Five More Years For Narendra Modi, And Will Now Need To Devote A Lot Of Time To Domestic Affairs

India’s Prime minister Narendra Modi – who has secured a rare third term in office – has positioned India and its fast-growing economy as a crucial player in global issues like climate change and development, while cementing New Delhi as a key security partner for the United States and an aspiring leader of the Global South.

With Modi’s victory, the 73-year-old leader and his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will have another five years to run the country and deal with the country’s tense relationships and disputed borders with China and Pakistan, which both have nuclear weapons.

But the election results also place Modi in a radically different position from the one he enjoyed during his first decade in power.

The outsized leader and his BJP were unable to secure the expected majority and will have to rely on coalition partners to form a government.

That has widely been seen as a shock setback for the leader and his party, who have been accused by critics of fueling Islamophobia and religious violence in India, while rolling back civil liberties and failing to solve livelihood issues like soaring youth unemployment.

Now, Modi will need to “devote a lot of time to (domestic affairs to) keep the government intact with a coalition with different agendas,” said T.V. Paul, author of “The Unfinished Quest: India’s Search for Major Power Status from Nehru to Modi.”

India has emerged as a key security partner for the US, a pillar of its Quad security grouping alongside Japan and Australia, and expanding cooperation on high tech and defense in the face of shared concern about an increasingly assertive and powerful China.

In a congratulatory message to Modi on his win earlier this week, US President Joe Biden hailed the US-India friendship as “only growing as we unlock a shared future of unlimited potential.”

The US India relationship is only likely to strengthen in the near term, according to analysts.

Farwa Aamer, director of South Asia Initiatives at the Asia Society Initiative in New York, stated

“The two countries have shared concerns over regional stability and are overseeing a burgeoning defense cooperation. We can expect a more assertive India aligning closely with US interests in the Indo-Pacific and expanding tech cooperation.”

Ties between New Delhi and Washington have warmed in recent years even as Modi has firmly pursued India’s policy of strategic autonomy to push for a global order not purely dominated by the US or the US-China rivalry – another goal expected to remain unchanged by the election. For example, New Delhi has refused to give up its close relations with Russia, despite US pressure for its partners to cut ties with the warring country.

But one question is how Modi’s third term will affect lingering concerns in American policy circles about a well-documented erosion of civil liberties in India under his right-wing leadership and allegations that the BJP seeks to marginalize the country’s more than 200 million Muslim minority.

India has also faced significant allegations of extraterritorial overreach, which raise questions about the risks of the country’s growing confidence, assertiveness – and commitment to international norms – under Modi.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in September said his country was investigating “credible allegations” linking India to the killing of a Canadian citizen and prominent Sikh leader. New Delhi hit back fiercely, accusing Canada of harboring terrorists and not acting against extremists, even as it denied the allegation.

Two months later, US prosecutors also alleged that an Indian agent was behind a foiled murder-for-hire plot targeting an American Sikh activist. New Delhi denied any involvement in that alleged plot and set up a high-level committee to investigate the accusation.

Any Change?

One factor to watch following Modi’s bruising election win, experts say, is whether the new government ramps up or tones down posturing that impacts India’s relations with its South Asian neighbors.

They point to the fact that Hindu nationalism has threatened to exacerbate tensions in the region, particularly with Pakistan, which is frequently the target of vehement BJP rhetoric, as well as stoked division and violence within the country over the past decade.

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Presently, Modi’s BJP should answer the interests of its alliance partners – and face more grounded checks from a resurgent opposition, which could hose its Hindu-patriot plan. In addition, analysts emphasize that it will take some time to observe how the BJP adjusts its policy objectives and rhetoric to this new political reality.

“If it is normal politics, it would seem that the elbows would not be as sharp on various issues,” said Sushant Singh, a lecturer at Yale University in the US. “But to cater to their nationalist support base, (the BJP) may actually take the other path,” to ramp up rhetoric, he added. “We’ll have to see what political call is taken.”

Such a reaction could also be driven by the BJP’s relative position of weakness going into this term, observers say, noting that Modi’s landslide win in the 2019 elections followed a ratcheting of tensions with Pakistan.

Then, India claimed to have launched airstrikes on what it alleged was a terrorist training camp across its de facto border with Pakistan after a car bombing killed Indian paramilitary forces, in an incident disputed by Islamabad.

The BJP uses the “otherization of the image of Pakistan to rally its core Hindutva base,” said Fahd Humayun, an assistant professor of political science at Tufts University in the US, referring to the ruling party’s ideology that India is inherently a land for Hindus.

“To that end, it is not difficult to imagine a scenario in which, with its back against the wall, an embattled Modi government plays up the perceptions of external threats to try and rally domestic constituencies.”

According to observers, Modi may also be pressured to respond assertively to any perceived threats from China because of his weak position.

Modi has seemed reluctant to take a chance with a conflict with India’s militarily unrivaled neighbor, notwithstanding being rammed by pundits for what they say was a delicate reaction to dangerous 2020 conflicts along their contested Himalayan line.

Governments and policymakers across the world will be watching for how these issues evolve in the coming months.

In the meantime, some observers suggest that while the election results may not have boosted Modi, they are already a boon for India’s global clout.

“If he has won a (super) majority and pushed the Hindu agenda, it would have probably dented India’s (international) agenda,” said Paul, the author, who is also a professor at McGill University in Canada.

Paul said democracy was “India’s biggest soft power tradition” and its perceived resurgence in the election may boost the country’s image among liberal nations.