Ramachandra Guha: Can an autocrat become a democrat?
In his narcissism, Modi is worlds removed from the prime ministers who had run coalition governments before him.
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In a piece published in these pages on July 1, 2023 – almost exactly a year ago – I wrote that while I had once harboured large ambitions for the renewal of Indian democracy, for the next general elections I had just one, modest, hope: that “no single party should get a majority of seats in the Lok Sabha; indeed, that the largest single party should fall substantially short of a majority. For while our current prime minister is authoritarian by instinct, this unsalutary aspect of his personality has been given ballast by the two successive majorities his party has won in general elections.”
Whether even this modest hope would be realised looked unlikely in July 2023. Or for several months thereafter. In an article published in Foreign Affairs in February 2024, that was sharply critical of the prime minister’s policies, I had nonetheless remarked that “INDIA will struggle to unseat Modi and the BJP and may hope at best to dent their commanding majority in parliament.”
Later that month, I heard from a correspondent who told me that – contrary to the conventional wisdom – the Opposition would not just dent, but end, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s majority in Parliament. This was the journalist, Anil...
