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This is the final frontier for India’s most powerful leader in decades.
During his 10 years as prime minister, Narendra Modi has made it his mission to transform a complex and diverse country of 1.4 billion people into something approaching a monolith dominated by his broad Hindu nationalist vision. came.
The press, parliament, civil society, and sometimes even the courts have all been largely at his mercy. But one important group of resistance remains. It is part of India’s richest state and is the engine of India’s rapid growth.
The future shape of the world’s largest democracy and its economic trajectory may depend on the ensuing power struggle.
Mr. Modi, who is favored for a third term in national elections that begin on April 19, has attacked what his opponents call unfair efforts to oust governments in states that his party does not support. He is exercising an increasingly strong hand. Control.
They accuse the Modi government of slowing down federal funding for major projects. The act of imprisoning or tailing opposition leaders while protecting those who join the prime minister’s party. Interfering with the provision of essential services. And it will throw national politics into chaos.
Tensions are tearing apart India’s delicate federal formula of power-sharing and political competition, the glue that holds the country together across 28 states and eight territories.
Regional leaders describe the central government’s actions as akin to a colonial power, with more powers than a federal system like the United States. In the south, India’s most developed and innovative region, officials have spoken of an “independent state” in the region if the “pattern of injustice” continues.
Mr. Modi and his lieutenants in turn accused state leaders of harboring a “separatist mindset” and promoting politics that could “destroy the nation.”
Analysts say India’s move toward more centralized governance, as such efforts have done in the past, could have a negative impact on overall growth. Large national spending programs focus on basic development problems that the South largely solved decades ago. Restrictions on a region’s freedom to invest based on its own needs can have far-reaching effects.
“It is ultimately self-destructive,” said PT Rajan, a cabinet minister in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
Mr. Modi is proposing a simple solution. That means states ruled by parties other than the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which he leads, will also participate.
He often uses automotive terminology to make his sales pitch. Those states, he says, could benefit from what he calls a “double-engine” government. That means his own party will work together at both the national and state levels.
If states don’t comply, officials say, their government jobs will come under increasing scrutiny and it will be difficult to fulfill campaign promises. The BJP is waiting, relentlessly expanding its base.
Last month, chief ministers from about six states staged a dramatic demonstration near the federal government’s headquarters in New Delhi.
With posters behind them that read “Our Blood, Our Sweat, Our Taxes,” they used Mr. Modi’s extraordinary control over the distribution of revenue collected across India to He accused them of solidifying their party and shackling their own state governments.
At the same time, Mr. Modi was making his final laps in the country before the election schedule was announced. In opposition states, he combined promises to spend billions of dollars on infrastructure and welfare projects with scathing criticism of local political parties.
They are hurting him too. They have repeatedly sued the state’s governor, who is appointed by New Delhi in a largely ceremonial role, over complaints that it slows down the elected government.
“You are playing with fire,” says Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud. informed the central government After the governor of rebel-held Punjab province repeatedly blocked legislative work. “Will parliamentary democracy continue?”
Officials in Tamil Nadu say they are struggling to expand metro rail lines in the capital Chennai because the Modi government is dragging its feet on New Delhi’s share of funding.
In the state of Kerala on India’s southwest coast, the state government is suing the Modi government, alleging that arbitrary borrowing limits have disrupted the state’s budget and delayed payments.
In the western state of Maharashtra, home to India’s financial and entertainment capital Mumbai, Mr. Modi’s officials have used a combination of pressure from law enforcement agencies and offers of incentives to split the state’s two major political parties. This kind of “smack and grab” politics, which critics have branded, paved the way for the Bharatiya Janata Party to emerge as the kingmaker of the coalition government.
In the Delhi-based metropolitan area, the Bharatiya Janata Party appears intent on crushing smaller parties that came to power on promises of improved basic services. The territory’s elected government has been stripped of key powers, and federal agencies have embroiled party leader Aam Aadmi in a corruption scandal.
