LIVE: Why Modi Is Still So Popular Even as India Fails to Fight Covid-19 | Happening Today

(Oct. 23) India is battling one of the world’s highest coronavirus caseloads, its worst-ever economic slump, shuttered factories, farmer protests and the deadliest border fighting with China in decades.

Yet Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears to remain as popular as ever. Opinion polls in Bihar, where from Oct. 28 to Nov. 7 he faces his first major electoral test since the pandemic, show his coalition comfortably retaining control of the state government. A separate India Today “Mood of the Nation” poll in August said 78% rated his performance as “good to outstanding” compared with 71% last year.

One of those supporters is Sanjay Kumar, 22, a carpenter who was beaten by police in April for violating India’s strict lockdown while cycling from the capital New Delhi to his village in Bihar -- a journey of more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) -- after he lost his job. He’s still unable to find regular work.

“Some people are not getting all the benefits because of corruption in the middle and that is not his fault,” Kumar said, noting that Modi can’t control the spread of the virus if people don’t wear masks. “No one can question his good intentions,” he said. “He is sincerely trying his best to give poor people food and work.”

Many other Modi backers also blame others for India’s woes, and there is no shortage of targets: Federal bureaucrats, state governments, village leaders, opposition parties and even their fellow citizens. The prime minister has helped endear himself to India’s poor by meeting their daily needs with programs to supply cooking gas, toilets and housing, all while taking measures to bolster the status of the Hindu majority over religious minorities.

In the absence of significant national opposition, voters have been willing to give Modi a very long leash, according to Milan Vaishnav, director and senior fellow at the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“This kind of politics, however, is not without its shortcomings,” Vaishnav said. “Mr. Modi was able to make this argument effectively in 2019 but it will be harder in 2024 if he cannot make more rapid progress on the economy, employment, and governance.”

As prime minister, Modi has been focused on making India both attractive to global investors and unabashedly Hindu. His Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power in May last year with a thumping majority following a campaign that highlighted his success in providing necessities to the poor, combined with a Hindu nationalist agenda that played up his strongman persona -- particularly against arch-rival Pakistan.

Since winning re-election, Modi revoked Article 370 of the constitution that granted special autonomous status to India’s only Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir, and approved a citizenship law that discriminates based on religion. He has also pushed for a national citizens registry in the northeastern state of Assam and laid the foundation stone for the construction of a Hindu temple at a site where a 16th century mosque was razed. A spokesman for Modi’s office did not respond to several requests seeking comment.

“He is popular because he has ideological clarity and he’s only implementing what the BJP had promised in their manifesto, like the promise to repeal Article 370,” said Arun Anand, research director at Delhi-based think tank Vichar Vinimay Kendra and author of two books on the BJP’s parent organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. “Politicians keeping their word is rare in India.”

Modi has positioned himself along with other populist leaders across the globe who feed off anxieties that minority groups will one day supplant the majority even though Hindus make up 80% of India’s population, according to Sudha Pai, New Delhi-based political scientist, author and former pro-vice chancellor of the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University. He’s also been adept at leaving the details of policies to ministers and bureaucrats who take the blame if something fails, she said.

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