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✪ Assistant Researcher, International Cooperation Center, National Development and Reform Commission, Mao Keji✪ Shi Yafeng, Graduate Student of the Party School of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee✪ Cultural Perspective (Reviewer)
The Indian general election has come to an end, Modi "won but still lost", the Bharatiya Janata Party broke out in an upset, and even failed to win enough seats to form a cabinet alone. Behind this referendum on the "Modi Decade" is a concentrated explosion of hidden dangers buried behind the development achievements of the "Modi Decade". Today's special articles by Mao Keji and Shi Yafeng systematically sort out how the Modi government has succeeded in the past ten years and what hidden dangers have been buried, providing an important reference for us to understand India's general election and India's future development.
The article pointed out that in this Indian general election, the Indian People's Party led by Modi was able to win a third term, which in itself proves that the past ten years of governance have achieved remarkable results. The biggest objective reason why the votes were far lower than expected is that the reforms promoted by the "Modi Decade" have overdrawn the political capital accumulated by the BJP, and at the same time have established too many political opponents, leading them to cling together to block the Modi government. According to the analysis of the general election process, although the extreme heat weather in North India exceeded 50 degrees Celsius, the voters' confidence in the BJP's superiority led to a decline in voting enthusiasm, and the change of some seats in the parliament had an adverse impact, the unprecedented unity shown by the "Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance" led by the Congress Party was also an important reason for the BJP's loss of seats.
The key to Modi's third re-election is that he has taken a new course. Socio-culturally, the BJP has effectively united society through Hindu nationalism and activated the Hindu community, which accounts for 85% of India's population, but it has also seriously overwhelmed the political activities and social life space of Muslims, Christians and other groups. In terms of political governance, the BJP has particularly strengthened the centralization of power, improved the country's capacity, focused on promoting the reform of the party's internal organization, and strengthened its advantages in organizational mobilization. Economically, it is modeled after the "development model" of East Asia, "expanding investment", "developing manufacturing", and "promoting exports". Diplomatically, China has seized the opportunity of the geopolitical upheaval to gain benefits from swinging among the major powers and stepping up its efforts to explore the surrounding regions of South Asia, while also transforming "diplomatic victories" into "domestic dividends".
These governing strategies also have hidden dangers. Socioculturally, the Modi government's tactics are likely to exacerbate tensions between its parent organization, the National Volunteer Corps (RSS), the Tuanjia family, and the BJP, and externally between Hindus and other social groups. Politically, the BJP's radical reforms have upset the political balance that has existed in India's political system for a long time, shaken its own organizational foundation, and promoted the "united resistance" of other political parties, including the Congress Party. On the economic front, the sustainability of India's development and the proper distribution of development benefits are still constrained, including both India's domestic challenges and whether the current international environment can support an export-oriented "development country" of India's magnitude. In terms of the distribution of interests, the acute class, religious, regional and ethnic contradictions in India all reflect their structural problems. Diplomatically, the BJP's foreign policy lacks flexibility on issues related to internal affairs, and lacks principles when it has nothing to do with domestic affairs, and the diplomatic risks are obvious.
This article is a special article for the column of Culture Vertical New Media and International Observation, and is published with the author's permission. The title is the editor's own draft, and the article only represents the author's point of view for readers' reference and analysis.
Cultural Perspectives, New Media, and International Observations
2024 No. 19 Total No. 191
Indian General Election with
Modi's 10 years of achievements and pitfalls
On June 4, the 47-day election of the Lok Sabha in India came to an end, and the general election of the Bharatiya Janata Party (hereinafter referred to as the "Bharatiya Janata Party") led by Modi was "unpopular", showing a situation of "victory but defeat". Not only did the BJP fail to achieve its pre-election ambition of 400 seats, but it also failed to win a majority of the seats on its own, and needed the support of its National League for Democracy (NDA) allies, including Telugu Township Party (TDP) and the BJDU, to win more than 272 seats. If Modi succeeds in forming a government, it will make him the only leader other than Jawaharlal Nehru, the founder of India, to be re-elected three times since independence. While Modi was not surprised to win a third term, there were many surprises during the election process: the BJP's unexpectedly small victory, the BJP's unexpectedly deteriorating performance in the north, and the unexpectedly strong counteroffensive of the opposition coalition.
