2:00

much worse than expected.

2:02

They secured far fewer seats in

2:04

the Lok Sabha, the Parliament, than

2:06

expected, and now Modi and

2:08

the BJP will have to form a

2:10

coalition government after they lost

2:13

an outright majority. On

2:15

the line to discuss the election results

2:17

and what it means for Indian politics

2:20

and foreign policy going forward is Michael

2:22

Kugelman, Director of the

2:24

Wilson Center's South Asia Institute and

2:26

also the Deputy Director of the

2:29

Wilson Center's New Indo-Pacific Program. As

2:32

Michael Kugelman explains, the outcome

2:34

of this election suggests a

2:37

growing skepticism among the Indian

2:39

public of Modi's brand of

2:41

Hindu nationalism and the authoritarian

2:43

tendencies that he's embraced. So

2:47

by now you might have heard that

2:49

we are launching a new podcast. It's

2:51

called To Save Us From Hell. Each

2:54

week, co-host Anjali Dayal and I

2:56

will discuss the latest news and

2:58

happenings from around the United Nations.

3:01

I am really, really excited about this

3:03

new show. I have not launched a

3:05

new podcast since I started Global Dispatches

3:07

over a decade ago. This new show

3:09

is going to be a

3:12

hit. There is nothing like it out there.

3:14

I can't wait to share it with you all.

3:17

To Save Us From Hell is going to

3:20

be crowdfunded via substack. I

3:22

would love your early support as

3:24

we get this new show off

3:27

the ground. Please

3:29

visit globaldispatches.org and

3:32

get a paid subscription to help

3:34

us with our launch. I so

3:36

appreciate it. You can

3:39

follow the links in the show notes

3:41

of this episode for access to To

3:43

Save Us From Hell at a discounted

3:45

rate. Thank you. Now

3:48

here is my conversation with Michael Kugelman

3:50

of the Wilson Center. So,

4:12

we are speaking just a couple

4:14

days after the end of a

4:16

long election season in India. Going

4:20

into these elections, there were

4:22

such high expectations for Narendra

4:24

Modi and the BJP. Why

4:28

were these expectations so high

4:30

to begin with? Well,

4:32

I mean, first of all, Modi

4:34

himself had boasted that his alliance,

4:37

which is known by its

4:39

acronym NDA, the BJP-led alliance,

4:42

could get about 400 seats in the

4:44

parliament out of 543

4:46

altogether. And

4:49

that would have been significantly more than his alliance got

4:51

in the 2019 election, when

4:53

it won the landslide. It got about 350 seats. Modi

4:56

was saying that, oh, we can get 400. We can

4:58

do that. I would also argue

5:00

that the expectations were high just because

5:02

the BJP, Modi's party, has had

5:04

such a remarkable track record of

5:07

success in the Modi era. When he

5:09

first became prime minister in the 2014 elections,

5:11

he won in a landslide. Then

5:14

in 2019, he was reelected in a landslide, even

5:17

better than he did in 2014, even going back

5:20

to his days as chief minister

5:22

in the state of Gujarat before he was

5:25

prime minister. He never lost

5:27

an election. He always did very well. So

5:29

I think that the boast and the supreme

5:31

confidence of Modi and the BJP coupled with

5:33

the fact that they have actually indeed had

5:36

a very successful track record with electoral

5:38

politics, those things combined to

5:40

generate these types of large expectations. Though,

5:42

of course, and I know we'll discuss this

5:45

well before the election happened, many observers

5:47

and analysts were saying, well, maybe we

5:49

shouldn't have such high expectations because we

5:52

may not necessarily see such a successful

5:54

BJP outcome this time. So

5:56

it turns out these elections really did

5:59

pierce that aura. seats

8:00

altogether, well, he failed by more than 100,

8:02

and I think that's pretty significant. And if

8:04

you look across the country, if you look

8:07

on state levels, there were some

8:09

really big shockers. And I would argue that

8:11

the biggest surprise of all in this election

8:13

came in the state of Uttar Pradesh. This

8:15

is the most populous state in India, which

8:18

makes it a huge electoral prize, sort of

8:20

like a California of Indian politics, so to

8:22

speak. So it's a very populous

8:24

state. You have quite a few seats that

8:26

are contested there for the Lok Sabha, the

8:29

parliament in New Delhi. This

8:31

is a state that has been a BJP bastion

8:33

for many years, one of the

8:35

most senior, most popular BJP leaders

8:37

other than Modi, a guy named

8:39

Yogi Adityanath, who is quite frankly

8:41

an extremist, a very hardline guy.

