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| Narendra Modi, |
As was widely expected, the result was a clear and potentially epochal victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the country’s leading right-wing party, and its leader, the pugnacious, nationalistic and neoliberal Narendra Modi, whom the Economist — in a somewhat unprecedented anti-endorsement — recently described as “a man who is still associated with sectarian hatred.”
In an effort to better understand Modi and what his ascension might mean for the future of the second-most populous country in the world, Salon recently spoke with Thomas Crowley, a Delhi-based researcher who has written of “myriad reasons to see [Modi] as embodying fascistic tendencies” and who’s argued that the rise of Modi and the BJP signals the full embrace of neoliberalism by India’s elites. Our conversation follows, and has been edited for clarity and length.
Narendra Modi has built a reputation — and very consciously built up this reputation — as someone who is a friend of business but also … that that kind of development benefits everyone. The facts on the ground are quite different, but that’s the kind of rhetoric [he uses]. So there’s that kind of neoliberal development, so that’s one of their main platforms.
Sometimes in the background — sometimes it comes to the front — is this very strong Hindu nationalism, and a kind of Hindu nationalism that is very exclusionary and is at times violent against religious minorities, which is mostly Muslims but also Christians and a few others.
Read more: “Worse than Reagan”: Meet the violent chauvinist now leading India, Narendra Modi - Salon.com
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