However, these seemingly unexpected situations are actually reasonable, because India's general election is also to some extent a referendum on the "Modi Decade". In this general election, the reason why the BJP "first promoted and then suppressed" and "won but still lost" and could only win the third term with difficulty is that although the BJP has explored a new path of development, it has not taken into account the demands of traditional interest groups, nor has it taken into account the interests of laborers, farmers, Buraku and other groups affected by the reform, and has completely ignored or even wantonly infringed on the interests of Muslims and other groups. It is precisely for this reason that the "Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance" (hereinafter referred to as "INDIA") was able to conquer the city and push the BJP down from the altar in one fell swoop, and push India's politics to swing back in the direction of decentralization.
However, the BJP has made history after winning a third term, and its ability to hold on to its ruling position also shows that the BJP's previous 10 years in power are indeed remarkable. Under Modi's leadership, the BJP government has not only bid farewell to the Congress's decades-old governance strategy, but also embarked on a completely new path that is completely different from social culture, political governance, economic development, and diplomatic strategy, and has formed a closed loop of mutual promotion and positive feedback between all links. India under Modi is so different that it could even be called the "Second Republic of India".
In view of this, Modi's struggle to win the third term of the government will not only have to face the evolution of favorable factors in the early stage, but also the accumulated risks and challenges, including the religious backlash of Hindu nationalism, the political degeneration of the BJP, the "deficit" of Modi's successor of the BJP, and the worsening of economic and social polarization in India's chaebol-led development. This may be the key to what the Modi government can do in its third term, and beyond, to continue to chart an Indian path for development.
▍ "Unexpected" and "expected" of India's 2024 general election
The BJP's victory was expected, but the difficulty of the victory process was unexpected. Despite many signs before and during the general election that the BJP would win re-election, and hopes for a landslide BJP victory until the results of the exit polls were released, the vote count was a "major upset": the BJP and its coalition received far less votes than expected. According to data released by the Election Commission of India, the BJP-led NDA won 292 seats, of which the BJP alone won 239 seats, well below the 303 seats in the 2019 general election and the 282 seats in 2014. The BJP has lost its sole governing position and needs at least three allies to form a government, and even if it does form a government with the support of its allies, it will only maintain a narrow advantage over the opposition. It is not difficult to see from the analysis of the process of this general election that although the extreme hot weather of more than 50 degrees Celsius in North India, the decline in voting enthusiasm caused by voters' confidence in the BJP's advantage, and the change of some seats did have a significant impact on the results of the general election, the biggest objective reason for the BJP's "victory and defeat" is that the reforms strongly promoted by the "Modi Decade" have overdrawn the political capital accumulated by the BJP and set up too many political opponents, causing them to cling together to block the Modi government.
The BJP's victory in the Hindi-speaking heart was expected, but the deterioration in the election was unexpected. In this general election, although the BJP has retained its "basic base" in North India and West India, the fierce competition for votes and the sharp fluctuations in the election situation are eye-popping, and the BJP has lost the most votes in these areas. In its traditional sphere of influence, the BJP not only lost 29 seats in Uttar Pradesh (from 62 to 33) and 13 in Maharashtra (from 23 to 10), but also lost a clean sweep in Modi's home state of Gujarat, where the Congress party won one seat and only 29 seats in Madhya Pradesh. What is even more shocking is that in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council election just two years ago, the BJP won the election by smashing 255 of the 403 seats in Uttar Pradesh and 273 seats in the Electoral Alliance. Although there is a significant difference between the local and national elections, the disparity is so drastic that it severely undermines the BJP's electoral character as a "strong representative of the Hindi-speaking heartland".
