Minerwa Tahir & Shehzad Arshad
As many as 969 million Indians will cast their ballots over the next six weeks in the 2024 Indian election that began on 19 April. That is more than 10 per cent of the world’s population. That the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will win the election for a third term is largely uncontested. What lies at the heart of this election is the question whether or not the Hindutva right will manage to win 400 out of 543 seats. Such a massive victory would enable it to effect a crucial amendment to the secular Indian constitution – one that formally enshrines the country as a “Hindu Rashtra”, i.e. a Hindu majoritarian state.
Under the supervision of 15 million people deployed by the Election Commission of India, the election is estimated to cost around 8.6 billion USD. Voting closes on 1 June with results declared on 4 June.
Over 2,600 parties are contesting the election, but Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is both subjectively confident of its victory and objectively leading in pre-election polls. The party, firmly seated in power since 2014, seeks a third term this election. In 2019, Narendra Modi’s BJP won 303 seats, and the coalition it formed enjoyed 352 seats in the Indian parliament, the Lok Sabha. The BJP has promised to win more than 400 seats in this year’s election. The party is distinguished from other key contenders by its Hindu nationalist policies and a commitment to erode the secular essence of the Indian Constitution, which guarantees formal equality for all faiths, and replace it with Hindu and majoritarian rule. These reactionary policies are laced with promises of economic development.
The BJP is the richest party in India and enjoys the backing of big capitalists such as Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, who are the first and second richest people in Asia, respectively. This has also enabled the BJP to have an iron grip on Indian media. Adani purchased the NDTV media corporation, after which the critical news channel turned into a BJP mouthpiece. In return, the BJP government has awarded many energy and infrastructure government contracts to Adani firms. A recent court ruling revealed how much the BJP had benefited from an opaque form of campaign finance, known as electoral bonds. The party received more than 60bn rupees (£570m) in donations, far more than any other political party. Meanwhile, other key contestants from the opposition alliance (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, abbreviated to “INDIA”) consisting of over 27 parties including the Indian National Congress, have faced state repression. Leader of the Aam Aadmi Party who is also the chief minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal, was jailed ahead of the elections in a corruption case while the Congress party saw its party funds frozen by tax authorities.
Indian economy through the years
Having gained independence from Britain in 1947, Indian capitalism was marked by a high degree of state intervention in the economy in order to stimulate industrial development and growth and in to ensure social stability. Politically, this was overseen by the Congress Party, which ran the country for decades. But this model reached its limits, like other forms of capitalist state intervention did.
In the 1990s, the Congress-led government introduced liberalisation measures, loosening economic restrictions and allowing the private sector to boost itself. Yet the government still maintains its monopoly over defence, power, banking and some other industries. There has been a decline in agricultural contribution to GDP but that is not a reflection of a decrease in agricultural output but, rather, an increase in the country’s industrial and services sector. The chemical and pharmaceutical industries, as well as car and motorbike manufacturing, are the industrial backbone of India together with mining of iron ore, bauxite, gold, coal, oil and gas. Meanwhile, the high numbers of skilled, English-speaking and educated workers constitute the Information Technology and Business Services Outsourcing sector. Key sectors are information technology, services, agriculture and manufacturing. Services constituted 48.4 per cent of the GDP in 2022 while agriculture fell to a nominal 16.7 per cent[1].
Today, India aims to follow in the footsteps of China: spending billions on building roads, ports, airports and railways. The Modi government has added 31,000 miles (50,000 kilometres) to the national highway network, an increase of 50 per cent in the total length, between 2014 and 2022. This infrastructural overhaul is meant to increase connectivity in the colossal geography of India, thereby facilitating the smooth transport of goods. A number of the contracts for these mega-projects are granted to big capitalists that are Modi’s allies. The form of rule is extremely Bonapartist in nature, with the independence of media, judiciary and criminal authorities undermined to the extent of open support for the regime. To enforce its writ on the masses, the government relies not just on repressive state apparatus such as police and army but also the paramilitary militias of the various far-right Hindutva groups of the Sangh Parivar.
According to the World Bank, real GDP in India contracted in FY20/21 due to the COVID-19 pandemic but growth bounced back strongly in FY21/22. In FY22/23, real GDP expanded at an estimated 6.9 per cent. This growth is explained by “robust domestic demand, strong investment activity bolstered by the government’s push for investment in infrastructure, and buoyant private consumption, particularly among higher income earners”.
