TWO years ago voters in Delhi, the Indian capital, whistled a warning to prime minister Narendra Modi. It was less than a year since he had led his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power in a sweeping general-election triumph. Yet suddenly, at the very seat of the national government, a puny upstart party running a shoestring anti-corruption campaign had nabbed no fewer than 67 of the 70 seats in the city’s main legislature. The BJP had captured a paltry three. Could it be that Mr Modi’s vaunted electoral juggernaut was not invincible after all?
This was certainly what the critics of the Hindu-nationalist BJP hoped. Yet in test after test since then, from obscure by-elections to the campaign for the state assembly in Uttar Pradesh, with a population of 220m, the party has surged relentlessly ahead. In addition to the national government, the BJP and its allies now control 17 out of India’s 31 state legislatures, together representing more than 60% of the country’s people (see chart). At a recent party rally in the eastern state of Odisha, Amit Shah, the BJP’s grizzled master strategist, actually evoked the Jagannath Temple, a local landmark that inspired the word...Continue reading
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