Although unexpected factors such as extreme weather and voter slackness have weakened the BJP's electoral advantage, the direct cause of the deterioration of the election situation is that the North Indian people are dissatisfied with the Modi government's delay in delivering new incremental development dividends while undermining many existing interests. For example, the Modi government's second term to promote reforms such as the Farm Bill has seriously harmed the interests of North Indian peasant groups, so it is natural that this group cannot meet the grand narratives of the BJP such as "national integration" and "national rise", but instead demands more direct and focused political attention and economic resources. In contrast, in South India and East India, which were considered to be "related to the dominant position of the BJP" before the election, the BJP did gain some gains: the BJP achieved zero seats in southern Indian states such as Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, while maintaining its dominant position in northeastern Indian states such as Assam. However, in the context of the "upset" in North India, the BJP's "external" achievements not only seem insignificant, but even prove that its election strategy is somewhat unscrupulous.
While it was not surprising that the opposition coalition had no hope of taking power, the intensity of the counteroffensive was unexpected. INDIA, which was led by the Congress Party, won 232 seats in the general election, of which the Congress Party alone achieved its goal of doubling its seats, winning 99 seats. However, before the election, the media and scholars were highly skeptical about the election ability of this "hodgepodge coalition" - after all, with the exception of the "anti-BJP", INDIA could hardly come up with any substantive and implementable political goals and policies, let alone reach a binding agreement or consensus on the issue of "joint candidacy" - neither party was willing to support anyone in the coalition to come to power in the event of "defeat of the BJP".
Despite this, INDIA has accurately grasped the Achilles' heel exposed by the BJP's previous two general elections - the BJP's back-to-back wins are not because the BJP was able to win an absolute majority of votes in a single constituency, but because the BJP took advantage of the fragmentation of votes from other parties to win the constituencies by a comparative advantage alone. Obviously, this strategy will only succeed if the BJP divides and breaks down the opposition, but if the opposition chooses to unite, the BJP will most likely not win. In this general election, one of the key reasons why the opposition parties have put aside their past suspicions and joined forces to resist is that in recent years, the BJP has frequently undermined the basic norms of India's political life and wantonly suppressed the Congress Party and the BJP. This kind of perverse "public nuisance" not only seriously affects the perception of ordinary voters about the BJP, but also pushes many small and medium-sized parties that were originally unstable into INDIA. Therefore, the fact that such a coalition with the goal of "disrupting the situation" won 232 seats, almost equaling the BJP's seats, was enough to force the BJP to make concessions or compromises to its allies and opposition parties, which was bound to be a strong deterrent to the BJP's political ambition to promote "blockbuster reforms" in the third term.
▍The key to Modi's third re-election is that he has taken a new route
Despite the headwinds in this election, Modi's ability to be re-elected three times and become the only contemporary leader of India to rival Jawaharlal Nehru fully shows that the "Modi Decade" is by no means useless. It is a miracle in itself that a super-large economy like India, which has extremely complex conditions, extremely large scale, and extremely diverse interests, has won consecutive elections. Throughout the "Modi Decade", the BJP has not only bid farewell to the Congress Party's decades-long governance strategy, but also initially explored a new path of governance from social culture, political governance to economic development, and then to diplomatic strategy, and strives to form a closed loop of mutual promotion and positive feedback between all links, presenting a faintly visible atmosphere of "Second Republic of India".
First of all, in terms of social culture, the BJP has effectively improved India's social and cultural cohesion by accomplishing the goal of Hindu nationalism, enhanced the BJP's organizational attractiveness and political influence, and laid a solid foundation for Modi to promote in-depth reforms in the political and economic fields. It was under the leadership of the BJP that Hindu nationalism not only emerged from its marginal status as despised by secular politics, but also moved into the center of India's political life. For example, during the Modi Decade, the BJP made breakthroughs in a series of landmark Hindu nationalist agendas, such as the restoration of the Rama Temple, the abolition of Kashmir's special autonomy status under Article 370 of the Constitution, the introduction of the Citizenship Amendment, and the adoption of the Unified Civil Code. It is precisely because of these strongly religious activities that the BJP has further revitalized the Hindu community, which accounts for 85% of India's population, and in particular has drawn the political attention of this large group away from the fragmented agendas of caste, class, and ethnicity, to a coherent religious agenda. It is precisely because of the use of Hinduism as the "greatest common divisor" that transcends castes, classes, and nationalities that the BJP has evolved into a dominant force capable of subverting socio-cultural agendas and shaping a new paradigm in socio-cultural. This agenda squeezes the space for political and even social survival of Muslims, Christians and other groups, who are used as "imaginary enemies" to maintain the unity of Hindus.