India is today fifth in terms of GDP ranking, having surpassed its former coloniser, the United Kingdom. In terms of GDP, it is only behind the US, China, Germany and Japan. With a GDP of $3.94 trillion, it is close behind Japan with $4.11 trillion, and is ahead of imperialist powers like Russia at $2.06 trillion and France at $3.13 trillion[2]. India’s per capita GDP grew by 55% between 2014 and 2023 and is expected to grow at an annual rate of at least 6 per cent in the next few years.
However, India’s GDP per capita, which is a measure of living standards, is just $2,730. Japan’s GDP per capita is $33,140 while the UK’s is $51,070. Child malnutrition is high, with 67 per cent children in the six-59 months age group stunted. In short, the rate of economic growth is not really translating into an improvement in the standard of living for the Indian masses.
With an average age of 29 years, India has one of the youngest populations globally. Yet, according to the ILO, educated Indians aged between 15 and 29 are more likely to be unemployed than those without any schooling. The unemployment rate for young Indians with a graduate degree was over 29%, almost nine times higher than those who can’t read or write, the report said. Class inequality is extremely stark. On the one hand, about 60 per cent of India’s 1.3 billion people live on less than $3.10 a day, which is the World Bank’s median poverty line. On the other hand, Mukesh Ambani gifted his wife an airbus worth $60 million for her 44th birthday, which includes a living room, bedroom, satellite TV, Wi-Fi, sky bar, showers and an office.
Whilst India has seen massive growth over the last decades, one has to qualify it, as, forexample, the Marxist economist Michael Roberts does in his article “Modi and the rise of the billionaire Raj”[3]. Examining the official growth statistics, he argues that all the talk that India will catch up with China eventually is just a “hype” and points to gross inaccuracies in the growth figures themselves: “Take the growth figures. The perennial cry from Western economists when they get the growth figures for China is that they are faked. But actually, it is India’s national statistics office that is being ‘economical with the truth’. GDP figures contain dubious categories like ‘discrepancies’. These refer to the difference between real GDP growth of about 7.5% a year and real domestic expenditure growth of just 1.5% a year.”
Moreover, he points to two important differences between the Indian and the Chinese economy (and by implication, generally speaking, to imperialist states):
- Growth has not overcome the low levels of productivity in large parts of the economy particularly in agriculture.
- Two thirds of the working class are employed by small companies with less than 10 workers. The profits generated there are based on pushing those workers’ wages and conditions below the reproduction cost, so that they can generate some profits despite their extremely backward technological basis.
On the other hand, India has also developed some highly skilled sectors, but also a growing parasitism (real estate and financial sector), which contribute to rather fictitious growth. All in all, the Indian economy is an example of uneven and combined development of capitalism with a government clearly aiming to make India a “global power” – but on the basis of an economy and social structure of a semi-colonial country with tremendous disproportions.
India on the global stage
With its burgeoning population and a rapidly growing economy, India aims to become an important player on the global stage. Reliant on oil imports, it is the world’s third largest consumer of oil. It is increasingly being seen as an emerging alternative to China for investors, manufacturers and consumer brands. With ties between Beijing and most of the western world getting strained – particularly after the reassertion of US hegemony in the aftermath of the Russian aggression against Ukraine – India gets to enjoy healthy relations with most major economies and is attracting investments.
This has also led the Modi government to change the traditional positions of Indian capitalism, including its position on the occupation of Palestine. In the aftermath of the events of 7 October, the Indian government has openly positioned itself in the Washington camp on the side of Israel. Noteworthy is the fact that Adani’s Aero Defence has had a pact with the Israeli arms manufacturer, Elbit, since 2016.
However, just as on the level of the economy, the global ambitions of India are faced with real challenges. Whilst the global antagonism between the US and China and their respective allies allow some room for manoeuvre, the very same tensions mean that the “partners” will push to bring India into line, making it an important, but nevertheless subordinate, ally.
The contradictory position in which Indian capitalism finds itself, also explains the push to Bonapartist rule in the interior and the need to build a mass social base for it via populism, racism and Hindu chauvinism.
Muslim minorities versus far-right mobs
This change is not only rooted in the tilt of the rising regional power towards the West but also a decade-long state-sanctioned policy of oppressing the 200 million Muslims of the country. Islamophobia has been normalised as state policy during the BJP rule. The construction of the Ram Mandir where the Babri Masjid’s once stood is the most extreme expression of anti-Muslim racism and hatred in India. This racism manifests also in political repression of Muslim activists such as Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, who have been incarcerated under non-bailable charges for years.
