India’s high-stakes election

In 2023, professor Ashutosh Varshney joined us to talk about democracy in India.

"India is ceasing to be a liberal democracy but it is an electoral democracy," Varshney said. "If ... the next election in India is not competitive and opposition party leaders are put in jail, then we are heading towards an electoral autocracy."

Since then, prominent opposition leader Arvind Kejriwal has been arrested. And India's elections are currently underway. What does Varshney think now?

Today, On Point: a test for democracy in the world's largest democracy.

Ashutosh Varshney, director of the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia. Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences at Brown University. Author of eight books, including "Battles Half Won: India’s Improbable Democracy."

Vivan Marwaha, author of "What Millennials Want: Decoding the World's Largest Generation."

Part I

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: I’m Meghna Chakrabarti. And this is On Point.

Vikram Chandra is considered one of India’s leading journalists. He’s covered his nation for more than 30 years, including at the pioneering independent news network NDTV, and now at his multilingual news platform Editorji Technologies.

In that time, he’s reported on several wars in Kashmir, interviewed world leaders, and probed India’s domestic politics and foreign affairs. Now, he’s covering one of the biggest events of them all. India’s elections.

VIKRAM CHANDRA: It's one of the greatest spectacles on this planet, probably the greatest show on the earth. The fact that you can actually get 970 million people, that's a billion people who are going to probably, who are able to cast their vote.

CHAKRABARTI: India’s elections unfold over the course of 40 days. They began on April 19. Voting ends on June 1st. Results are tabulated and released on June 4th.

Now, Indian law says voters must have access to polling stations no farther than 1.2 miles from where they live. So that means millions of election workers and a whole lot of electronic voting machines are deployed to make it happen – across rivers, up into mountains, into some of the most remotest places in the country.

CHANDRA: If you think about it, the way it sometimes works in the U.S. is that everyone goes to the polls on the same day and you're sort of done. Here, it's actually the counting is a miracle. All of those boxes are going to be put in and within three hours, India is going to count a billion votes or nearly a billion votes. I mean, okay, not all of them are going to go out and vote, but you get what I mean.

Yes, the voting process is spread out over six weeks. Because the security has to be done and the officials have to move from place to place to conduct the election, to tally all those votes. All of them are then put into these electronic voting machines. And then it's all counted and tallied in like four hours flat on the 4th of June.

CHAKRABARTI: Amazing, when you think about it. At this point, it’s expected that the current ruling party, the BJP, will make a strong showing this election. And likely returning prime minister Narendra Modi to India’s leadership for a third term. Chandra says the BJP’s strength is due to a number of reasons, including a disjointed and rudderless opposition.

CHANDRA: Therefore, what the BJP always tries to do and has been able to do very successfully is say, "Alright, here's Narendra Modi. Who's on the other side?" And then you've got this, invariably put up this picture of 20 squabbling opposition leaders, all sort of fighting with each other, and none of them apparently with the status or the stature or the ability to articulate a vision for the future. And that's why what the BJP wants to do and what the BJP tries to do is will be to make this election into a referendum on Modi. Modi versus who?

CHAKRABARTI: Chandra says that when Narendra Modi is on the ballot, the opposition party has a tough time winning seats. He says they need to make this election about something OTHER than Modi and his cult of personality. Something like the high rate of unemployment in India, which is currently plaguing the economy.

CHANDRA: The opposition is trying to make that instead of saying, Okay, let's not have a referendum on Modi. Let's have a referendum on inflation and on unemployment, because we think there are much better grounds out there. The only issue with that particular card is that what happens if people say yes, we're very worried about unemployment but we think that Modi is the person who's most likely to fix it.

CHAKRABARTI: Earlier this year Prime Minister Modi predicted that his party, the BJP-led alliance and its allies would win 400 out of 543 parliamentary seats available, that would be a huge majority. Of course, we don't yet know what's going to happen because elections are still ongoing. Vikram Chandra says the opposition is warning of the dangers of a win like that.

CHANDRA: The opposition is certainly painting this election in rather apocalyptic terms, they are saying that this is going to be the last election. And if Modi comes back with a thumping majority, in a two thirds majority, then the constitution is going to be amended and you're not going to have elections ever again. And that sort of a thing, that's probably slightly more scary than the reality, but that's the way it's being painted.