It is under this set of socio-cultural discourse that the BJP has carried out a comprehensive grassroots campaign and volunteerism in culture, education and health through itself and its parent organization, the National Volunteer Service Corps (RSS), supplemented by financial allocations or transfer payments such as the Swachh Bharat Mission and the Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme, to make the people feel more tangible" The advent of the "Rama Prosperous Era" will enhance the spiritual appeal and social mobilization power of the BJP, and consolidate and expand the political foundation of the BJP.
Second, in terms of political governance, the BJP government not only performs its governing functions, but also strengthens the centralization of power, improves the country's capacity, focuses on promoting the reform of the party's internal organization, and strengthens the BJP's organizational and mobilization advantages. Modi has strongly promoted the centralization reform with "financial power" as the core, raising India's central authority over the local government to an unprecedented height. Since taking office in 2014, the Modi government has been firmly grasping the building of the central government's fiscal power, not only abolishing the National Planning Commission in 2015, an important intermediary department involved in budgetary investment and financial resource allocation, and assigning its functions to the Prime Minister's Office, the Ministry of Finance and other functional ministries under Modi's direct supervision, but also continuously promoting budget reform, tax reform and other major reforms involving fiscal absorption capacity and fiscal distribution. Among them, the Goods and Services Tax reform is known as the Indian version of the "tax sharing reform", which replaces the separate collection of each state by directly collecting and distributing it directly from the central government, which greatly enhances the political bargaining power of the central government in the face of local governments in a relatively short period of time.
As the ruling party, the BJP has also vigorously promoted organizational and personnel reform within the party. On the one hand, the Central Committee of the BJP has tried to maximize the expansion of the party's membership base by constantly balancing the caste forces within the party through organizational means. In order to balance the rise of the lower caste groups brought about by the expansion of the BJP, to coordinate the group contradictions between the local dominant castes, and to protect the traditional interests of the upper caste groups within the party, the Central Committee of the BJP has made great efforts to shape the "political neutrality" of the upper caste cadres, appointing a large number of upper castes to leadership roles, and at the same time recruiting low-caste representatives to important positions when necessary, so as to achieve the goal of balancing the interests of the factions. On the other hand, the Central Committee of the Indian People's Party has also continuously strengthened organizational discipline within the Party. For example, in the 2023 state legislature elections in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP Central Committee "marginalized" Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who had been the state's chief minister for more than 16 years, and instead launched Mohan Yadav, who lacked a foundation in the state and could only rely on Modi. For another example, in the 2024 Federation House election, only one of the 16 BJP candidates will be an "old face", and among the remaining 15 "rookies", even as many as 10 will be previously unknown grassroots personnel.
In addition, the BJP has not hesitated to "use public weapons for private purposes" in elections at all levels, and is not only accustomed to directly manipulating administrative tools to directly suppress political opponents, but also is good at "capturing" the state apparatus that is supposed to maintain political neutrality. On the one hand, the BJP has accelerated the recruitment and capture of talents from the state bureaucracy, including External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and former Chief of Defence Staff Rawat, all of whom have been "rediscovered" by the BJP among technocrats. Among them, Jaishankar won the seat of the Gujarat State of Commons in 2019 under the strong promotion of Modi, completing the transformation from an affairs officer to a political officer. On the other hand, the BJP has also given full play to its dual advantages in the legislative and executive branches, promoting laws and regulations with distinct partisan characteristics, and undermining political traditions in a more institutionalized way. For example, in 2021 and 2023, the BJP pushed bills to "allow electoral registration agencies to identify voters" and "allow the government to strengthen its control over the Election Commission and the election process" respectively. Another example is the Modi government's 2023 launch of the "Social Warrior Scheme", in which the military, which is supposed to be strictly party-neutral, "advises" Indian soldiers to assist in the "Clean India Campaign" while on leave.
