India’s Hindu nationalist strongman Narendra Modi has won the third term as prime minister he so desperately wanted. But the result of the country’s mammoth April-to-June general election fell short of the sweeping triumph that had seemed within his grasp.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) now holds 240 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament. This is 63 down from the 303 it won in the last election in 2019, meaning it’s lost its parliamentary majority. Modi remains prime minister, courtesy of the 53 seats won by other parties in the BJP-led coalition, the National Democratic Alliance. But it’s far short of the 400-seat supermajority Modi had publicly proclaimed he wanted – which would have given him the power to rewrite the constitution.

After an election in which Modi used every lever available to gain an advantage, the results suggest he may now face more checks on his power. If so, that can only be good news for those he’s consistently attacked – including civil society and India’s Muslim minority.

Modi’s crackdown

Under Modi, in power since 2014, civic space conditions have deteriorated. India’s election was accompanied by the usual headlines about the country being the world’s largest democracy. But the quality of India’s democracy is based on far more than national elections every five years, important as these are: democracy has been underpinned by an active, vibrant and diverse civil society playing a range of roles, including advocating for human rights, exposing poor governance and corruption and providing a means for people to voice dissent. Modi has sought to constrain India’s vital civic energy, seeing it as an obstacle to his highly centralised and personalised rule.

Modi’s government has repeatedly used repressive laws, including the Penal Code’s sedition clause and the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, to harass, intimidate and detain activists and journalists on fabricated charges. Hardly anyone detained under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act is ultimately convicted, but the extended period of detention it allows offers a tool to subdue dissenting voices.

Law enforcement agencies have raided numerous civil society organisations critical of the government and media companies that have published stories the BJP disagrees with. In October 2023, for example, police raided the homes of around 40 staff members of the NewsClick portal and detained its editor and another senior leader on terrorism and criminal conspiracy charges.

This was one of many attacks on media freedoms. Modi supporters dominate media ownership and have turned almost all TV news shows into blatant BJP propaganda. Meanwhile journalists who try to do their job properly routinely face harassment, intimidation, threats and violence, including from police and BJP supporters, as well as arrests and prosecution. No one is too big to escape Modi’s wrath. In 2021, the government threatened to punish Twitter staff for restoring hundreds of accounts that had criticised Modi. In 2023, the government banned a BBC documentary on Modi, quickly followed by tax investigation raids on the corporation’s Indian offices.

The authorities have also used the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act to block access to international funding for civil society organisations, targeting those critical of their attacks on human rights. In 2020, the government amended the law to make it even stricter, including by extending powers to freeze bank accounts. Since the start of 2022, the authorities have cancelled registrations of almost 6,000 organisations. Indian human rights groups such as Lawyers Collective and People’s Watch have been targeted, as have international networks such as Amnesty, Greenpeace and Oxfam.

The authorities have also unleashed violence against protesters. Two recent major waves of protest came in response to changes to citizenship laws in 2019 and the passage of new farming laws in 2020.

In 2019, citizenship legislation created a way for undocumented migrants to become Indian citizens – but only if they weren’t Muslim. Despite India’s secular constitution, the law introduced religious criteria into the determination of citizenship. The passage of this clearly discriminatory law brought tens of thousands of people, many of them students, onto the streets. Security forces responded with beatings, teargas and arrests, accompanied by internet shutdowns.

It was the same when farmers protested in 2020 and 2021, believing new farming laws would undermine their ability to make a living. The farmers ultimately triumphed, forcing Modi into a rare backtrack in which the government repealed the laws. But the price was high. Several farmers died as a result of the authorities’ heavy-handed response, including when a minister’s car ploughed into a crowd of protesters. Once again, the authorities shut down internet and mobile services, and police used batons and teargas and arrested many protesters.