And it was seeming till a couple of months ago, that's exactly what's going to happen. You're going to have Modi coming back with a very thumping majority. Now that the election campaign has already started, you never quite know, right? There's a lot of people, there's a billion people, and you never quite know what's going to happen.

CHAKRABARTI: That was veteran TV journalist Vikram Chandra. He’s founder of Editorji, a short video news and information platform based in India.

Now here's the thing. India has always been a massive and dynamic laboratory for the expansive possibilities and limits of modern democratic systems. We are talking about the governance of the most populous, multi-religious, multi-lingual, multi-ethnic country in the world.

And that’s why many look upon the current election with both admiration and trepidation. Democracy advocates say Prime Minister Modi has championed a fundamentally anti-democratic, Hindu-nationalist vision of India. They warn that an overpowering win for the BJP could accelerate India’s transition from messy, but open democracy, to what our guest today once called an electoral autocracy.

And that guest is Ashutosh Varshney. He’s Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences at Brown University, he's also director of the Center for Contemporary South Asia. I should say, the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia. And author of many books, including "Battles Half Won: India’s Improbable Democracy." Ashutosh Varshney, welcome back to On Point.

ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY: Pleasure to join you, Meghna.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so you are the man who about a year ago on our show, when we were doing a show about India and populism used this phrase, electoral autocracy.

So I actually want to first go back and listen to what you said a year ago and then ask you where you see India now, but here it is.

VARSHNEY: I have made the claim thus far that India is not a, India is seizing to be a liberal democracy, but it is an electoral democracy. If, for example, the next election in India is not competitive and opposition party leaders are put in jail, then we are heading towards an electoral autocracy.

CHAKRABARTI: So Professor Varshney, that was you one year ago. And one year on, what are your thoughts now?

VARSHNEY: Yeah, the claim about electoral autocracy, one should note what democratic theorists say, is on a scale, zero to one, it's not zero or one, it's not a binary. And India, by arresting the current government, Modi government, by arresting not only Arvind Kejriwal, whom your reporter mentioned, the Delhi chief minister, some weeks ago, but also another chief minister and chief minister in India's head of, elected head of state government, arresting him.

And then also trying to freeze the bank accounts of the leading opposition party has taken several steps down the ladder. It's not yet zero, which would be electoral autocracy, but it has taken several steps down that one to zero ladder.

There is no doubt that Mr. Modi or the Modi government, through its actions, was trying to restrict electoral competition.

CHAKRABARTI: You have no doubt about that? I have no doubt about it, because this is how you injure the opposition parties and politicians. So one of them cannot campaign. He's in jail. Two of them cannot campaign, they're in jail, and the financial health of the leading opposition party, the Congress party, has been severely damaged.

CHAKRABARTI: Now, so about these arrests and the jailing of opposition members, the chief ministers of the states that you had talked about, if I understand correctly, though, they have been arrested under accusations of corruption, correct?

VARSHNEY: That's right.

CHAKRABARTI: The reason why I point that out is because, supporters of Prime Minister Modi would say, corruption is not unfamiliar in India, right?

I was just looking at Transparency International's 2023 Corruption Perception Index, which rates countries zero to 100. The closer you are to zero, the more corrupt a nation is. India scores 39 out of 100. Is there not perhaps a legitimate cause behind the arrest of these opposition leaders?

VARSHNEY: So two answers to that. First, if the Modi regime did mean its anti-corruption campaign seriously, then it would not invite some major politicians in the opposition. Who are accused of corruption and have been charge sheeted. Prima charge sheet in India means a prima facie case, before it goes to the court.

Before the conviction. More than 20 leaders, opposition leaders, have been either forced to join BJP or enticed into joining BJP. And their corruption cases have been, they cannot be dropped legally, but they've been relegated for a much later date and perhaps not invoked at all.

So if you want a serious attack on corruption, you wouldn't let corrupt leaders from the opposition join your party and in such large numbers. So corruption here is a political weapon. Rather than an honest attempt to cleanse India, the corruption campaign.

CHAKRABARTI: Can I just ask you? We have about a minute before our first break, Professor. ... So share a common analysis with you and I and all of our listeners today.

What do you think is at stake if the BJP does win an overwhelming majority of seats in this election?

