India’s 2019 General Election: National Security and the Rise of the Watchmen

ABSTRACT

In 2014, Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a landslide victory on a platform that promised rapid economic development, jobs, and prosperity. ‘Good days’ (acche din) were coming, they pledged, and they would deliver them. After five years of lacklustre growth, however, Modi and the BJP approached the 2019 general election in very different terms. Following a terrorist attack in Kashmir and retaliatory air strikes on camps in Pakistani-controlled territory, Modi and his allies restyled themselves as a chowkidars (‘watchmen’), insisting that they were best placed to keep India safe and secure. This article analyses that shift, arguing that far from simply opportunistic, it represented the culmination of a broader push, dating back to 2014, to use foreign and security policy to bolster Modi’s image and consolidate the BJP’s electoral dominance.

KEYWORDS:

• India
• general election
• Narendra Modi
• Bharatiya Janata Party
• national security

Notes

1. Polling took place in seven phases between 11 April and 19 May, with votes counted and results announced on 23 May.

2. For useful analyses of the 2014 election, see Chacko and Mayer (2014); Chhibber and Verma (2014); Sridharan (2014).

3. On 8 November 2016, the Modi government suddenly announced it was withdrawing all 500 and 1000 rupees notes from circulation, ostensibly to strike a blow at corruption and counterfeiting, push money into bank accounts and raise tax revenues, and encourage the use of digital payments. The result included a chronic shortage of cash and, according to some estimates, a cut of one or two percent to the rate of economic growth for 2017 (see Soz, 2019, pp. 88–94 and pp. 190–197).

4. For critiques of the Modi government’s economic policies, see Mehra (2019); Soz (2019).

5. At a rally at Wardha in Maharastra, Modi was reported as saying: ‘The Congress insulted Hindus. People have decided to punish it in the election. Leaders of that party are now scared of contesting from constituencies dominated by the majority (Hindu) population. That is why they are forced to take refuge in places where the majority is in a minority’ (Telegraph, 2019).

6. Balakot is located in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, about 200 km by road from Islamabad.

7. Here Marino alluded to Modi’s slogan ‘minimum government and maximum governance’ (see Modi, 2014). For sympathetic portrayals of Modi as a pragmatist administrator published prior to the 2014 election, see also Fernandes (2014); Verma (2014).

8. In India, as in other democracies, voters tend to make their choices on the basis of domestic issues, not foreign policy (see especially Kapur, 2009).

9. The full quotation, taken from an interview with Modi, runs: ‘Covering these elections, our colleagues found across villages, from Jhunjhunu to Bina, people saying they like your videsh neeti (foreign policy), that it has given them izzat (respect). We haven’t heard this in any other Lok Sabha campaign. That may be one positive effect of nationalism’ (Indian Express, 2019).

10. See inter alia Chaulia, 2016; Ganguly et al., 2016; Tremblay and Kapur, 2017.

11. For a broader discussion about these ideas, see Hall, 2017.

12. See for example India Today, 2018.