Modi and India: 2024 and the Battle for Bharat

The Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was voted to power in the year 2014. That election was to prove to be a consequential one for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and for India. The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc had since declared the 2024 election as the last opportunity to stop the rise of Modi and his idea of India. That project didn’t succeed. The NDA won even though the BJP fell short of the majority mark on its own. The setback hasn’t deterred Prime Minister Modi from proceeding with the BJP’s ideological agenda. In line with that objective, PM Modi has worked to position Bharat as a ‘Vishwa Guru’―an exemplar of moral righteousness, a pluralistic democracy led by dharma and drawing sustenance from the wellspring of an eternal Hindu universalism. But this shift towards India’s Hindu ethos has forced the Opposition and many allied commentators to fear the rise of a second republic―a ‘Hindu Rajya’―moored to an implacable ultra-nationalist and majoritarian dogma. But is that really the case? Evocative, anecdotal, argumentative and deeply researched, Modi and India: The Battle for Bharat chronicles the emergence of, and the battle for, a new republic in the making.