VARSHNEY: If the BJP wins two thirds of India's parliamentary seats, that's over 365 and he has already claimed that he would like to win 370. For himself, for the party, BJP party and 400 for the alliance, that will give them certainly the power to --

CHAKRABARTI: Change the constitution.

VARSHNEY: The constitutional amendment requires two thirds of parliament and half of state governments. They have half of state governments. And two thirds of parliament, if they win. Then there is a real chance of serious constitutional changes.

Part II

CHAKRABARTI: Today we are taking a look at India's ongoing elections, are happening right now in the world's largest democracy. And we're talking about what the outcome of those elections would mean, will mean for India and also the example it sets for democracies around the world, including right here in the United States.

And Professor Ashutosh Varshney joins us today. He's director of Brown University's Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia, author of a number of books on India, including "Battles Half Won" and "Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life." Professor Varshney, actually, before we go forward about implications of this election, can we just take a step back and talk about Modi himself a little bit more?

And why in your eyes, and in the eyes of other political scientists, he's often put in this group of autocratic leaning leaders of nations, like in the break, we were talking about Turkey, Hungary, et cetera.

VARSHNEY: Prime Minister Modi grew up in a movement and in an organization, 100 years old, that organization, which has always believed in, with some inflections of some marginal changes here and there, but not fundamentally altering its view, fundamental commitment to Hindu nationalism. Which essentially means, if you use in American terms, Hindu supremacy, like white supremacy, right? In politics. And what would that mean? That would certainly mean a marginalization of minorities. India's current constitution is very clear that all religions are equal.

Point number one, and that India's state will be committed to religious neutrality. Point number two, religious neutrality of the state and religious equality of all citizens. The Hindu nationalists are opposed to both, and they have argued for 100 years now that there have been two kinds of invaders in India, the Muslim invaders who came from Middle East and the British invaders who came in, started occupying India, starting with Bengal in 1757 and ruled India for 200 years.

The British are gone. The Brits are gone. But Muslim invaders are not gone. How are they not gone? Because their children are still in India. Their children and grandchildren and progeny are still in India.

CHKRABARTI: and great grandchildren.

VARSHNEY: And great grandchildren. Now the question for democracy theorists is this.

How can the great grandchildren off those who came, plus those who were converted to Islam, who didn't come from anywhere, who were born in India. But in any case, those Muslims born in India. And there's 200 odd million of them. How are they responsible for the invasions of 11th century, 8th century, 16th century, and the Muslim empires of the time?

How can the argument be made that they be punished for what their ancestors did, and not all of them had ancestors in the Middle East, right? Most of them were born in India. So how can they be punished for that? And how can they be made second class citizens for those reasons? And Hindu nationalism believes in Hindu supremacy, Hindu primacy, and at least a second order citizenship or secondary citizenship given to Muslims, if not the expulsion, certainly not the expulsion, as the Jews were expelled from Germany. Certainly not that, but turning them into second class citizens with Hindu primacy ruling.

CHAKRABARTI: Just for a second, I want to go back in time to the creation of the modern Indian constitution, mostly because it happened at a moment.

The context really matters here. It very much matters, right? Because we're talking about a constitution that was, what, created after the British left India and partition took place. And if I remember correctly, and please do point me in the right direction here. The vision of a sort of multi religious India was one championed by Gandhi, right?

But it was contentious even at the time within India. Is that right?

VARSHNEY: It was the contentions came from Hindu traditionalists or Hindu nationalists; the mainstream of Congress party was simply not opposed to it. And the constituent assembly had only one person. Actually, you can say two out of a large number, who were uncomfortable with that.

So the fundamental core, primary commitment of the freedom movement was, regardless, even after 1947 or 1940. 1940, when the Pakistan resolution came on board, even after that, the fundamental commitment of the freedom movement led by the Congress party was that regardless of what happens to British India, whether it's partitioned or not, whether Pakistan is born or not, India will be committed to religious neutrality and religious equality.

But of course, it was a Hindu nationalist who murdered Gandhi. A Hindu nationalist murdered Gandhi a few months, just a few months after India's independence, and before the constitution came into being. So the constitution making remained committed.

An overwhelmingly large number of constituent assembly members remained committed to the idea of a multi religious India, with religious equality of citizens and religious neutrality of the state.

CHAKRABARTI: The reason why I wanted to just point that out is because it helps explain why you said that for a century, even with this federal commitment to religious neutrality, there has been this strong strain of Hindu nationalism that never really went away in India.