Ahead of this year’s election, Home Affairs Minister and Modi’s right-hand man Amit Shah announced plans to enact and implement the reactionary Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The law was passed in December 2019, sparking mass protests in which scores of people were killed and others arrested. It allows only non-Muslim religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to seek citizenship in India. The Modi regime also stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its special status the same year, effectively annexing the occupied territory. Furthermore, the National Citizens Registry (NRC) was introduced in the north eastern state of Assam, which resulted in about two million people, mostly Muslims, being stripped of Indian citizenship. Amit Shah promised nationwide implementation of the NRC in November 2019, followed by the passing of the CAA in December. The discriminatory intent of the government became obvious.
The violence that erupted in the aftermath of CAA-NRC in Delhi has rightly been characterised as pogroms against Muslims[4][5]. It was systematic and organised violence targeting Muslims, and anything that could be used as evidence against the perpetrators such as CCTV cameras was destroyed by cops. Shops and houses belonging to Muslims had been identified and targeted in a manner so calculated that any others adjacent to them were left unscathed. Muslim women’s hijabs were pulled and they were subjected to sexual assault. There was a disturbing similarity to the pogroms committed against Jews in the 1930s as Hindu mobs attacked mosques and Islamic shrines, burned religious scriptures, and used various weapons to kill, destroy and terrorise the minority community. Police either refused to intervene, or in cases when officials arrived at violent scenes, they provided patronage to the perpetrators or threw stones at Muslims or stood as indifferent onlookers while the mobs cheered “Delhi Police Zindabaad” (Long Live Delhi Police).
A number of Muslims were forced to leave their homes for good after these events. Police later forced a number of them to withdraw cases they had filed against attacks on their lives and property. This mob violence was accompanied by targeted dehumanisation and vilification of the Muslim community in mainstream and social media. That the Modi regime’s attempt at redefining citizenship is reminiscent of the Nazi citizenship laws of 1935 that marked the first step towards genocide of the Jews is hard to miss. In fact, a number of BJP leaders, along with leaders of other Hindutva right-wing and fascist parties from the Sangh Parivar, have explicitly expressed the intent to commit such a genocide against Muslims. In short, Muslims are forced to migrate away from mixed neighbourhoods, leading to ghettoisation[6].
The chant “Jai Shri Ram” (Hail Lord Ram) is no longer a religious expression. It has become a rallying cry for murder, with a number of videos on social media depicting Hindu mobs attacking and harassing Muslims and forcing them to repeat the chant. Muslims are frequently othered as “foreigners” and Muslim men are accused of committing “love jihad”, which is a supposed plot to “steal away” Hindu women by making them fall in love with them.
Emboldened Hindu mobs have lynched Muslims for eating beef and have gone unpunished. They have killed journalists and free-thinkers. Other viral videos depict Muslim women being harassed on the Hindu festival of Holi by being sprayed with coloured water. These perpetrators have been radicalised and indoctrinated by various far-right and fascist organisations of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of which Modi has been a member since he was eight. The chief minister of the most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, is the rabidly anti-Muslim Yogi Adityanath threatened to drown in the sea anyone who refused to perform a Yogic salutation to the sun. Now formally disbanded but still in existence, his private army of militants known as the Hindu Yuva Vahini mobilised young men to enforce cow protection, fighting against “love jihad” and performing “Ghar Wapsi” (return home), which is the “re-conversion” of Muslims and Christians to Hinduism and, to a lesser extent, Sikhism.
Ghar Wapsi is a programme shared by the RSS and Vishva Hindu Parishad (another far-right Hindu nationalist organisation) as well, rooted in the erroneous idea that all people of India are ancestrally Hindu. The programme’s supremacist essence can be gauged from the fact that the process of conversion is termed “Shuddhi”, which means purification, and is seen as a return to their “true” religion.
Why the BJP may not win 400 seats
Despite the sweeping victory in 2019, Modi’s party directly won only 37 per cent of the total vote in the last election. The BJP dominates in the Hindi-speaking belt in northern India but eastern and southern states, particularly Kerala and Tamil Nadu, have not joined in the Hindu majoritarian fervour. The BJP has been working towards popularising itself in these areas. The success of these efforts has yet to be seen.