8:44

He's the chief minister there, which is basically

8:46

like a governor in the US. He's been

8:48

in that role for quite some time, quite

8:50

popular. It was in Uttar

8:52

Pradesh where earlier this year, Narendra

8:54

Modi inaugurated a controversial new Hindu

8:56

temple, which had been one of

8:58

his big priorities attached to his

9:00

Hindu nationalist agenda for many years. So

9:03

this is Uttar Pradesh. Many

9:05

people, if not just about everyone observing the election

9:07

thought that the BJP would do very well there,

9:09

but in fact it did not. It

9:11

only received the second highest number of seats. One

9:14

of the parties in the opposition

9:16

alliance got the most seats, and that was

9:18

just a real shocker. Why is

9:20

that? What do you think

9:23

accounts for the diminished

9:25

results for the BJP? Is there

9:28

exit polling or anything to suggest

9:30

why it is that voters in

9:32

Uttar Pradesh turned against the BJP?

9:34

Yeah. So, I mean,

9:36

here's the funny thing. There were exit polls for sure.

9:39

India frequently has exit polls that are released a

9:41

few days before the election. Results are announced. So

9:44

results were announced on a Tuesday. The exit

9:46

polls came out at the Sunday before. Just

9:49

about every exit poll that was out there predicted

9:51

that the BJP alliance would win in a landslide,

9:54

maybe even getting more seats than it did in

9:56

2019. But the funny thing

9:58

is that exit polls are notoriously... wrong. They

10:00

don't do a good job of predicting

10:02

things in India. But there were a

10:04

few exit poll companies that

10:06

have been pretty close in their estimates, and

10:09

even they were predicting that the BJP would

10:11

do much better than it ended up doing.

10:13

So you can't look to the exit polls

10:15

as a predictor of what would happen. In

10:18

terms of your question, why did we see

10:20

the results that we did? There are a

10:22

number of factors. One, quite frankly, is economic

10:24

stress. We hear so much about India's economic

10:27

growth story, but inflation and in particular unemployment

10:29

have persisted across India, including in many

10:31

states that have been bastions of the

10:33

BJP for a long time. And

10:35

youth unemployment is a particularly big issue.

10:38

India is a very young country demographically,

10:40

which means that of India's

10:42

nearly 1 billion voters, a significant component of

10:44

them are young people. So that was definitely

10:46

a factor. Another I

10:49

would argue is a pushback

10:51

or really backlash against Modi's

10:53

Hindu nationalism, his core ideology,

10:55

as well as the repressive

10:57

tactics that his government used

11:00

during its first decade in power. But

11:02

then I would also highlight something that's a

11:04

bit more difficult to pin down, but it's

11:06

important to note anyway, and it's what in

11:09

India people describe as anti-incumbency, this idea of

11:11

not wanting to bring back the same person

11:13

again. He's been in power for

11:15

10 years, and he's not the only Indian prime

11:17

minister to be in power for 10 years, but

11:19

that's a long time. And I would argue that

11:21

many in India felt that he was

11:24

losing a lot of his shine, that he had

11:26

lost his ability to connect with the masses in

11:28

ways that he had during his first few years in

11:30

power. So I think that many in India were

11:32

simply ready for a change. Finally,

11:34

I think we need to give credit

11:37

to the opposition, which many observers and

11:39

analysts had left for dead, had done

11:41

very little in national politics for many years.