And it's now expressing its greatest power through Modi's leadership. But at the same time, he is being elected. The BJP as a party is winning seats in parliament. It's not exclusively because of the Hindu nationalism. There are many Indians who would say he's also delivered, the BJP has also delivered on development promises, for example.

VARSHNEY: There's two more issues that explain Modi's popularity. One is indeed delivery of welfare benefits to vast numbers of people. The deprived sections of society, modern toilets are not needed by the middle class and by the rich, but the poor needed them. Cooking gas was not a problem for the middle class or the rich, but the poor needed cooking gas, cylinders subsidized, so on and so forth.

So there is delivery of welfare benefits, which is the second basis for his popularity. And the third is his personal incorruptibility, though not the corruptibility of his party, it has become very clear, after an electoral bond scheme, which the Supreme Court turned down, overturned some weeks ago.

It's become very clear that the BJP and India's business have collusive links. Very corrupt links. So it's not the corruption of the party, but he's personally incorruptible.

CHAKRABARTI: And he's the figurehead of the party.

VARSHNEY: And he's the figurehead of the party. So other than Hindu nationalism, you also have welfare benefits and his personal incorruptibility.

CHAKRABARTI: What's fascinating to me is that at least from what we can view externally, in this election, recently Modi has been as vocal, perhaps as ever, about his view of Muslim Indians. And because just recently he gave a speech to a crowd on Sunday in the state of Rajasthan, said some pretty inflammatory things that made their way around the world but here it is.

(MODI TAPE)

CHAKRABARTI: So the Prime Minister there is saying, when they, the Congress Party, were in power, they said Muslims have the first right on India's resources and wealth. This means that they will collect all your wealth and distribute it among those who have more children.

They will distribute it among infiltrators. Should your hard-earned money be given to infiltrators? Are you okay with that? This is what the Congress Manifesto says.

CHAKRABARTI: Is that what the Congress Manifesto says, Professor?

VARSHNEY: I re-read it yesterday. At length, it doesn't say that. First of all, even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the head of the pre-BJP, UPA government led by the Congress Party, did not say that the Muslims had the first claims on India's resources. He said all deprived communities, including Dalits, had the first claims on India's resources. Scheduled tribes, some lower castes and minorities had the first claims, not Muslims alone, first of all.

All the deprived sections of India, both Hindu and Muslim. Secondly, the manifesto that I read, nowhere says that even if a socioeconomic census of India is taken, and it's been taken and it was taken in 2011, it can establish, for example, which castes, which groups have, what is the economic status?

What is their status in terms of literacy? What is their status in terms of health? ... Are they women headed households or men headed households? Is there an adult person in the household who is income earning? All of those issues are there in that sense. It is not about your property alone.

And even if that is counted, and certainly in that census, in the manifesto, which is a promise to the electorate, it doesn't say that the property will be transferred to Muslims of India. And the third big point there is calling them infiltrators, which is invaders, and calling them also as a community that keeps on producing more children than the Hindus.

The demographers are very clear about that. You cannot compare Hindu family size with Muslim family size. First of all, Muslim family size is declining and may soon become, reach a level which is, what is called below the replacement, in several states of India, not everywhere. But Hindu, the Muslim family size is slightly bigger by the 2011 census than the Hindu family size.

However, that's not the comparison. Since most Muslims are poor.

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah.

VARSHNEY: And poverty has a lot to do with family size. The right comparison is of Muslim family size with the Dalit family size and the Adivasi family size. These are the two other very large, deprived communities of India. And if you do that, Muslims can't be called producing many more children than others.

CHAKRABARTI: We know that income and also female education, increases in female education rate are the two biggest drivers of reductions in family size.

VARSHNEY: That is correct.

CHAKRABARTI: But this caught a lot of people's attention both inside and outside of India. Because it is using that now familiar demonizing language that we hear in various forms, in other places where democracy is quavering a little, if I can put it that way. I've read that Modi may have resorted to this kind of speech in the past few days, perhaps not because of his fire breathing Hindu nationalism, but something that Vikram Chandra mentioned earlier, that there is a high unemployment rate right now in India.

And people are concerned about that. And that rate is happening under Modi's leadership.

VARSHNEY: Yes.

CHAKRABARTI: So he's trying to distract from that.

