We meet both women from different sides. Masa is dressed in saffron yellow. Beautiful jewelry sparkles around her neck and her face is adorned with colors in traditional style.
– Modi has created opportunities for us. Chances and ways out like no other Indian leader before, says Masa, 22.
– He is my hero, says the young lawyer who has come to one of the ruling party BJP’s election meetings before the third round of the Indian parliamentary elections.
The campaign meeting resembles a circus
The campaign rally in New Delhi is more like a carnival. Or a circus. It does not give the impression of any stable popular manifestation. Rather a street party with hired drummers and dancers. Flowers are thrown from balconies along the street. The leaves in red swirl in the warm wind down on us journalists covering the road show, as it is called when Indian politicians show up to demonstrate their power and attract voters.
At the university in the capital, we meet Suman. Another young woman. But with a completely different opinion about Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party, the Hindu nationalist and populist BJP.
– I am not addressed by Modi. He and the BJP party are fueling hatred between people and sowing division between different ethnic groups. I don’t want an India like that, says Suman, who studies economics.
Fewer and fewer dare to air criticism
Further away, other university students sit on the ground outside the school building and paint placards ahead of a protest against the ruling politicians in the country.
Protests are of course still going on in India. But fewer and fewer Indians dare to criticize an increasingly authoritarian ruling party.
– People are arrested without much reason and self-censorship is also becoming more common, says Suman’s course instructor Supriy Ranjan.
He shakes his head.
– BJP has created that kind of suffocating atmosphere. The larger media houses are also increasingly biased nowadays, in Modi’s favor, says Supriy.
But despite a, according to independent international assessors, clear dismantling of democratic foundations, many of the Indian electorate flock around the Modi phenomenon. He has charisma. He has experience. He knows what he’s doing. With promises and grand infrastructure investments, and with his Hindu nationalist stance, he has managed to capture a majority of India’s voters.