11:43

There's an alliance that it formed called the

11:45

India Alliance some time ago, but it consisted

11:47

of a lot of parties. It didn't get

11:50

along, hadn't been able to put to come

11:52

out with a leader that could actually be

11:54

someone to counter Modi. But despite

11:56

all that, they made some pretty savvy decisions

11:59

on the case. the campaign trail in terms of how

12:01

they allotted tickets and things like that. So I think you

12:03

have to give credit to the Congress. The

12:05

Congress party is the lead opposition party,

12:08

but need to give credit to the

12:10

opposition alliance on the whole for actually

12:12

playing the electoral politics game quite well,

12:14

despite being heavy underdogs. I'm

12:17

wondering if you put

12:20

India's election results in maybe

12:23

a broader global context we're

12:25

seeing in terms of anti-incumbency.

12:28

Your remark just now made me

12:30

think of recent election results both

12:32

in South Africa and in Turkey,

12:35

which are both kind of messy

12:37

democracies, much like India, but still mature

12:40

democracies. Do you see

12:42

that as part of a global trend at

12:44

this point? I think

12:46

so. I think there's something to be said for that.

12:49

I mean, certainly you have your

12:51

dictators out there, your authoritarians that are

12:53

in power for decades because they can

12:55

be. They don't have elections. They

12:58

don't allow the public to weigh in and have their

13:00

say. And ten

13:02

years is a long time for a

13:05

democratically elected leader to be in

13:07

power anywhere, whether India or anywhere

13:09

else. And so this is

13:11

certainly a trend that we're seeing in other places,

13:14

including some countries where you've also had some leaders

13:16

in power for quite some time. But

13:18

I think quite frankly, it's refreshing from

13:20

the perspective of democracy to see what

13:23

happened in India, to see voters turn

13:25

against this BJP wave, so to speak,

13:28

given what's been happening in the neighborhood,

13:30

so to speak, right? I mean, Pakistan

13:32

and Bangladesh had elections earlier this year. And in

13:34

both of those cases, you basically had the incumbent

13:37

parties come back. But both

13:39

of those elections were deeply flawed. In

13:41

the Pakistan case, it was heavily rigged.

13:43

In the Bangladesh case, the opposition boycotted

13:45

it. And so it's nice

13:47

to see this case in India where the

13:50

incumbent comes back, but the voters sent a

13:52

very strong message, given what happened with the

13:54

final result. So I think that's important to point

13:56

out too. So you've alluded to

13:58

this a couple times now. But

14:00

since Modi was first elected

14:03

in 2014, he's embraced both

14:05

Hindu nationalism and has

14:07

demonstrated some authoritarian tendencies. There's

14:09

been some democratic backsliding. I'd

14:12

be interested in having you

14:14

explain how over the years

14:16

these two trends have manifested

14:18

in his time in office and

14:22

whether or not you think

14:24

the election results are an

14:26

explicit rejection of some of the

14:28

things voters have seen. In terms

14:31

of both an embrace of Hindu

14:33

nationalism and democratic backsliding. Yeah, I think

14:35

so. I mean, one

14:38

could argue that Modi is not the

14:40

first Indian leader to pursue a Hindu

14:43

nationalist agenda, but I would argue that

14:45

he has pursued it particularly assertively, somewhat

14:47

argue aggressively and indeed in undemocratic ways.

14:50

And this is why I think there's

14:52

a connection between Hindu

14:54

nationalism as pursued by Modi

14:57

and new concerns about democracy. He

14:59

and his government have come out with

15:01

new laws and new policies that discriminate

15:04

against Muslims. That's not good from

15:06

the perspective of democratic principles. And of course,

15:08

the Indian Muslim community is by

15:10

far the largest religious minority in India.

15:13

So in terms of how voters were responding

15:15

to all this, absolutely. There's

15:18

good reason to believe that many voters

15:20

were basically pushing back

15:22

against Hindu nationalism. Now, Modi has

15:24

this very large Hindu majority base.