VARSHNEY: So that is a very good hypothesis. We need to, it will be hard to prove that conclusively, but that is as plausible a hypothesis as observers and democracy scholars can find. The first round of elections took place on April 19th, and this language emerged after that.

CHAKRABARTI: Oh, okay.

VARSHNEY: This language was last used when Mr. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat state, when he was heading a state government, not heading India's federal or national government. This language has come back after a very long time.

So the question, that's why this hypothesis, the question is why. So it is possible that his own ground reports, the ground reports coming to the party, right? Put to the party leadership, are saying that things are not going very well, or did not go very well in the first round, especially because the voter turnout has dropped considerably or dropped considerably in the first round.

He relies heavily on Increasing turnouts. And the assumption is the more people vote, the more it will show that I am raising the levels of voter enthusiasm. And that's why they're coming out to vote to elect me to power.

CHAKRABARTI: Fascinating. So a drop in turnout and perhaps internal reports coming from the ground may have generated anxiety about what the election results might be. And is it that unemployment and economic issues of several kinds, is it that's going to undermine his likely election victory?

CHAKRABARTI: I see. Or at least undermine his aim to get two thirds.

VARSHNEY: Undermine his aim to get two thirds, which he's been insisting on that for almost six months now.

CHAKRABARTI: So that gets us back to if he were, if the BJP wins two thirds of the parliamentary seats, that gives the party the power to change the Indian election. Because they also have the requisite number of state leaderships. We have about just a couple of minutes before our next break, Professor, but can you just briefly summarize the kinds of constitutional changes that they would seek to make?

VARSHNEY: This has been an object of much analysis. All speculative at this point, but not necessarily wrong for that reason. How would Hindu supremacy, the idea of Hindu primacy and supremacy be turned into laws? Only one, or maybe you can say two steps have been taken in that direction. They were taken right after the elections in 2019.

One, on which immigrants from neighboring countries can become citizens. That was called Citizenship Amendment Act in December of 2019. It was passed by his control over parliament. Right? Now, that says all communities can come to India from the neighboring states, from the neighboring three Muslim majority states, but Muslims cannot. Only non-Muslim migrants.

Immigrants from those societies can become citizens, not Muslims, because Muslims are not persecuted. Minorities are persecuted, even though many Muslim communities claim that they are persecuted in their own Muslim majority countries. Okay, that's point number one. Point number two, the only Muslim majority state of India lost its status as a state.

That was also done through Parliament. Kashmir lost its status as a state. It's no longer a state of India, and that was done through Parliament. More of that we can discuss later in what other form it might come, but two steps have been taken in that direction. What other steps might be will be a matter of speculation right now, but not wrong for that reason.

Part III

CHAKRABARTI: We're talking today about India's elections and Ashutosh Varshney joins us in the studio and now Professor Varshney, I just want to bring in another voice here, Vivan Marwaha joins us. He's author of "What Millennials Want: Decoding the Largest Generation," and he's working on a sequel to his book on that, writing about Gen Z in India. Vivan, welcome to On Point.

VIVAN MARWAHA: Thanks, Meghna. It's great to be here.

CHAKRABARTI: When we talk about India, I just want to continuously remind folks about the incredible diversity of the nation that we're speaking about, but also its particular demographics in terms of age, right?

There's a large cohort of younger Indians. And you've written extensively, about them. Is it possible at all to generalize what such a large number of young people want for their country?

MARWAHA: It's a bit hard because there's this saying we have when it comes to things related to India, which is you can say one thing and it will be very true.

And you can say the exact opposite, and that will also be very true. That being said, we can make a few generalizations based on data. And based on geography, whether we're talking about North India, South India, middle class India versus folks with less income, but it is getting a bit hard to make generalizations given how diverse the country is.

CHAKRABARTI: So let me ask it then in a slightly different way. Because folks of your generation and Gen Zs, I think it's fair to say have grown up in a completely different India than parents of people who say, my parents' generation, right? Every time my parents go back and visit, they say India has become unrecognizable to them, because of the vast amounts of development and the growth of the economy in India.

So that's one thing. It's a different India now. And Vivan, I wonder what you think about this story too. Because, about 20 years ago, when I was there visiting family. And my family hails from both Bengal and Mumbai, so we were in Mumbai, walking down the street one day just to go to the market, and there was this large public rally going on.

