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General Election 24
Politics
5 min read

The tale of two Hindu Prime Ministers

June 4th told a brief but bold story of Modi’s India. July 4th will reveal the mind of the UK.

Rahil is a former Hindu monk, and author of Found By Love. He is a Tutor and Speaker at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics.

official surround an open case containing an electronic voting terminal and cables.
Indian election officials unpack a voting machine.
@BruceDGilley on X.

After 44 days of voting across India, 640 million people entered 5.5 million election booths to choose who would be their next Prime Minister.  

Finally, on June 4th the result was announced, and India had chosen the devout Hindu incumbent PM Narendra Modi.  

But wait for the twist! Mr Modi announced way ahead of the elections that his ruling BJP party would win a significant majority of 400 seats out of the 543 in the Lower House. Many of the pollsters felt this was possible, among them Axis My India, the country’s most prominent polling company. Data-driven pollsters and an action-filled mass-media told the world that Mr Modi would have his thumping majority for a third consecutive term. Bafflingly not… 

When the results were counted on June 4th it turned out that Mr Modi’s BJP managed a disappointing 292 seats, dropping it short of the majority needed to continue the status quo of Indian governance.  

Pradeep Gupta, Founder and CEO of Axis My India, wept in front of media cameras, revealing to the hundreds of millions of voters that even after accurately predicting so many national and state elections, he can also get things terribly wrong.  

The world media was largely shocked but couldn’t hide its glee. The Economist told readers on its front cover that Modi’s ethno-nationalist shortfall was a “triumph for democracy.” The Financial Times told its readers that Modi was “weakened”, and other headlines across the globe revealed that even the “most popular world leader” can be humbled. 

Even though it was startling to most of those who kept an eye on this mammoth undertaking of democracy I was strikingly surprised to notice that no one claimed that the election was “rigged” or that there was “Russian interference” (or Chinese in the case of India)! It was simply accepted…alliances were struck and, within a day, 1.4 billion people in India moved ahead with Mr. Modi still as its PM, now heading the National Democratic Alliance parliamentary grouping. The smoothness of the political system after such a seismic surprise is quite astonishing to a “westerner” like me. In our “sophisticated” part of the world we seem to be confused as to who has won an election or even a referendum for that matter. 

“Democracy” to many millions in India simply means, “elections” and in some towns and cities people queued for six hours to vote. 

Mr Modi lost in the city of Ayodhya! This is where he consecrated the controversial Hindu temple on top of the ruins of a sixteenth century mosque that Hindu nationalists demolished in 1990. A disapproval by the people of the Hindu hub of Ayodhya is like saying that the Taliban have now decided to wave the rainbow flag… or that the state of Texas is now officially going full on vegan. 

It’s interesting that no politician or media outlet echoed the chants and mantras of western elections or referendums in recent years and roared, “the people don’t know what they’ve voted for…so let’s do the vote again!” Quite strange for a nation whose GDP per capita is only $2,300… 

350 million people in India live below the poverty line and I would go as far as to argue that 450 million of its inhabitants do not even know what the United Nations is let alone what it stands for. “Democracy” to many millions in India simply means, “elections” and in some towns and cities people queued for six hours to vote. Human Rights, Freedom of Expression or Religion are alien ideas when all you need is a meal.  

It is humbling not just for Narendra Modi as the mass media have said in the west but even for keen observers here such as myself. That’s the first lesson. 

The second lesson from this stunning outcome is to never ignore the people you think you can easily ignore… 

It was the poor (even Hindus) whose homes were blatantly demolished to build the Hindu Temple in Ayodhya that went against Mr Modi. It was the farmers who protested for months for their financial security that decided that their leader is not really a man of the commoner but of the corporates. At least that’s the image Mr Modi gave them. About 55 per cent of India’s population receives an income related to the agriculture industry.  

Finally, the Dalit (lowest caste) community didn’t vote the way the BJP expected. Even though their PM is from the lower Ghanchi caste they didn’t see in him any action suggesting that he is one of them. 

At the beginning of his decade of rule Mr Modi cunningly utilised the fact that he is from a low caste background, a simple tea-selling family and not educated at Oxford or Stanford. And it worked. 

But now the very people he cast a net over are beginning to peer through his fickle facade. “The axe convinced the trees in the forest that because its handle was made of wood it was one of them” is a Turkish proverb that comes to mind. Eventually, the trees catch on. When you fool people time and again, eventually they get the antibodies.  