Third, on the economic front, the Modi government has strongly promoted a number of deep-seated economic reforms by virtue of its solid ruling position, with a focus on leading India to an economic policy of "expanding investment", "developing manufacturing" and "promoting exports", imitating the "development-oriented national model" of East Asian countries. Economic development is not only a central pillar of the Modi government's "India Rising" narrative, but the "legitimacy of performance" embedded in it is also a key pillar for the BJP to win the election. To a large extent, "Modinomics" directly deviates from India's long-standing traditional development path of "leapfrogging industrialization", and strives to push India away from the development model of "light manufacturing, heavy service industry", "light labor-intensive manufacturing, heavy capital-intensive manufacturing".
In terms of attracting investment, the Modi government has taken infrastructure construction as the main line, vigorously promoting key infrastructure such as electricity, ports, roads, and railways, which India has long lacked, while lowering the entry threshold for foreign investment and optimizing the domestic business environment, hoping to rely more on investment rather than consumption to drive India's economic development. In terms of industrial development, the Modi government has seized the opportunity of the restructuring of the global production and supply chain triggered by the Sino-US game, and hopes to replace China's position in the global industrial chain and supply chain with labor-intensive manufacturing such as consumer electronics, boost the employment rate of the youth population, ease social pressure, and increase the income of the bottom groups.
At the same time, the Modi government has invested heavily in financial funds, diplomatic resources, and political capital, and has continuously launched industrial policies such as the "Phased Manufacturing Plan" (PMP) and the "Manufacturing Incentive Program" (PLI), while continuing to expand the scale of "cash-for-work" projects to meet the dependence of the people at the bottom on welfare policies and enhance the hematopoietic capacity of the economy.
Fourth, on the diplomatic front, the Modi government has seized the opportunity of the international geopolitical upheaval, not only oscillating between major powers to benefit, but also stepping up its efforts to explore the surrounding regions of South Asia, turning domestic sales of "diplomatic victories" into "domestic dividends". In terms of border security, the border disputes and even conflicts provoked by India against China since 2017 are a landmark event for India to adjust its stance on China, but the strategic and tactical disadvantages of the Indian army have made the Modi government can only use the border issue to stir up domestic nationalist sentiments and strengthen border armaments and infrastructure construction, but it can only choose to "cold treatment" at the bilateral reality level. In terms of economy and trade, on the one hand, the Modi government has banned a large number of Chinese-funded apps, locked down the issuance of visas from China to India, and increased the extortion and persecution of Chinese enterprises in India.
In the face of the United States and the West, India has relied on the United States to an unprecedented level, and it can even be said that it has abandoned its long-standing "non-aligned" stance. In order to cater to the "Indo-Pacific Strategy" thrown out by the United States and the West, and fill the niche gap after the "decoupling" and "disconnection" of the United States and the West from China, India has actively concluded bilateral industrial and technological frameworks such as the Critical and Emerging Technology Initiative (iCET) and the Trade and Technology Council (TTC) with the United States and the West, actively participated in small multilateral mechanisms such as the Quadripartite Mechanism (QUAD) and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, and obtained a large amount of capital, technology, market, policy and military intelligence support from the United States and the West through a firm "anti-China" stance. In the face of Russia, India has maintained India-Russia cooperation to the greatest extent acceptable to the United States and the West, and has seized substantial benefits from it while maintaining its own image of "neutrality." On the one hand, India has purchased low-cost Russian oil on a large scale in the context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and in addition to filling its own energy needs, it has also "bought low and sold high" to obtain high economic benefits, and on the other hand, it has expressed its refusal to take sides between Russia and the United States and the West, and retains the channels for developing relations and seizing benefits between the two sides while maintaining its own "neutral" image.