15:27

Many of them are perfectly comfortable with

15:30

Hindu nationalism. Some of

15:32

them may have voted against him for other reasons. But I

15:35

think that in many cases, Indian

15:37

voters that were hurting because of

15:39

high food prices, because of poverty, because of

15:41

not being able to find a job, that

15:44

type of thing. And I think

15:46

that they look at this Hindu

15:48

nationalist agenda, whether we're talking about

15:50

inaugurating this new Ram temple in

15:52

Uttar Pradesh, or whether we're talking

15:54

about this controversial new citizenship law,

15:57

which gives non-Muslim minorities coming from

15:59

neighboring countries. of fast track to

16:01

citizenship or whether you're looking

16:03

at Modi's policies in Kashmir to strip

16:06

Jammu and Kashmir, a Muslim majority region

16:09

of its autonomy. I think

16:11

that there are significant numbers of Indian voters that

16:13

look at all that and say, okay, I see

16:15

that, that's fine, but what does that do to

16:17

put food on the table? It doesn't

16:19

help me eat, it doesn't help me get

16:21

a job, that type of thing. So I

16:24

think that there's a bit of a disconnect

16:26

there. And coming back to the Utah-Prodesh case,

16:28

the constituency in the town

16:30

where Modi inaugurated that temple in

16:32

Adyodya is the area there. The

16:35

BJP lost that area in the

16:37

election. And there's been plenty

16:39

of reports of how people that

16:42

live in that area where the temple was

16:44

inaugurated are very poor and have been really

16:46

struggling in terms of jobs. Some of them

16:48

were displaced in order to allow the temple

16:50

to be constructed. So I think that's

16:52

a very vivid example there of how Hindu

16:54

nationalism certainly can be politically advantageous for Modi

16:57

because a lot of people would support it.

16:59

But for the large number of Indians that

17:01

are most concerned about these bread and butter

17:03

issues, that agenda is going to do nothing to

17:05

make them more comfortable with Modi or make them want

17:07

to vote for him again. So that's

17:10

interesting. So do you expect this

17:12

third term of Modi and

17:14

a BJP-led alliance will be

17:18

a bit more chastened and

17:20

won't be so explicitly embracing

17:22

of Hindu nationalism, at least

17:24

as audaciously as they

17:26

have in the past? I

17:29

think that we could see obstacles

17:32

for Modi in pushing out

17:35

that Hindu nationalist agenda, but

17:37

not because he decides he doesn't want to do it, but

17:39

more so because he just is not in the position to

17:41

do it. So I think there could be more of an

17:43

issue of a lack of capacity than a lack of will.

17:46

Hindu nationalism is not going to go away

17:48

in Modi's mind. I mean, this is the

17:50

overarching ideological driver of his governance and his

17:53

party's governance for that matter and has been

17:55

for quite some time. But

17:57

I think that the challenge for Modi will be the

17:59

coalition partner. And indeed, I mean,

18:01

these are junior partners. I mean, the BJP

18:03

got far more seats than any of the

18:05

coalition partners, right? I mean, the

18:07

two coalition partners, they got the most seats. I think

18:10

they each got about seven or eight seats, right? And

18:12

the BJP got well more than 200. But

18:15

you need consensus in a coalition, no

18:17

matter what it looks like in a

18:19

ruling coalition. It turns

18:21

out that some of these coalition

18:23

partners are very much

18:26

uncomfortable with Hindu nationalism. And some

18:28

of these junior partners have important

18:30

Indian Muslim constituencies. You know,

18:33

we're talking about regional parties. They

18:35

don't have national clout, but they certainly

18:38

have significance in different parts of the

18:40

country. And they're not

18:42

as hard line as the BJP. So

18:44

I think that this is where Modi could run

18:46

into some problems. I would argue his economic

18:48

reform agenda could be a problem, but I

18:50

definitely think it could be more difficult for

18:53

him to push this agenda out. And one

18:55

of the big questions moving forward is, how

18:57

will he adjust to having to lead a

18:59

government that is a coalition government? He's never

19:01

had to do that. I mean, he's always

19:03

had that luxury of his party having an

19:05

absolute majority that's governed on its own. So

19:08

will he be willing to conciliate a bit? Will he

19:10

be willing to compromise? His politics are

19:12

not cut out for those types of things, quite frankly.

