Can the World’s Largest Democracy Endure Another 5 Years of a Modi Government?

Of the great democracies to fall to populism, India was the first.

In 2014, Narendra Modi, then the longtime chief minister of the western state of Gujarat and leader of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was elected to power by the greatest mandate the country had seen in 30 years. India until then had been ruled primarily by one party--the Congress, the party of Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru--for 54 of the 67 years that the country had been free.

Of the great democracies to fall to populism, India was the first. In 2014, Narendra Modi, then the longtime chief minister of the western state of Gujarat and leader of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was elected to power by the greatest mandate the country had seen in 30 years. India until then had been ruled primarily by one party--the Congress, the party of Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru--for 54 of the 67 years that the country had been free.