What Do the June 2024 Elections in India Mean?

I think that the 2024 national elections in India signaled a slowdown in its slide into authoritarianism, but did not halt it. The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) and the ways in which it secured votes merit analysis. In his June 4th victory speech, Narendra Modi's rallying cry was "Bharat Mata Ki Jai" (Hail to Mother India), a slogan promoted by Hindu nationalists. It objectifies and feminizes the state, linking control over women and control in general to nationalist assertion. "Bharat Mata" is also associated with "Akhand Bharat," or undivided India, the once and future homeland of Hindus. Modi did not show humility in his speech. Instead, he emphasized the exceptionalism of a third consecutive win, stating, "I believe that the country will write a new chapter of big decisions. This is the Modi guarantee." Nevertheless, he also talked about his government's efforts to weed out forms of corruption, which is ironic given the BJP's recent collusion in the electoral bond scandal.

Author of Another World is Possible: How to Reignite Social & Political Imagination
Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy & Social Innovation at University College London

The great thing about a complex society is there is space for lots of different kinds of people. There's space for wildly visionary poets and accountants and actuaries and engineers. And they all have a slightly different outlook, but it's the combination of this huge diversity, which makes our societies work. But what we probably do need a bit more of are the bilingual people, the trilingual people who are as at ease spending a day, a week, a year designing how a criminal justice system could look in 50 years and then getting back to perhaps working in a real court or real lawyer's office.

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The Creative Process

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