19:14

But if he wants to be able to advance

19:17

his Hindu nationalist agenda in his third term as

19:19

much as he would like, I think that there may need to

19:21

be a bit of give and take with the

19:23

coalition partners. So

19:25

what's next then on

19:28

the domestic political agenda

19:30

for Narendra Modi? And

19:32

I'll ask you a foreign policy question

19:34

after, but you just alluded to this

19:36

economic reform agenda. I'd be interested in

19:39

hearing more about that. So

19:41

I mean, the immediate term priorities for

19:43

Modi on the political side are, of

19:46

course, to select his cabinet. And that'll

19:48

be very interesting because I think it'll

19:50

be an early indication of how Modi

19:52

deals with the horse trading involved in

19:55

coalition politics and the coalition governments. I

19:57

think it's quite clear that some of the junior partners in the

19:59

coalition. are going to want to demand

20:02

some of the key ministries, perhaps even

20:04

external affairs, essentially the Foreign Affairs Minister.

20:06

And if you look at the previous

20:09

Modi government, some of the most recognizable

20:11

figures were the likes of Jaishankar, the

20:13

external affairs minister. So seeing how that

20:15

works out will be very interesting. And my

20:18

understanding as well is that the finance ministry,

20:20

that is something that the coalition partners have

20:23

their eyes on leading as well. And given

20:25

the importance of economic policy, that

20:27

could be pretty significant. So I think

20:29

that that'll be the biggest, most immediate

20:31

domestic political priority. And I

20:33

imagine that some of those cabinet positions will

20:36

not be filled until well after Modi

20:38

is sworn in for his third term. And

20:42

on foreign policy, do

20:44

you see any changes

20:46

afoot in Indian

20:48

foreign policy, maybe particularly as

20:50

it relates to its

20:53

relationship with China? And I'll note

20:55

with interest, as I'm sure you

20:57

saw, there was this interesting exchange

20:59

on Twitter between Lai Ching-duh, the

21:01

newly elected head of Taiwan, and

21:04

Modi kind of congratulating each other,

21:06

which was like this kind of

21:09

unique direct exchange between the Indian

21:11

leader and the Taiwan leader. Yeah,

21:14

that was very telling. And they had

21:16

an audience of one in mind. Right,

21:18

absolutely. So my

21:20

apologies for the shameless plug, but I

21:22

did publish a piece for Time Magazine

21:25

that looked at this very question of what

21:27

will Modi's foreign policy look like in the

21:29

third term. And I think the most important

21:32

point to put out there is that we

21:34

can talk about how it might be difficult

21:36

for Modi to pursue his domestic agenda, because

21:38

that's where you're going to probably have some

21:40

disagreements with the coalition partners, particularly on the

21:42

Hindu nationalism issue, on economic reform, and so on.

21:44

But I would argue that I

21:46

don't think he'll be that encumbered as he tries

21:49

to push out his foreign policy, mainly because I

21:51

imagine that his coalition partners will be perfectly fine

21:53

with it. I mean, we're probably going to see

21:55

a lot of continuity with what we did during

21:57

his previous terms, and one of his major goals,

22:00

which the partners will agree with, is

22:02

to continue this effort to strengthen India's role in

22:04

the global stage and to take it

22:07

beyond just being a middle power, so to

22:09

speak. But in terms of what to see

22:11

with some of the key countries, China and

22:13

so on, just a few weeks

22:15

ago during the latter part of the campaign,

22:17

during some of the latter phases of voting,

22:20

you heard some messaging from Modi and

22:22

several other officials saying

22:24

that we can't have a

22:26

normal relationship with China until we make more

22:28

progress in resolving a border dispute. One of

22:31

the reasons why India and China have

22:33

all these issues in their relationship is there's a disputed

22:35

border that they fought a war over back in the

22:37

60s and it still hasn't been resolved. So

22:40

I think that that will be a priority for

22:42

Modi. I think that he's going to want to

22:44

be able to show, particularly after his party was

22:47

humbled in the election, he's going to want to

22:49

be able to show the Indian public and

22:51

others from beyond India that he

22:54

still has the capacity to get big things done.

