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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at an event to launch his party’s, BJP’s, election manifesto in Delhi earlier in April.
1 / 4Photo: Manish Swarup/AP/TT
One tenth of humanity can participate when the world’s biggest election now begins. But the question is what opportunities do the Indians have at the polls. It is seen as a given that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will retain power.
– People are inclined to vote away democracy if they get security in return. And that’s how they perceive him, says India expert Sten Widmalm.
2024 has been described as a global super election year. And the biggest of them all is the parliamentary elections that are now starting in India, and will last for six weeks. 968 million voters can participate, in over one million polling stations. The election workers alone are “one and a half Sweden” – 15 million people.
But, after ten years of Narendra Modi, does India live up to the epithet “the world’s largest democracy”?
– Yes, that is the question of, that… says Sten Widmalm, professor of political science in Uppsala, and hesitates a little.
He refers to V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy), a project in which he himself participates and which now classifies India as “electoral authoritarian”.
– So really you can say that India is not a real democracy anymore.
Challengers are imprisoned
This means that the country’s leadership is chosen by the people, but the election is not free and fair. A current example of how challengers are handled is Arvind Kejriwal. He leads the opposition Aam Aadmi Party, and is so popular that he might have been able to shake up Modi’s ruling BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) – had he not been thrown in jail just a month before the election.
Kejriwal is suspected of bribery, a charge the opposition dismisses as fabricated. And Widmalm emphasizes that the Aam Aadmi leader is just one of many such cases, often well-known profiles from civil society.
– You do that to those who are considered to be dangerous challengers to the BJP.
At the same time, Modi and his ministers are genuinely popular, with popularity numbers that many Western leaders can barely dream of.
– They have made reforms in the economy. He is seen as a hope for the future, because he guarantees economic development, says Sten Widmalm.
The West silent
It is also no disadvantage for Modi that among the spreaders of the positive image are two of the world’s richest people. Multi-billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani can be described as Indian versions of Donald Trump – unscrupulous businessmen who run their corporate empires despite persistent criminal charges.
Unlike Trump, Ambani and Adani have no political ambitions of their own. They have an intimate working relationship with the current government of India.
– Ambani says that Modi is the best thing that happened to India, says Widmalm.
The West is relatively quiet, partly for economic reasons.
– Since it is becoming more and more complicated to deal with China, India is the largest, most interesting investment country in the world, according to Widmalm.
– Democracies want contact with India. Partly because you can make money from it. But it is also the last outpost that can form a counterweight closest to China.
THE FACTSArendra Modi
Born 1950 in Gujarat. Sold tea together with his father at a young age.
Was married off at 18 to 17-year-old Jashodaben. But just a few months later, he left his wife and home. Instead, Narendra Modi traveled around to various ashrams, secluded places for Hindus, and joined Hindu nationalist organizations.
Never started a family, but only admitted when legally forced in the 2010s that he was married. But his childlessness is held up by supporters as a kind of insurance – so that Modi’s rule would not, like the famous Ghandi family, degenerate into a dynasty accused of misogyny.
Was the Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014. Was accused of then ordering the police to be passive during a massacre of around 1,000 Muslims in 2002. But was finally acquitted in the Supreme Court.
Prime Minister since May 2014.
Source: Indian media
Read moreFACTS The biggest election in history
As the population has grown since the last time (2019), this year’s election in India is the biggest vote in human history so far.
It is such a large apparatus to organize the election that the voting in different parts of the giant country is spread out over six weeks, from April 19 to June 1.
The election concerns the lower house of India’s parliament, the Lok Sabha, which has 543 members.
The term of office is five years. Thus, the last two elections were held in 2014 and 2019. Both times, Narendra Modi and his BJP, at the head of the party alliance NDA, won.
The main competitor for power is an alliance abbreviated as India (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance). It is led by the Congress Party, which previously ruled the country for decades but now lags far behind the BJP in public opinion.
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