Meanwhile, the Congress, led by Rahul Gandhi, had a vote share of 20 per cent in 2019. Central campaign themes this year from the party, whose support base is comprised of secular Hindus, Muslims and other minorities, include branding Modi as a threat to democracy and proposing anti-inequality policies, such as a legal right to apprenticeship, minimum support prices for farmers, cash transfers of 100,000 rupees to poor families and a minimum wage of 400 rupees a day. Yet, in spite of these promises, the Congress party remains a party of capital, which is evident in the positions party leaders have taken on key questions such as the inauguration of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, the party’s proposed caste census for affirmative action and response to the events of 7 October. Moreover, the INDIA alliance remains fragmented, with a number of its leaders having defected to the BJP and others squabbling amongst themselves over different issues.
In the last election campaign, the BJP promised creating jobs for the millions of unemployed Indians and uplifting the lives of the masses through welfare. It has failed to deliver. Chronic unemployment, particularly for young people, and high inflation could work against the BJP at the polls. Furthermore, the vast majority of victims of crimes of racial and communal hatred are not going to strengthen the Hindu far right by voting for the BJP.
The Indian Left
Communist parties and trade unions still enjoy a social base in some parts of India and could have provided an alternative to the rise of the right with a socialist programme. However, they have kept true to their Stalinist tradition of class collaboration and joined “INDIA”, the alliance led by the Congress party. Candidates from INDIA, including the Stalinists, have been peddling the idea that the only way to stop the Hindu supremacist NDA alliance from “destroying democracy” is to elect an INDIA government.
Given the strength of the Modi government, its control over the repressive state forces and the use of Hindu-chauvinist and semi-fascist forces to attack the working class and the peasantry, religious and racial minorities, students and women, many of them see such an alliance as a lesser evil to Modi and as the only way to stop, or at least contain, the BJP’s power.
At first sight, such a cross class alliance, including parties which represent sections of the Indian bourgeoisie and parties like the Communist parties which are organically linked to the working class and the trade unions, seems to increase the forces against the Hindu-nationalist enemy. But, in reality, the forces of antagonistic classes, if combined, do not add up to a stronger force, but actually paralyse each other. More precisely, they will paralyse the working class and the oppressed strata of society. Congress, as a party of the Indian bourgeoisie, will only agree to such an alliance if the Communist Parties, the trade unions and the social movements subordinate themselves to bourgeois interests. A Congress government would contain the struggle in its own interest and thereby weaken and demoralise the mass base. So, even in the unlikely case that INDIA won, it would be a disaster for the workers’ organisations.
Therefore, we strongly reject such an alliance. Should an INDIA government come to power, it would still be a right-wing capitalist regime that would continue the long-standing tradition of the Congress party of introducing and implementing neoliberal capitalist policies.
Big capital backs Modi because he has fulfilled all their wishes regarding privatisation and attacks on labour rights, and pursues an aggressive ambition of establishing India as a force to be reckoned with on the global stage. Modi would certainly continue with this political programme after regaining power. And so would Rahul Gandhi, except that he would sell the same programme in social-democratic jargon. The Indian economy has grown under this programme and the country has risen as a global power, but this has remained a “jobless growth”. None of this would change under a Gandhi- or Kejriwal-led government because, in spite of the populist rhetoric over the employment crisis and inflation, key opposition bourgeois parties share Modi’s loathing of the working masses and democratic rights for the masses and minorities. Anti-Pakistan rhetoric, Kejriwal’s inaction during the Delhi pogrom and the Congress party’s establishment of diplomatic ties with Israel in the 1990s, plus the fact that the far-right Shiv Sena is part of this alliance, are just a few features of this “secular” front. Therefore, we reject the illusion that the Indian masses should vote for this popular front called INDIA to protect the country through a lesser evil.
The way forward
Instead, we call on the Communist Parties, the trade unions and all the social movements of the students, women, peasants, the Dalits, the nationally and religiously oppressed, to break with their bourgeois “allies” and to prepare for the coming, unavoidable struggles.
In Indian elections, coalitions can only stand one candidate in each constituency. We call on the workers, peasants and all oppressed people of India, such as women and sexual, religious and national minorities, to cast a blank vote in constituencies where a bourgeois candidate of the INDIA alliance is standing. In constituencies where candidates belonging to the communist parties and trade unions are standing, we call upon the exploited and oppressed masses to cast a vote in their favour, calling on them to prepare for the incoming struggle.
