This Is Modi’s India Now
This election was fought and won over identity -- the identity of the country and the identity of Indians.
The sun god.
Photographer: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images
After a long and arduous election, with months of campaigning and voting spread over seven phases, India’s 879 million voters have spoken. And, if not with one voice, then close to it. The Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been handed another historic mandate.
Modi’s 2014 victory was already record-setting -- the first time a single party had attained a parliamentary majority in three decades. While every vote hasn’t yet been counted, it seems that he might equal or even surpass that figure this year. To win once at that scale was astounding, a black swan event. To win twice means that Indian politics, and India itself, has changed beyond recognition.