As the world’s largest democracy heads for its eighteenth general elections in phases starting April 19, an air of inevitability prevails over the likely outcome. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is projected to retain power with a thumping victory. Few doubt that Modi will get a record-equaling third consecutive five-year term in office, a feat that only India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had accomplished…
The independent positions India has taken on international wedge issues, often defying India’s Western partners like the United States, have been wildly popular with young middle-class voters who are patriotic and aspire for India to take a seat at the global high table beside China and the United States. To them, Modi is bringing a national dream closer to fruition. The centenary goals of a developed and powerful country that Modi has floated under Viksit Bharat 2047 (named for the year when India will celebrate 100 years of independence) convey to young voters that there is a long-term plan and method which will propel the country’s future march to glory.
Foreign and domestic critics of Modi obsessively keep harping about alleged democratic decline and downgrading of religious minorities to second-class citizens in the Modi era. But the Indian electorate has yet to show sympathy or patience for such lines of argument. As far as they can see, India is in the best possible hands.
Sreeram Chaulia is the director general of the Jindal India Institute at the O.P. Jindal Global University in Sonipat, India. He is the author of two books on Narendra Modi—Modi Doctrine: The Foreign Policy of India’s Prime Minister (2016), and Crunch Time: Narendra Modi’s National Security Crises (2022).

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.