Modi’s landslide win in the Indian elections is clearly the result of his transcending influence across geography, class and caste and the rural-urban divide.

With 282 seats in the Lok Sabha, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will now have a choice, rather than compulsion, whether to depend on its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) allies to form a government. This is the first time in 30 years that a government with such a decisive majority takes office in New Delhi. Those who, only weeks ago, were insisting that the era of coalition politics and cohabitation was a permanent feature of Indian politics are now suddenly clamoring for new explanations. 

Something remarkable has happened in India. People decided, including the very poorest, that they wanted a change. And that Modi, a low caste OBC (Other Backward Class) himself, would be the harbinger of that unfolding new era. Some have even declared that the curtain has fallen on caste-based politics, the hallmark of post-independence India.

The India National Congress did all it could to hang on to power but India’s mostly young voters decided the party of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty had to go. In the dying days of its five-year term, the Congress-led government hurried a subsidy bill that established a legal right to food, at a staggering annual of cost of $20 billion. With 148 million Indians living below the poverty line, the bill was supposed to sway poor voters in favour of the beleaguered party. Still, the voters, including the rural poor, gave a resounding yes to the BJP.

What does this mean? What does sweeping mandate of the BJP and a ‘strongman’ in New Delhi mean—to India, its neighbours, the international community?

Aspirational India

First, the vote no doubt is a big thumbs-up to an aspirational India. Modi campaigned, and he campaigned hard, on the agenda of growth and good governance, promising a fight against corruption (the Congress, conversely, was identified with all that is decadent and corrupt) and employment. He unabashedly trumpeted his track record as a neo-liberal chief minister of Gujarat for the last 13 years.

This aspirational brand of politics broadened the BJP’s appeal beyond west and north India, decimating the Congress, including in its bastions.

This election also showed Modi’s appeal among ethnic and caste groups and equally among the rural population. The rural voter—connected by TV, internet and the mobile phone—seemed to have joined the aspirational class in the cities.

Possible downside

With numbers firmly on his side, there is now a fear that Modi will read this as a mandate for majoritarian rule, a vote for Hindu nationalist politics and the unapologetic neo-liberalism he championed in Gujarat.

Can India’s minorities be comfortable with a prime minister, who in 2002 presided over a pogrom in his home state where over a thousand people, mostly Muslims, were killed?

The Sangh Parivar and Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) have been the bedrock of Modi’s prime ministerial campaign, mobilizing tens of thousands of their cadres across India. At a victory press conference on Friday, BJP Chairman Rajnath Singh had to repeatedly urge his karyakartas to refrain from incendiary chants. The RSS’s core belief is deeply troubling to many Indians: to be Hindustani (the term ‘Hindustan’ features prominently in Modi’s speeches), one has to be Hindu.

It is not going to be easy for Modi to distance himself from the RSS; his first visit after the election victory was to the holy city of Banaras where he performed puja at the famed Vishwanath temple and on the banks of the Ganga. In a live telecast stretching for nearly three hours, and beamed all over the world, his message from the ghat was clear: he was not going to shy away from celebrating his Hindu roots. According to The Economist, about 2,000 RSS volunteers turned out to help Modi in Banaras alone for his election campaign.

From the ghat on Saturday, thronged by thousands of volunteers and supporters, he declared that Banaras would reclaim its glorious past as a cradle of an ancient, great civilisation.

That’s fine. But the RSS and Sangh Parivar, the family of Hindu nationalist groups, also have a larger and more divisive agenda: the construction of a temple at the disputed site of a demolished mosque in Ayodhya; the abolition of special status accorded to India’s only Muslim-majority state, Kashmir; and the scrapping of a separate civil code for Muslims. 

Nepal and Modi

From a Nepali viewpoint, we have still to complete our political transition. And the biggest question before us is whether the Modi government will take ownership of the ongoing peace process. Though Nepal-India political overtures started when BJP leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee was at the helm, the peace process got underway in earnest under the watch of the Manmohan Singh government, including the crucial 12-point agreement in New Delhi between the underground Maoists and the Seven Party Alliance in 2005.

While it is hard to see the Modi government revising New Delhi’s position on the monarchy and federalism, it is their stance on secularism that will be of particular concern to Nepalis. A lot will depend on Modi’s three key appointments—Minister for External Affairs, Defence Minister and National Security Advisor—and, if recent history of Nepal-India relations is any indication, the RAW chief in New Delhi.

If Modi’s premiership takes a stridently Hindu revivalist overtone in India, his foreign policy priorities are unlikely to sound secular in Nepal. Kamal Thapa and right-leaning leaders in other parties will find new fuel to question the very relevance of the peace process. This could complicate the Constituent Assembly process.

The worst thing that can happen to India’s neighbourhood is a prime minister, a hawk, who looks to export his brand of Hindu nationalist politics.

Fortunately, Modi has also shown foreign policy pragmatism. While he hasn’t shied away from taking on China on territorial disputes, for example, his tenure as Chief Minister of Gujarat also saw him make four visits to China where he received a warm welcome. Economic ties between China and Gujarat are strong and Modi is likely to follow a similar trajectory in New Delihi, all his nationalist pronouncements notwithstanding.

Very similar should be his contribution to India-US ties, which have been fraught due to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) limits, unpredictability on tax and openness in trade in general. Already, after the Modi win, US companies seem excited about their prospects in the vast Indian markets. Closer home, it was during Vajpayee’s premiership that the Delhi-Lahore ‘bus diplomacy’ (Sada-e-Sarhad in Hindi and Urdu) started as a larger peace initiative, whatever Pakistani hardliners may now have to say.  

It is likely that Modi’s foreign policy pronouncements could be more nationalistic than the Congress’. But this could only signify a change in style rather than substance, at least in the short and medium term.

Even if he makes changes only due to stylistic necessities and domestic compulsions (for example, as a result of pressure from RSS elements), Modi can potentially damage the peace process in Kathmandu where New Delhi’s motivations find quick and unhelpful hyper-interpretations. Should that happen, yet another person will be a key actor: the Indian ambassador to Kathmandu. For now, we can rest assured that a calm and collected Ranjit Rae in Lainchaur has demonstrated strong links with the peace process (see Monday Interview, February 17).

Modi has clearly raised expectations. What would however be most unfortunate is the Hindu right dragging the pro-bikas prime minister away from his core election promise: strong growth and good governance.

If Modi stays focused, he could be the first prime minister to redefine the narrative in Indian politics. And not just India, the world beyond its borders, including Nepal, would have much to celebrate.