Modi Wanted an Election Scapegoat. He’s Got One
The prime minister’s bid to win a third term in office is putting a target on the back of the nation’s Muslim minority.
Sowing division.
Photographer: Prakash Singh/Bloomberg
As India’s six-week-long general election grinds past the halfway mark, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s messaging has shifted from confident to shrill. After the first couple of phases of polling showed a 3-percentage-point drop in turnout, both Modi and his party leaders have largely stopped promoting their accomplishments of the past 10 years, or, for that matter, the “Modi guarantees” offered in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s manifesto for the next five.
Instead, making the majority Hindu population fear and loathe Muslims seems to be the BJP’s preferred talking point. Modi went on the offensive in an April 21 speech where he suggested that Rahul Gandhi’s Congress Party, if elected, would “calculate the gold with mothers and sisters,” and redistribute it “among those who have more children... among infiltrators,” tropes that his supporters routinely use to refer to Muslims, the largest religious minority.