In terms of the surrounding areas of South Asia, India has accelerated the construction of interconnection with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and other countries, so as to strengthen its control over neighboring countries and reflect the status of a regional power with the "rise of India" internally. In addition, the BJP government prefers to "downgrade" in its affairs with Pakistan in order to show the difference in power between India and Pakistan and the asymmetry in India-Pakistan relations, and to satisfy the demands of nationalist groups in the country. In terms of the Global South, India has competed with China by actively participating in the affairs of the "Global South", increasing foreign aid, and waving the banner of "digital" development, so as to enhance its bargaining position with the United States and the West, and cater to the BJP's narrative of "India rising".
▍The "gains" and "losses" of the Modi government's strong reforms
Although the strong reforms in the "Modi Decade" have made great achievements in promoting Hindu nationalist ideology, strengthening India's national capacity, and enhancing India's international status, its extreme reform goals, excessive pace of reform, and radical reform methods have not only made achievements but also buried many hidden dangers for the Indian state and society, which have pushed up the uncertainty of India's future development. The larger-than-expected weakening of the BJP in this general election is largely the result of the "pain of reform" and the "release of stress" from the democratic election.
On the social and cultural front, the Modi government's promotion of the Hindu nationalists' achievements in power and the trend of long-term governance poses a de facto challenge to the authoritative position of the National Volunteer Corps (RSS) in Hindu social and cultural life, which may intensify the contradictions between the RSS, the Tuan family and the BJP internally, and further polarize the Hindu nationalist agenda externally, showing a more radical "exclusivity". Internally, Modi's strong personal authority has turned the RSS and the BJP into de facto two functional bodies with the overall goal of building a "Hindu society", but the BJP has gradually eroded the RSS's parent status. This reversal of the status of the party may resonate with the historical contradictions between the BJP and the Caliber family, triggering an all-round confrontation between the parties and the caucus in the "post-Modi era" based on line, power, and even the legitimacy of Modi's "mantle" inheritance. Externally, the Modi Decade pursued a Hindu nationalist ideological agenda and erased almost all the "privileges" enjoyed by India's Muslim community since independence in a "hyper-corrected" manner. Both the RSS and the BJP are currently in a brief "agenda gap". However, this has also stimulated the BJP, which suffered a larger-than-expected setback in the general election, to cater to RSS extremists and push for further intensification and polarization of Hindu nationalist ideology. Although Muslims can choose to vote for the Congress coalition, if an event such as the 2002 Kupang crisis erupts, it may become the trigger for the BJP to trigger a state of emergency, leading to an unpredictable evolution of social tensions.
On the political front, the BJP's radical reforms have upset the political balance that has long existed in India's political system, shaken the BJP's own organizational foundation, and put Indian politics as a whole in a state of "unsteady" risk. From the perspective of party-government relations, the organizational form of the BJP and the ideological core of sectarian parties will further erode India's political system and strengthen the tension between India's political system and actual political operation. From the perspective of inter-party relations, the white-hot election campaign will lead the BJP to intensify its suppression of the opposition parties, and the ideological extremism of both sides may even revive India's political tradition of "political assassination". From the perspective of caucus relations, the BJP's 180 million members and RSS 5 million members may have reached a tipping point sufficient to reverse party and caucus relations, and the emergence of "political strongman" Modi is not so much a relaxation as a cover-up of contradictions. It is highly doubtful whether and how the BJP will inherit Modi's economic development and ideological goals in the "post-Modi era", and the possibility of contradictions breaking out over the "line dispute" cannot be ruled out. From the perspective of intra-party relations, it is difficult to say that the BJP, which has developed from hundreds of thousands, has the ability to independently maintain, manage, and mobilize 180 million party members. In the absence of Modi, the new balance between the central BJP and local power factions remains unresolved.
