Modi Hits a Roadblock

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party win a national election but lose their parliamentary majority, former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is acquitted of state secrets charges, and the Maldives announces an entry ban on Israeli nationals.

Modi and the BJP Lose Majority

During his decade in office, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has enjoyed a remarkable capacity to bounce back. Failed agricultural reforms, botched efforts to curb communal violence, mass protests, catastrophic public health crises—none of this has dented his massive appeal or threatened his ability to survive at the ballot box. Whatever was thrown at him, nothing stuck.

India’s national elections began in April; in February, Modi held a 75 percent approval rating. But on Tuesday, when the official results were released, Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) faced a major setback, losing their parliamentary majority. The party won the election but with a smaller lead than many observers—and a bevy of exit polls last weekend—had predicted.

Modi boasted that the BJP-led alliance could win 400 seats of 543 in the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house; in the end, it claimed fewer than 300. The BJP’s poor showing in Uttar Pradesh was the most stunning result. India’s most populous state is a long-standing BJP stronghold, but the party also failed to win the most seats there.

The BJP still won the most seats in the Lok Sabha, its vote share (about 37 percent) was similar to that of the 2019 election, and Modi is poised to lead the government for a third straight term—a feat achieved by only one other Indian leader, independence hero Jawaharlal Nehru. However, the outcome of the election has shattered the aura of invincibility around Modi, which has long defined him as a politician.

So, what tore the Teflon off Modi’s political skin? There are many explanations. One is economic stress. Inflation and unemployment are still hammering India, including in states known as BJP bastions. Another factor is a backlash against Hindu nationalism and political repression. And in a striking role reversal, the BJP has been blamed for electoral miscalculations and the opposition praised for its savvy tactics to strengthen its prospects in BJP-friendly states.

Then there’s anti-incumbency. Ten years is a long time for the same democratically elected leader to be in power. For all his popularity, Modi may have lost some of his shine. That makes his potential vulnerabilities—economic stress, divisive rhetoric, autocratic tendencies—more glaring and his potential strengths—economic growth, India’s increasing global power, his incorruptibility—less compelling.

Devesh Kapur, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, argues in Foreign Policy this week that the BJP’s supremacy in India may have peaked and that coalition governments are back to stay. “For the BJP, increasing centralization, declining intraparty democracy, and the cutting-to-size of regional leaders who were not subserviently loyal to national the leader all took their toll,” he writes.

The election results don’t necessarily signal the start of Modi’s political decline. He has the capacity to rehabilitate himself: Modi is a leader who took office in 2014 as a global pariah (due to his alleged links to the deadly Gujarat riots in 2002) and went on to strengthen ties with governments around the world, becoming one of India’s most popular leaders in decades.

But Modi will soon face one of his biggest tests, forming a coalition and relying on partners for the first time. This will help determine his political trajectory. Less political space, coupled with a smaller mandate, will make it difficult for Modi to implement his domestic agenda, especially any controversial Hindu-nationalist goals. Pursuing economic reforms, a politically risky tack that he failed to achieve with a much larger mandate, will be a tall order.

Modi is more likely to succeed with his domestic policy goals if his politics become more conciliatory. His foreign policy should be easy enough to pursue, as his main goals—such as strengthening India’s power abroad—are unlikely to generate resistance from coalition partners. He won’t help his cause if he reacts to the pressures of coalition rule by increasing crackdowns on the opposition.

Furthermore, Modi must also deal with a revitalized opposition alliance. India’s opposition is fractious, burdened with legal challenges, and devoid of a strong leader to counter Modi. Yet it managed to score its biggest political achievement in a decade. If it can maintain this momentum from the benches, Modi’s third term could be more difficult than his first two. It could even be his last.

The odds are that Modi and the BJP—still massively popular—will recover. But given the challenges of leading a coalition government and facing a stronger opposition, Modi will more frequently find himself on the back foot.

What We’re Following

Imran Khan acquitted on state secrets charges. On Monday, the Islamabad High Court acquitted imprisoned opposition leader and former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and former Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi of charges related to leaking state secrets. In January, a special court sentenced Khan and Qureshi to 10 years in prison for mishandling a sensitive diplomatic document from Pakistan’s then-ambassador to the United States in 2022.

Khan went public with the document’s contents later that year, arguing that it revealed a U.S. plot to oust him from power. (The United States has long denied this allegation.) The document, known in Pakistan as the “cipher,” was later leaked to and published by the Intercept.