As the new citizenship law made clear, those who already have the least access to rights are the ones most under attack. Muslims make up around 14 per cent of India’s population and they’re the BJP’s favourite target, since it seeks to make the country an explicitly Hindu nation. The party’s politicians have consistently stoked anti-Muslim hatred, including over the wearing of hijabs, interfaith marriage, religious conversion and the protection of cows – a revered animal in Hinduism. They’ve made deliberately provocative decisions – such as building a Hindu temple on the site of a mosque, inaugurated by Modi just months before the election.

Modi has been accused of spreading anti-Muslim hate speech and conspiracy theories, including on the campaign trail. During the election, he called Muslims ‘infiltrators’ and, not for the first time, alluded to India’s version of a narrative often advanced by far-right parties – that a minority population is out to replace the majority through a higher birthrate and the conversion of partners.

The BJP’s populist rhetoric, pitting the majority against a demonised minority, is having the effect such tactics have everywhere: encouraging hatred and violence. In 2020, Delhi saw its worst riots in decades, sparked by violence at a protest against the citizenship law. Groups of Hindus and Muslims fought each other and 53 people were killed, most of them Muslims. In recent years there’s also been a surge in violence by self-styled ‘cow vigilantes’ – Hindu groups who attack Muslims on the pretext that they’re involved in the cattle trade.

Top-down institutional violence followed the unilateral revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special autonomous status in 2019. The removal of constitutional protections for this Muslim-majority region was immediately preceded by a military occupation and quickly followed by a curfew, a public meeting ban, movement restrictions and one of the world’s longest-ever internet shutdowns. Indian government authorities have detained thousands of Kashmiri activists, holding many in remote or undisclosed places and reportedly torturing them. They’ve also criminalised countless journalists in the region.

Disinformation thrives

Modi enjoyed all the advantages of incumbency. Ahead of the election, the state detained key opposition politicians and froze opposition parties’ bank accounts. Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi’s Chief Minister and leader of the Aam Aadmi Party, was among those arrested and detained on corruption and money-laundering charges just before voting began. All his party’s key figures were rounded up as part of this case. Meanwhile the main opposition party, Congress, had its bank accounts frozen as part of a tax dispute. What these parties have in common is their membership of the opposition coalition, the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA). Almost all the politicians investigated by the government’s Enforcement Directorate are from the opposition.

Indian elections always take several weeks, given the huge logistical challenge of allowing up to 969 million people to have their say at over a million voting stations. But this one, spread over 82 days, was unusually long. The suspicion was that this was arranged to allow Modi to travel the country and make as many appearances as possible, representing a campaign – and leadership style – that puts his personality front and centre.

The BJP was also keen to harness the power of technology, using AI to generate a realistic Modi avatar capable of addressing individual voters by name. But with new technologies comes increased potential to disseminate hate speech and disinformation. BJP politicians spread claims that Muslims were engaged in what they called a ‘vote jihad’ against Hindus, accompanied by accusations that the opposition would favour Muslims. Misleading information on how to vote was also circulated. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was a particular target, with false allegations of links to China and Pakistan and doctored videos that made him appear to acknowledge Modi’s win was inevitable.

BJP supporters weren’t the only culprits, with deepfake videos circulating in which film stars appeared to endorse an opposition vote. As in many countries, government regulation and action by tech companies haven’t kept pace with the burgeoning and use of these technologies.

Opportunity for civil society?

Despite the many challenges, the opposition coalition performed better than expected, including in Modi’s heartland of Uttar Pradesh state. The result suggests at least some are tired of the Modi personality cult and politics of polarisation. And for all the BJP’s attempts to pair its divisive rhetoric with an emphasis on economic success, many voters don’t feel better off. What matters to them are rising prices and unemployment, and they judged the incumbent accordingly.

It’s to be hoped the result leads to a change in style, with less divisive rhetoric and personality politics and more emphasis on compromise and consensus building. That may be a tall order, but a now-emboldened opposition might be better able to play its proper accountability role. Modi has lost some of his sheen of invincibility. For civil society, this could open up opportunities to push back and get the government to stop its onslaught.

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