On the economic front, although the BJP government has made some achievements in economic development, it is still uncertain whether such development will be sustainable and whether the benefits of development will be properly distributed. In terms of economic development, although the BJP government has successfully transformed the original "trans-industrialisation" development path into a more reasonable and feasible "development state" model, it still faces many problems and challenges. First of all, the BJP's current model of "developmental state" is essentially a descriptive theory of the "East Asian miracle" at the end of the last century, which has a specific historical background and domestic political foundation, and is not a "panacea" that guarantees direct and sustained economic development. On the one hand, this means that India still needs to adjust accordingly according to its own economic realities, and if it fails to solve the problem of eradicating the market's path dependence on mature service industries, overcoming the multiple constraints on government capacity in federal democracies, and breaking down the institutional barriers that the majority of the people are unable to participate in the market economy, then India's economic development potential under the "development country" model will be greatly reduced. On the other hand, it may also mean that the "development country" model is no longer suitable for today's international environment, or that the world's blank market is no longer enough to support the rise of an export-oriented "development country" of India's magnitude, and India needs to explore a new path suitable for India's development on its own. Second, the issue of the distribution of the "cake" of economic development is also a major headache for the BJP, and the intricate class, regional, religious, and ethnic contradictions in India make it very easy for the BJP to cause social conflicts in the distribution of interests, and in serious cases, it may even interfere with and interrupt the process of India's economic development. From the perspective of horizontal class contradictions, the current BJP government is a populist regime that relies on a very small number of chaebols and a large number of poor people, and this distribution model is unsustainable: the distribution to the chaebol increases the independence of the chaebol, while the distribution to the poor pushes up the marginal effect of the poor, and then leads to a dead end of "sustained growth exacerbates the polarization of the rich and the poor" and "inability to grow leads to the implosion of the support coalition", not to mention the marginalized middle class and minorities in this distribution process. From the perspective of vertical social contradictions, it goes without saying that religious contradictions, represented by the contradictions between India and Muslims, are the fuse of India's all-round social conflicts, and once they erupt, they will seriously interfere with or even interrupt the process of India's economic development. Although regional and ethnic contradictions will not be so intense and have such devastating economic consequences, the game between all parties on issues such as resource tilt and industrial distribution will also partially distort the "optimal solution" under pure economic conditions, and the accumulation of small amounts may constitute another structural problem in India that is difficult to cure.
In foreign affairs, the BJP's foreign policy lacks flexibility on issues related to internal affairs, and lacks principles when it has nothing to do with internal affairs. In terms of conservative diplomacy, from the perspective of foreign economic and trade cooperation, India's low degree of economic modernization, high degree of chaebol monopoly, and strong vulnerability to external shocks jointly determine that India cannot offend internal interest groups and establish in-depth economic and trade communication and cooperation with external economies, locking the upper limit of India's foreign economic cooperation. From the perspective of Global South cooperation, India lacks its own strategic resources and will not provide public goods for the vast number of countries in the Global South out of its own pocket. It is also highly similar to the economic structure of the countries of the South, and is essentially the largest and most threatening zero-sum game opponent of the countries of the Global South, which locks the ceiling of India's leadership of cooperation in the Global South. In terms of speculative diplomacy, India has been torn and swayed between China and the United States, and between the United States and Russia, and while seizing short-term gains, India's long-term image has been seriously damaged, endangering the strategic trust of all parties in India and reducing their willingness to cooperate with India. India is vying for leadership in the Global South, but it has invested little and refused to take responsibility, hoping to use it to boost its bargaining power with the United States and the West, and continue to damage the international prestige that India has accumulated since independence. Not only that, the BJP has long practiced hegemony over neighboring countries and regions, vainly claiming to be a "big Bharata" state. The "connectivity" of South Asia under this concept will only further arouse the vigilance of neighboring countries and in fact hinder the process of regional integration in South Asia.
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This article is a special article for the column of Culture Vertical New Media and International Observation, and is published with the author's permission. The title is the editor's own draft, and the article only represents the author's point of view for readers' reference and analysis.
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