Why India's Election Results Matter
23 May 2019 - 10:58AM
Dow Jones News
By Eric Bellman
India has wrapped up the largest election in the history of
democracy and once again chosen the popular nationalist prime
minister, Narendra Modi. How he uses the mandate in the next five
years will reverberate around the world as the South Asian nation
plays a larger role in the global economy and delicate geopolitics
of Asia.
Votes were cast over five and a half weeks and took seven phases
to accommodate the country's almost 900 million eligible voters.
Millions of security and voting officials shifted from region to
region to take care of the close to 600 million people who
eventually showed up to choose their candidates and get their
finger marked with indelible ink to keep them from voting more than
once.
India is impossibly diverse, more a continent than a country,
with 22 official languages and thousands of regional, tribal and
caste groups. This diversity is reflected in an election that had
hundreds of different parties fielding candidates this time.
In recent decades, it has usually been one of two parties--the
Indian National Congress or Mr. Modi's Bharatiya Janata
Party--leading the government. But with such a variety of competing
communities, parties and regional issues, it has been rare in that
time for a single party to achieve a majority on its own. When the
BJP did it in 2014, it was the first time in 30 years. And while
more than 40 other parties won seats this election, it looks like
the BJP has won a majority this year as well.
While campaigning, Mr. Modi attracted massive crowds to his
rallies. His message was that he deserved to be re-elected because
he was the best placed to protect the country and raise its global
profile, economically and politically.
But unlike the 2014 election, BJP leaders seemed to tone down
pledges connected to economic development and reform, and turn up
the volume on Hindu nationalist issues the party has long
campaigned for. That included promising a national ban on the
slaughter of cows, which are revered by Hindus, a crackdown on
illegal immigrants, most of whom are Muslim, and an end to the
special treatment for Muslims, who make up about 14% of the
country.
Congress party president Rahul Gandhi--whose father, grandmother
and great-grandfather were each prime minister at one time--tried
to unite a mix of opposition parties against Mr. Modi. Their
message was that Mr. Modi's policies had hurt the economy and his
party's focus on Hindu pride was marginalizing minorities and
chipping away at the roots of the country's secular democracy.
That didn't stop Mr. Modi and his allies from returning to
power. Now the country is wondering whether the nationalist turn he
took during elections are signs of what will happen in the next
five years or whether the prime minister will return to focus more
on development.
India is the fastest-expanding large economy in the world and an
increasingly important engine for global growth, particularly as
China's growth slows. If Mr. Modi can use his mandate to improve
how the economy is managed and break down some bureaucratic
barriers to growth--such as restrictions on land purchases as well
as hiring and firing rules--it could help India accelerate its
expansion, and achieve closer to 10% growth a year up from about
7.5% now.
Critics are worried that it is more likely Mr. Modi will use the
mandate to make the nation of 1.3 billion people less tolerant of
minorities and less democratic as more power shifts to the prime
minister's office.
Mr. Modi will also decide what part the country plays in the
rapidly shifting geopolitics in the region. India could help
counterbalance an increasingly assertive China and even mitigate
some of the fallout from the Washington-Beijing trade tensions.
The election win sets Mr. Modi up for bolder moves on the
foreign-policy front. But analysts expect him to focus mostly on
rallying allies to crack down on Pakistan, which he says doesn't do
enough to rein in militant groups that operate within its borders
and attack India.
Write to Eric Bellman at eric.bellman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 23, 2019 05:43 ET (09:43 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.