22:56

And so one way to do that would be

22:58

to figure out some way to

23:00

make the border issue less of a

23:02

nuisance and less of a problem. It's not going to be

23:05

easy. There have been high-level

23:07

military dialogues between the two sides

23:10

over the few years since there was a particularly

23:12

nasty border clash in the Ladakh region. It was

23:14

just about four years ago. You and I did

23:16

a whole episode on that in 2020. We

23:19

did. I was in 2020. I

23:21

think that China will be a priority

23:23

on the whole. And I think the

23:25

broader goal here with China from Modi

23:27

will be to strengthen India's capacity to

23:29

deter China's power, and particularly when that

23:31

power directly threatens India. I mean, India

23:33

has not been able to stop China

23:35

from staging incursions over the

23:37

disputed border. And I'm sure that

23:40

his coalition partners will be perfectly behind him as he

23:42

figures out how to deal with that issue. But

23:44

there is a disconnect in that Modi has basically

23:46

said that we need to focus on the border.

23:49

We need to get the border right. I don't think he'll

23:51

want to work on it in his third term. But the

23:54

Chinese government has said, well, we're willing to look beyond the

23:56

border. We want to see how we can make this relationship

23:58

work, even if the border remains in action. issue. But

24:00

that's not how Modi feels about things. So

24:02

it'd be interesting to see how he works

24:04

through that issue. Do you

24:07

see the new parliamentary makeup

24:10

in India as in

24:12

any way impacting or

24:14

restraining what had been

24:16

rather paranoid decision

24:18

making towards dissidents abroad? We

24:20

saw this assassination of

24:23

a Sikh leader

24:25

in Canada. We've seen accusations

24:27

by the United States that

24:30

India is targeting people

24:32

in the United States who

24:34

are basically dissidents. And it's

24:36

all just, first of

24:38

all, it's very just like audacious. Second of

24:41

all, it's just like very risky behavior seemingly

24:43

by Modi. Will any

24:45

of that be restrained in any way

24:47

going forward or will this new parliamentary

24:49

makeup have no impact one way or

24:51

another on that? That is a

24:53

big question. I think that for several years there's

24:55

been growing concern in Western capitals about some of

24:58

the internal developments in India, particularly

25:00

those that relate to democracy. But I think

25:02

that they could be accepted by Western capitals

25:04

because, OK, this is a little troubling, but

25:06

this is not something that directly impacts us.

25:09

But then indeed when you have these allegations

25:11

against the Indian government of being

25:13

involved in these extrajudicial killings or

25:15

attempted extrajudicial killings in Canada

25:18

and the U.S., well, that's when what's

25:20

happening in India suddenly

25:22

becomes very concerning because

25:24

it's essentially repression at home, becoming

25:26

transnational repression abroad, playing out on

25:29

the soil of Western countries. So

25:31

it's hard to say. Most of these

25:34

coalition partners are

25:36

not what one could describe as hard line

25:38

ideological type parties in the way that one

25:41

could describe the BJP, quite frankly. And I'm

25:43

not sure if they would be comfortable with

25:45

India carrying these types of things out. But

25:48

this is the type of thing, quite frankly, if not

25:51

saying that the Indian government would try to

25:53

carry out another transnational killing if we believe

25:55

that the allegations are true of the previous

25:57

ones. But, you know, honestly,

26:00

I think if Modi decided that he had to do

26:02

this and he just wanted to do it, I don't

26:04

necessarily think this is the type of thing that

26:06

he would want to negotiate with the partners. He

26:08

would just basically say, this is an issue of

26:10

national security. We're going to do this. That's sort

26:12

of my sense as well. Yeah, exactly. It's

26:15

a risk by doing that because even if these are junior

26:17

coalition partners, if they get upset and if they decide they

26:19

don't want to be a part of the government, well, then

26:21

you got a crisis. That could be a

26:23

risk for Modi if he decides to go that way. Well,

26:26

Michael, as always, thank you so much. This

26:29

was very timely and helpful. My pleasure.

26:32

Always happy to join

26:34

you, Mark. Thanks

26:40

for listening to Global Dispatches. The show

26:43

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26:48

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