However, this week’s court decision didn’t set Khan free. He is still being held for other serious cases, including anti-terrorism charges linked to violence against Pakistani military facilities following his arrest last year. Still, the recent acquittal underscores how Pakistan’s judiciary asserts itself despite facing serious pressure from the military and intelligence establishment.

In March, six High Court judges sent a letter to Pakistan’s Supreme Judicial Council detailing allegations of meddling and interference by the Inter-Services Intelligence. Top Pakistani legal analysts said the state secrets charges were politically motivated and lack merit.

Maldives bans Israeli visitors. Last Sunday, the Maldivian president’s office announced that Israeli citizens will soon be banned from entering the country, a dramatic step intended to protest the Israel-Hamas war. The Maldives, like many Muslim-majority states, has harshly condemned Israel’s policies since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023. However, the ban seems to be the first of its kind from a country that has formal relations with Israel.

The government’s decision also played out against a backdrop of increasingly sharp Islamist views in the Maldives that can manifest as extremism. The move carries economic risk: Tourism accounts for nearly one-third of the country’s GDP, and the Maldives is already reeling from a spat with India that prompted some prominent Indians to call for a tourism boycott.

Unlike India, Israel isn’t a top tourism contributor to the Maldives, sending fewer than 11,000 Israeli tourists to the country last year. However, the move may not play well in New Delhi, which has strengthened ties with Israel in recent years. The Maldives also risks large numbers of other tourists, especially from the West, deciding not to travel to the country in protest of the decision.

Extreme heat suffocates India. Severe heat continues to afflict India, with New Delhi recording a new record-high temperature of 127.2 degrees Fahrenheit last Wednesday. The heat wave had deadly effects during the final phase of voting in the national elections last weekend: On Sunday, the chief election official in Uttar Pradesh, Navdeep Rinwa, said 33 poll workers had died in one day due to heat exposure.

The heat was cited as a reason for low voter turnout during the initial phases of voting. On Monday, India’s chief election commissioner, Rajiv Kumar, said a record 642 million people voted this year, but that may simply reflect an expanding voter base rather than surging turnout. In the most sweltering parts of the country, including New Delhi, there were reports that some polling stations remained quiet during the later phases of voting.

There’s an irony here: The heat wave during election season is a deadly reminder of India’s severe climate vulnerability, but climate change was largely ignored on the campaign trail.

Under the Radar

Amid all the coverage of national elections in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, it’s easy to overlook Sri Lanka, the last country in South Asia scheduled to go to the polls this year, in September or October. But for a few days last month, it looked as if the presidential election might get postponed.

Palitha Range Bandara, the general secretary of Sri Lanka’s ruling United National Party, announced a proposal to hold off on presidential and parliamentary elections for two years, citing the need to maintain political continuity to ensure economic recovery. He dangled the possibility of submitting the plan to Parliament, and the announcement sparked an immediate furor among the opposition.

Last week, however, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena said there was no plan to delay this year’s election and described Bandara’s plan as “irresponsible.” He said Bandara acted without any prior consultation with the government. (For his part, Bandara was still defending his proposal as recently as Monday, suggesting an internal dispute.)

Sri Lanka’s Election Commission also underscored its commitment—originally announced in early May—to hold elections between Sept. 17 and Oct. 16. Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe also said the elections will go ahead as planned.

In a region where democracy is taking some major hits, Sri Lanka—which has postponed elections in the past using economic justifications—appears to have dodged a bullet.

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Regional Voices

Former Indian Reserve Bank Gov. Raghuram G. Rajan calls for changes to India’s export strategy in Mint. “To drive growth, India could focus on the export of services provided by its well-educated and skilled population,” he argues. “Though this cohort represents a small fraction of the total population, it still numbers in the tens of millions.”

Nepali diplomat Suvanga Parajuli argues in the Kathmandu Post that calls for Nepal to recognize a Palestinian state are misplaced because it already did so back in 1988—a position that remains in place. “No evidentiary material suggests that Nepal had ever revoked its recognition of Palestine,” he writes.

Engineer Naeem Sadiq writes in Dawn about how most informal workers in Pakistan do not receive pension plans. “How will they survive with zero post-retirement pensions?” he asks. “It is impossible to fathom why a state knowingly designs a dark and miserable old age for its workers.”