However, such a vote would be highly critical. That means we call to vote for them, because they are resting on mass working class support, at least in a number of electoral districts. But, at the same time, we reject their class collaborationist politics and their reformist programme. The various communist parties of India have a track record of making pro-worker promises when not in power and then enacting pro-investor policies when they get into power through working class votes. They have never been accountable to their base and have done little to ensure that power belongs to the exploited and oppressed masses. This needs to change.
Therefore, we call on those candidates and their parties to join in the formation of a workers’ united front against the next government, a united front including all oppressed layers in defence of attacks on democratic and social rights. In an age of increasing far-right terror, we also need to mount an effective defence through self-defence militias that can counter the attacks of organised fascist mobs, gangs of strike breakers or state repression. These tasks are incumbent upon the working masses of India even if the leaders of the reformist workers’ parties refuse to heed to them. We call upon the Indian working and oppressed masses to take matters into their own hands and use the following demands to organise a united front and self-defence militias:
- Down with CAA, NRC! Repeal the reactionary laws: equal rights for all, irrespective of caste, religion, gender, sexual orientation!
- Jobs for all! Reduce working hours to create more jobs!
- Minimum wage of 20000 INR for all! Sliding scale of wages: with 1 per cent increase in inflation, 1 per cent increase in wages!
- Subsidies for farmers! Land redistribution through expropriation of big landowners!
- Free electricity, gas, food and housing for all!
- Worker-run shelters for women and sexual minorities!
- Release all political prisoners including Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam! Repeal Prevention of Unlawful Activities Act!
- Free Kashmir! Reinstate autonomy, Indian troops out of Kashmir! Autonomy for all states in the north east!
- For a massive taxation of the rich and profits! Expropriate the Ambanis, Adanis and other hoarders of wealth! Use their wealth under workers’ control to provide universal healthcare, unemployment benefits and other welfare!
Such demands would address key problems facing the masses. But they would be seen as a declaration of war by a new Modi government and the capitalist class (and indeed also by a Congress led government). They can only be implemented by determined struggle.
In the last decade, with several one day strikes involving more than 100 million workers, the trade unions, the peasant organisations, women and students’ movements or the struggle against the CAA and NRC have demonstrated that the social forces which could eventually defeat a Modi government exist and are willing to turn out in large numbers.
But such a movement would need to go beyond one-day, symbolic strikes or mass demonstrations. It would need to be a movement, which could bring Indian capitalism to a standstill via mass strikes – up to a general strike – via occupations, demonstrations and other forms of mass struggle. Such a movement would not only need to be a united front of the leaders of the CPs, the unions and the social movements. Above all it would need to be a united front of the masses themselves, based on fighting organisations in the workplaces, in schools and universities. It would need to be built on councils of action in the factories and offices, in town and countryside.
Such a struggle, even if it started with economic and democratic “immediate” demands, could turn into a struggle for power – partly because of its inner dynamic, but also because of the response it would face from a Modi administration. Therefore, it would also need to create organs of self-defence and fight to paralyse and eventually break up the repressive apparatus by calling on rank and file soldiers to create soldiers’ committees.
The far-right’s dream of establishing an ethno-state run by a Hindutva dictatorship can be crushed by means of working class struggle, which would pose the need to create a workers’ government based not on the bourgeois state institutions, but on the organs created and developed by the struggle, that is, workers’ and peasants’ councils and an armed popular militia. Such a government would expropriate large scale capital and introduce an emergency plan to meet the needs of the masses, developing towards a centrally planned economy. It would introduce real equal rights and opportunities for all the exploited and oppressed masses. To form this government, we need the working class to provide the leadership for such a revolution.
The crisis of leadership, which has remained unaddressed for decades in India, needs to be tackled through the building of a workers’ party on the basis of a revolutionary programme. In the end, true peace and equality for all can only be established through a workers’ government that initiates the struggle for the formation of the United Socialist States of South Asia. We call upon all workers, farmers, socialists and oppressed to join us in this mission and be part of the building of a Fifth International!
Endnotes
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/043015/fundamentals-how-india-makes-its-money.asp
[2] www.imf.org
[3] https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2024/04/19/india-modi-and-the-rise-of-the-billionaire-raj/
[4] https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/2/24/why-the-2020-violence-in-delhi-was-a-pogrom
[5] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/what-happened-delhi-was-pogrom/607198/
[6] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/23/fear-migration-a-year-after-anti-muslim-violence-in