BJP/RSS ideology is inherently at odds with
the liberal value system of the West. To retain its identity as a secular democracy
fully committed to human rights, the U.S. must not become too close to India’s
BJP government. Economic interests alone should not determine our alliances.
The United States should maintain cordial relationships with India and continue
its cooperation with India in economic affairs, culture, education, and many other
areas. This does not compel the United States to support actively a government
inherently opposed to U.S. values.
We should give events in India time to settle and refrain from moving too quickly
to align ourselves with the Modi government.