And, I didn't realize it at the time, but it was a Hindu nationalist rally. But the thing that gave it away later, as I was thinking about it, was that there was this giant poster, very large poster, depicting the god Krishna. And the one that's famously depicted with the blue skin, and in this image, though, he was very, he looked like a bodybuilder, like bodybuilder Krishna, and he had a quiver, which is typically full of arrows, but this quiver in the image was full of nuclear weapons.

It was absolutely fascinating. And that was 20 years ago, but it was really out in the open. And I wonder if that's also different than what previous generations of Indians had experienced in terms of the vocal openness of Hindu nationalism. So given that, and you can disagree, Vivan, if you want, but given that, is it fair to say that younger Indians have grown up in a nation where they have different expectations due to, let's say, ideological changes and economic changes?

MARWAHA: Absolutely. That's a very fair statement. And on that point, I actually have a book on my desk right now that's called H-pop or Hindutva POP, which is how a lot of Hindutva today is, traditionally it was you went to a temple or you went to a political rally, but today you can be on your phone and listen to pop songs that have some of these Hindutva themes.

Just to step back for a second though, and set the stage, India has a median age of 29.So that means that roughly 700 million people are, you know, 29 years or younger in India today, and just 20 million Indians will be voting for the first time in this election. Now, these Indians are not getting their news from the TV or the radio and newspapers, but from Instagram, YouTube and WhatsApp.

And these are mediums that the BJP has dominated for nearly a decade. And these people are who, they form what I call an emerging India or a new India that have very little loyalty to the India of the past and the politicians of the past. And so going to what you were asking me is that this is what binds a lot of these young Indians together. Is that they are not, they're less tied to the establishment in terms of not just getting their news, but of also forming their opinions and ultimately deciding who they're going to vote for. The number one issue today is definitely unemployment.

And just one in five young Indians today is unemployed. You're seeing stories of young Indians lining up for jobs in Israel. You're seeing stories of young Indian men actually even fighting. It's claimed that they're fighting on behalf of Russia and Ukraine. And some are even illegally crossing the border in Mexico to come to the United States.

And these are very new stories. They didn't take place 20 years ago in rural areas, working age Indians are lining up for manual labor guaranteed by government programs. And so there's a lot of anxiety out there, but like the professor mentioned earlier, the opposition is not viewed as having an answer to these problems.

And where people ultimately get the news and their opinions from, they see Modi as, and the BJP, as people who may not have an answer to these problems, but they're people who are giving them an identity of being young, proud Hindus. And that identity is very powerful that never existed earlier for previous generations.

CHAKRABARTI: That is so interesting. So is another way of what you're saying is that for, I'm just reflecting on my parents generation, right? They are extremely proud of India's, modern India's example of being a democracy, that the state has no specific religious affiliation.

It's a multi-religious nation in a place where religious and ethnic wars have gone back for centuries. It was like proving the impossible, almost. And it was a point of pride. Vivan, are you saying that's not necessarily where young Indians place their political or ideological loyalties anymore?

MARWAHA: Not necessarily. While India has been secular on paper, there have been many incidents and laws that were passed by the Congress where you could actually question some of those secular credentials. And that's also why a lot of Modi's speeches, some of these very communal speeches, in a sense, have a lot of traction amongst young Indians, because they view the Congress and previous governments as almost, there's this term in India called minority appeasement, that they appeased minority communities, particularly the Muslims, by creating favored policies for them.

In the 1980s, the Congress government even subverted a very momentous Supreme Court decision in favor of a small group of Muslim clerics who did not want equal rights for Muslim women who were getting divorced. And the young Indians look at these as examples that India has never been secular, and that the time has come for a government that actually now plays and favors the majority community and Hindus and they don't see anything wrong in that.

CHAKRABARTI: Professor Varshney. I see you wanting to respond. Go ahead.

VARSHNEY: Yes. I think one of the great political victories of Mr. Modi and his organization are, would be precisely this, that a lot of people don't see Hindu primacy, Hindu majoritarianism, Hindu supremacy, as wrong, that all communities should have equal rights, even if Congress did something wrong earlier, let's say.

And this particular instance of 1980s when Congress used its supermajority in Parliament to overturn a Supreme Court judgment about equal rights of men and women in Islam on when it came to divorce. That was a reformist thrust that you could see in the Supreme Court's move. And Congress politically overturned it.