The party’s deputy leader and key ministers have been imprisoned for more than a year. On Thursday, government officials arrested party leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on suspicion of financial crimes in a dramatic nighttime raid. He is the first sitting prime minister to be arrested.
Delhi’s bitter political conflict is evident from overflowing sewage systems in parts of the city and long queues outside government hospitals.
Aam Aadmi sought to improve its hospitals by relying on outside contractors to input patient data. But the plan was caught in the crossfire between Mr. Modi’s officials and the territory’s elected government, with contractors laying off staff from many hospitals after months of salary delays. .
“It is the people who suffer from their political struggle,” said Adit Kumar, a diabetic cloth vendor who was waiting outside a crowded hospital in New Delhi with his wife.
Saurabh Bhardwaj, an Aam Aadmi official in Delhi, said Mr Modi’s intentions were clear and he was trying to push the country towards one-party rule.
“We have cut down so much work in the state government that the people are starting to say we should bring in the Bharatiya Janata Party, only they can deliver,” Bhardwaj said. “That means the federal structure will collapse.”
The biggest fault line between the federal states pits Mr. Modi’s support base in the more prosperous south against the north.
The party has not been able to win power in five southern states, except for a brief stint in Karnataka, where the Bharatiya Janata Party took power after orchestrating a defection from the party.
Local officials say Mr. Modi has criticized his party’s brand of politics, including stoking Hindu-Muslim tensions and promoting Hindi, a language not widely spoken in the south. It is said that they are trying to hold back the government on the grounds that the people are refusing to support it. national language.
The resentment is further amplified by complaints that the South is getting proportionately less in exchange for the taxes it sends to New Delhi. Northern states, with larger populations and much less basic development, account for a larger share of revenue.
In the South, the long-delayed census is finally being conducted, and seats will be redistributed, raising concerns that the South will be punished for its success in lowering birthrates, a key to relative wealth. There are also serious concerns.
The South’s unique mix of political, cultural and historical differences has led to early investments in infrastructure, education and public health, driving India’s high-end manufacturing ambitions. is in a good position to Opponents say Mr. Modi’s politically-driven approach could undermine his ambitions to build India into an economic powerhouse.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman rejected allegations that revenues were being distributed unfairly, saying the central government “continues to release states’ share on time”.
“We want every region of the country to prosper,” Modi told parliament after state leaders protested in New Delhi, calling himself a champion of “competitive and cooperative federalism.” He became a strong supporter.
Analysts say that by putting pressure on state governments, Mr. Modi is simply exploiting structural flaws in India’s constitution, which created the republic after the British withdrawal in 1947.
The Indian National Congress, which ruled India unchallenged during the first decades of independence, abused the constitutional powers given to the central government in fiscal matters to suppress the rise of competitors. .
However, from the late 1980s, the decline of the Congress ushered in an era of coalition politics, and regional parties gained representation in New Delhi.
This period was also when India opened its highly centralized economy to the free market. As growth continued, the allocation of resources became more intense between the central and state governments.
“The rise of regional powers has forced the Center to follow certain principles,” said Kalaiyarasan A., assistant professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies. “The 1990s were the golden age of federalism.”
Mr. Modi is currently trying to reshape India’s federal system by promoting a “double engine.”
In opposition-held states, Mr. Modi has proposed infrastructure and welfare projects bearing his name and his official residence’s name, touting himself as India’s sole driver of development and growth.
Parties face political costs when undertaking joint projects. Parties can only get funding if they agree to Modi branding.
And if they resist?
In 2022, Finance Minister Sitharaman stopped by a shop in the southern state of Telangana distributing rice rations as part of a joint program largely funded by the central government. There was no picture of Mr. Modi on display. Sitharaman slammed state officials.
“This is the job our prime minister is doing for the people,” Sitharaman said. “Our people will come and install the photograph of the Prime Minister and you, as the district administration, will ensure that it is not removed, torn or affected.”
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