Why a strong opposition is good for India’s minorities

India’s Narendra Modi may have won a third term as prime minister, but his party’s narrow victory at the ballot box means it will have to shelve for the time being the idea of changing the country’s secular constitution to reflect its Hindutva ideology.

Modi’s Hindu-nationalist and right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) expected to get a two-thirds majority in the lower house of parliament, which would’ve emboldened it to steer the nation further to the path of majoritarianism through constitutional amendments.

“This result gives a lot of confidence to the Muslim minority in Indian democracy. They were getting alienated as BJP was not only ignoring them politically but also using their anxiety for its electoral benefit,” said Manindra Nath Thakur, professor of politics at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, while talking to TRT World.

BJP politicians said they would amend the constitution, which gives equal rights to all citizens regardless of their religious beliefs, to reflect the party’s Hindu nationalist doctrine if it won an outright parliamentary majority.

The Hindu-majority but constitutionally secular country of 1.4 billion people took a hard turn to majoritarianism when Modi won a landslide victory in 2014 and further consolidated his power in 2019.

“This claim that they’d get more than 400 seats (out of 543) created a fear that they might tinker with the constitution, which was something people weren’t ready to accept,” he said.

While the Indian economy, estimated at $3.7 trillion, has grown at roughly seven percent a year in the last decade to become the fifth largest in the world, the country sank deeper in the cesspool of Hindu populism with every passing year.

Religious minorities, especially Muslims who constitute about 15 percent of the total population in one of the world’s most diverse countries, became a routine target of religious persecution. The Pew Religious Restrictions Index—which tracks the levels of persecution and religious restrictions in 198 countries—shows India registered a notable deterioration under Modi’s rule and was classified as one of the worst performers among the 25 most populous nations.

Demolitions of mostly Muslim homes and places of worship in what came to be infamously known as bulldozer justice went unpunished. BJP supporters as well as government officials have “advocated hatred and violence against religious minorities with impunity, particularly Muslims” under the Modi government, according to Amnesty International.

Thakur said the third consecutive BJP government will have a strong opposition in parliament unlike the last two terms. This will make it difficult for the ruling BJP to continue with its strongarm tactics against Muslim and other minorities, he said.

“The absence of pressure from the opposition helped BJP design laws and make amendments that were not desirable,” he said, citing the revocation of Article 370 of the constitution, a contentious move that stripped Indian-administered and Muslim-majority Kashmir of its political autonomy in 2019.

“There was no real opposition to protest (the revocation) properly. But a strong opposition now will stop them from doing such absolutely undesirable things,” he said.

“It’s good that there is an opposition now. Even those who’re supporting BJP wanted to have a strong opposition. They think democracy is safe now,” Thakur said.

According to Jamia Millia Islamia professor Mujib Ur Rehman, the BJP’s campaign in 2024 has been more virulent towards Muslims than before, which deepened political anxiety among both Muslims and liberal Hindus.

While mainstream BJP leaders kept their messaging on their desire to turn the Indian constitution into a Hindu document ambiguous, leaders from the opposition alliance called INDIA articulated that fear rather well—something Indian voters took “very, very seriously”.

“Any political party that was in a position to defeat BJP was readily embraced by the Muslims,” Rehman told TRT World.

As a result, BJP couldn’t even win a simple majority of 272 seats needed to form a government. Modi will need votes from coalition partners to become a three-term prime minister.

On the other hand, the opposition alliance led by the ostensibly secular Congress party managed to increase the number of its parliamentary seats to 233 from 94 in 2019.

Muslim voters have evidently played a key role in checking the electoral success of the BJP-led alliance. Yet their enthusiasm hasn’t translated into more Muslims getting elected to Lok Sabha to represent their constituents.

Muslim politicians have observed that even secular political parties shy away from fielding Muslim candidates to contest polls because doing so might reduce support among Hindus.

The number of Muslim members of the 543-member Lok Sabha of 2024 is only 26, down from 27 in the 2019 legislature. In other words, less than five percent of parliamentarians belong to the Muslim faith even though their share in the population is nearly 15 percent.

But an absence of Muslim candidates on ballot papers didn’t stop the community from voting en bloc against BJP candidates.

“One of the reasons why BJP hasn’t been able to muster a majority on its own is because… the Muslim vote was not divided this time,” Rehman said.