Yes. So Congress made the mistakes. But a very large number of people, it's not, we can give you better numbers after our surveys now and over the next few weeks. But when we asked in 2019, our surveyors asked in 2019, did you vote for BJP or did you vote for Mr. Modi?

CHAKRABARTI: Interesting.

VARSHNEY: The Modi voters, the BJP voters, 25% said they only voted for Modi. They didn't vote for BJP, which means from that you can infer with considerable plausibility that 75% of the 38% who voted for BJP, three fourths of the 38% who voted for BJP have some kind of belief in Hindu supremacy, Hindu primacy, Hindu nationalism.

But 25%, for them, Hindu nationalism was not the issue. They believed in Mr. Modi.

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah.

VARSHNEY: And his leadership and his personality and his character and all of those things, right? So yes, the very fact that 75% of 38% can be inferred to have voted on grounds of Hindu nationalism.

It's a very new development.

CHAKRABARTI: Interesting. Vivan, what do you think about that? Because again, to your point a majority of Indians are under the age of 30, right? So this is not just an election for the present of India. It's an election regarding the future. I suppose every one, every election is like that. But this one especially, what is your sense of what the younger Indians actually want for the future of their nation?

MARWAHA: Yeah. In my book which is on millennials. I write something that I believe still holds true today, is that young Indians today want leaders who speak like them, who pray like them, and who eat like them. And so the professor's point regards to the prayer and religion. And I think that's a big part of identity.

But where Modi and today's BJP leaders fall on the other two issues is that they speak and they look like young India. And a lot of these leaders are not traditional elites or diners. They don't come from political dynasties or powerful families and young Indians, particularly in Mr. Modi, they look at the someone who's one of us. He was, as the story goes, he was the son of a tea seller who rose up and became a party worker. And then with the chief executive of the state of Gujarat for many years, and then became prime minister. And when he goes abroad, he speaks in Hindi.

He speaks in Hindi to foreign leaders. He sells out stadiums in New York City and Sydney and London. And when he speaks, people listen. And young Indians see that, and they see if he could do it, then so could I. And so that's a very powerful connection that he's formed with young India today, that I don't see any other leader has such a big grip on the youth of a country, but while not being a young person themselves. And so that, when I go and talk to young people, that sort of sense of connection is something that's very palpable, even more than the religious element, which does exist.

But I see these other sort of new forms of connection with their leader, where they almost call him their guardian. Someone who's looking out for them, which hasn't really existed before.

CHAKRABARTI: Vivan, just quickly, because I think I may have misheard you a little bit earlier when you said, did you say someone who eats like us or speaks like us?

MARWAHA: Speaks and eats like us.

CHAKRABARTI: So the eats part, can you just take a quick second to elaborate on that? Do you mean someone who doesn't practice halal eating? What do you mean by that?

MARWAHA: Yeah. Modi's of course, vegetarian. A lot of Indians, of course, not vegetarian.

CHAKRABARTI: Are not.

MARWAHA: They do eat meat, but one of the big promises of, and initiatives of the BJP has been to clamp down on the sale of beef. Which naturally, most Hindus don't do not eat beef.

And so a lot of BJP states, where they're in the government, they've clamped down on the sale of cow slaughter and on the sale of beef. And this is a very popular move amongst young people who I've met because they see that as something very against their values. And Modi is someone who they believe represents their values.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. That is absolutely fascinating. Now we have about a minute left. Professor Varshney, I'm going to give you the last word. There's so many ways that we could think about what's at stake in India, because there's that tension between a democracy representing the majority of a nation, versus a democracy protecting the rights of a minority.

The two don't always have to be in conflict, but perhaps they are in India. But what would you say for external observers, for people here in the United States, what is, what are the lessons that India right now, in these elections, has to teach other democracies?

VARSHENEY: Some of these issues in a different form will appear here and have already appeared here in the United States.

Is Trump a believer in white supremacy? Is Trump, it's not old style Jim Crow white supremacy, that can't return easily. And I don't think can return. I've been studying that period quite extensively. But if you believe in majoritarianism, either racial majoritarianism or religious majoritarianism, can you really keep and you win elections? Can you really keep societies together? Or would you have virtually interminable conflict? This is something at stake in India's election, and it will be at stake if Trump wins power here.