UK Prime Minister Sunak is also a devout Hindu who often uses the Hindu term dharma when he talks about ‘duty to his nation.’ And yet he is quite the opposite on many other accounts. Sunak is from a very educated and wealthy background. He went to Winchester School and then on to Oxford and ran a hedge fund before entering politics. He is liked by many world leaders and admired by HM Treasury, the government department he used to run. A ‘technocrat’ in every sense of the word and yet he is facing the same doubts and demands from the electorate – about integrity. I do not wish to isolate PM Sunak on the integrity chart but leaders and those with tall responsibilities attract a higher demand. Wisdom in the Christian Bible says, “to whom much is given, much will be required.”  

June 4th told a brief and bold story of PM Narendra Modi’s India. July 4th will reveal the mind of the United Kingdom. How will we treat the people or politicians we disagree with? Dutch theologian and professor Benno Van Den Toren once told me that the minute you laugh at an idea you disagree with, is the exact moment you lose access to understanding what the individual or idea is trying to say. Will we seek to understand? Or simply win? The ruling class in India won for a decade whilst ignoring their opponents and as a result eventually lost their majority. As important as the result on July 4th in the UK is what happens after, how we steer our hearts and treat those who didn't vote as we did.  

That is the humbling lesson to learn from the 640 million voters of India.

Review
Books
Culture
Freedom
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1 min read

All this can be yours: the momentum that drives mafia states

Once abhorred opinions gain traction among the distracted nursing grievances.

Simon is Bishop of Tonbridge in the Diocese of Rochester. He writes regularly round social, cultural and political issues.

Preisdent Putin stands behind a lectern with a gold door and Russian flag behind him.
What is Putin thinking?

Is there a new Cold War today? This assumption, spurred by the war in Ukraine, is challenged by Anne Applebaum in Autocracy, Inc. (Penguin Random House, 2024). Instead, she argues, there is a growing group of autocratic nations where ruling elites exercise staggering levels of corruption, accumulating wealth, eviscerating the common good and suppressing any meaningful dissent. There is rule by law rather than rule of law, where the courts become the means by which brutal, cynical state power is employed to destroy and imprison opponents.   

The Cold War was underpinned by ideology, but autocratic states today support one another through logistics, resources and propaganda despite big differences in outlook. Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, China, Russia and Zimbabwe, to name a handful of autocratic nations, share little by way of common ideology, except the desire of their dictators to stay in power, both to ensure their wealth and to protect themselves from legal action. The fig leaves of religious beliefs and nationalism are often used in different combinations but fool few. 

If there is a common denominator for these autocracies, it is the wish to scrap the post-war settlements – the institutions and laws that have marked global affairs since. The body of existing international law is a particular target, as its dismantling immunises dictators against judgment.   

Framing the present global picture in clear, criminal terms like this is helpful. Mafia states exist, and they are growing in influence. But it is too easy for others to place themselves on the side of the angels. These kleptocracies have been enabled by corporate bodies elsewhere. In the UK, London is host to lawyers, accountants, bankers and PR experts who have helped to launder money for corrupt elites. They argue their support is legal, but it is also amoral; such is the professional framework of some of the biggest names in law and finance. London’s property market, like several other global capitals, has been grossly distorted by the laundering of foreign money, to the detriment of working people trying to afford their own homes. 

At the end of the Cold War, there was a widespread sense that liberal, democratic values had prevailed and it only remained for this dye to leak into the fabric of remaining nations. Not only is this not true today, if anything the momentum is with autocratic values infecting democracies with their ways. The global technology revolution has assisted this, as once abhorred opinions and positions gain traction in the minds of distracted people with grievances, real or imagined. 

There is a special hypocrisy when criminals who have stolen billions and murdered thousands claim to speak for God.

The late Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, said the key question for the new century was: who speaks for God? If the suggestion was that this is a question different religious traditions need to answer in ways that support our common humanity, we now have no shortage of dictators who say they speak for God. Their claims that other regions of the world are godless and degenerate are made time and again. Like Goebbels, they know that the endless repetition eventually wears people down until phrases become believable. No-one who cares about God’s character would claim their society reflects his character well; there is injustice, hatred and violence everywhere. But there is a special hypocrisy when criminals who have stolen billions and murdered thousands claim to speak for God. 

When Jesus faced his life-defining temptation in the wilderness, the devil showed him the kingdoms of the world and promised they would be his if he ‘turned’. He also tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread. Power and wealth, the very trappings coveted by the world’s dictators. And his final temptation: to throw himself from the roof of the Temple, only to be saved by the angels. To surround himself with a loyal cadre of officers sure to protect his interests at all times. 

Instead of the highway to autocracy, Jesus took the uneven and winding path of service to others. One of self-denial, deprived of the material wealth made available by his elevated position. This is the human standard we have been set and it compels self-reflection, not boasting and threats.

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