that physics things again
about actions and consequences in India
In physics, an object in motion remains in motion, according to Isaac Newton’s laws. Anyone reading this column over a period of time knows that I take these physics things seriously because I think they govern more than cars on the road or cats pushing over a water glass (Eleanor did that regularly as a kitten. She seemed offended by anything perpendicular to the surface so she simply eliminated that before she aged into a perpetual sleeper).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi entered the polling for the Indian elections ostensibly confident of easily sustaining his nationalist party’s lock on the Parliament in New Delhi. After all, his party entered the vote with 303 of the 543 seats in the Parliament. He seemed invincible, a position others rising to power democratically (and non-democratically) could only yearn to achieve. One analyst referred to Modi’s ‘cultlike’ hold over his supporters and seemingly unstoppable position as the dominant figure in the nation’s contemporary era. My 24 March 2023 Substack entry spoke of Modi’s prowess last year as evidence of a wiping out opponents.
Modi’s prominence became apparent to outsiders a decade ago, smothering the last gasps of Congress under the fourth generation of the Gandhi family. Great grandson of independent India’s inaugural Prime Minister, Rahul led his party to a devastating defeat five years ago in national voting. The BJP with its strong Hindu nationalism left little political space for opposition in a country of more than a billion people with three hundred languages and dozens of religions. The BJP also showed no concern about protecting the secularism upon which India emerged as an independent democracy in 1947, built upon Hindus and Muslims among others, citizens living there.
Modi’s policies distinctly favour Hindus over the remainder of the nation. His positions aim to marginalise Muslims who are 14.2% of the country—172 million native-born men and women. Modi’s party has effective messaging through, if not control, over the media. He utilises various fundraising activities, several deemed illegal by India’s highest court, to expand appeal within the 79% of Indians who are Hindus. The Court similarly overturned Modi’s actions to ban Rahul Gandhi from Parliament last year. In short, many Indians saw a Prime Minister emboldened to use all of the levers of society to enhance his power, offering a galvanising motivation to stop Modi’s proclaimed goal of 400 BJP seats in the new parliament.
Modi has not addressed many of the pervasive economic problems leaving India as a society with severe socio-economic divisions. He certainly has proven an abject failure over climate change issues (many of which are, admittedly, outside of his control) and environmental deterioration. Modi assumed a seat at the global table as a member of the BRICs, a loose affiliation of states high on rhetoric and low on accomplishment. He also participates in the Quad, in conjunction with Washington, Tokyo, and Canberra, to counter China’s influence across the Indo-Pacific. In short, Modi’s two terms as Prime Minister represent a mixed bag but one that he had sold to his supporters as an invincibility on their behalf.
The election results that began emerging earlier this week shattered that image. The BJP won a slim majority but may well require coalition-making to achieve some of Modi’s goals. Oh, my. So much for guarantees of a BJP future for the 1.4 billion on the Subcontinent.
Two lessons strike me from this week’s elections. First, it’s seductive to assume that any object in motion—like the rise of a political movement and its grandiose leader—is unstoppable. But there is a second clause in Newton’s First Law of Motion: an object in motion remains in motion, unless an external force acts upon it. Narendra Modi forgot that second clause, ignoring that the actions he took could be affected by actions of others, in this case a significant number of voters of India uncomfortable with the trajectory he pursues.
Put another way, nothing, repeat nothing is guaranteed in politics where humans, with their infinite ability to introduce permutations into any situation, are involved. It’s hard to overstate this point: anyone telling you something is inevitable is ignoring the potential for humans to change conditions leading to that inevitability. This pertains to elections, coalitions, endstates, and anything else. Modi simply forgot this iron clad law of physics.
The second lesson is that actions create consequences. People respond to incentives and disincentives. Other countries respond, sometimes with alarm while others with applause, for choices and statements. As we have discussed often, these consequences may not be apparent within minutes or even days; sometimes the consequences require years to ‘ferment’ before they become apparent. But the effects are real and are crucial to an individual, any governing figure, any country, and the world. Nothing happens in a vacuum.
Modi will have a majority, albeit a considerably smaller one in the new legislative session in India. How he deals with that change will have knock on effects for the BJP, for Congress, and for the other smaller but represented parties within the proportional representative system that any parliament holds. As the senior elected official of the world’s biggest democracy, a nuclear state, and the pivotal ‘non-aligned’ (I would argue it still refuses to relinquish flexibility on the global scene) member of the world community, Modi brings India to a seat at the big table these days. How he occupies that seat is an open question, reminding us that consequences include the concept of lessons for a politician and his supporters—and opponents.
Thank you for reading Actions Create Consequences as I welcome your feedback, your suggestions, your rebuttals, and your engagement in any way. Please feel free to circulate this column if it is valuable to expanding our consideration on issues of note. Thank you to those who subscribe to this newsletter as I appreciate your financial commitment every single day.
It’s cloudy today so no sunrie photo. Instead, I forward a photo of beautiful central Philadelphia near the ‘Rocky steps’ at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Monday afternoon. No, I didn’t see Sly but Mary Cassatt was an amazing artist advancing women as self-sustaining members of society.
Be well and be safe. FIN
Nikhil Ghanekar, ‘Hindu population share dipped 7.82%, while that of Christians, Muslims, Sikhs rose: PM-EAC’, IndiaExpress.com, 10 May 2024, retrieved at https://indianexpress.com/article/india/hindu-population-share-dipped-7-82-while-that-of-christians-muslims-sikhs-rose-pm-eac-9319298/
Sameer Yasir, ‘Early 2024 Election Results Suggest Sharp Turnaround for Indian Naitonal Congress’, NewYorkTimes.com, 4 June 2024, retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/04/world/asia/indian-national-congress-rahul-gandhi-election.html