Inside India Today: Politics, Security and the Rivalry with China – An Interview with Professor Christophe Jaffrelot
NESA South Asia Interview Series # 2 (June 27 2020)
This is the second engagement of NESA’s South Asia Interview series. NESA Distinguished Professor Hassan Abbas interviews Christophe Jaffrelot who is Avantha Chair and Professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at the King’s India Institute and also the Research Lead for the Global Institutes, King’s College London.
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| Professor Christophe Jaffrelot |
Hassan Abbas: Welcome Professor Jaffrelot. I am borrowing language for my first question from the subtitle of your recent book on India: Tell me “How Hindu nationalism is changing India.”
Christophe Jeffrelot: To summarize a book in few sentences is not easy, but I can list the subjects scrutinized by the contributors under two large rubrics: national-populism and ethnic democracy. While BJP could never win a majority in the Lok Sabha before Narendra Modi took over power in the party, Modi has brought something new to it: a national-populist repertoire that combines the Hindutva ideology of the Sangh Parivar and a new style as Modi relates directly to the people in a very effective manner (he’s a good orator in particular), claiming that he comes from the people because of his plebeian origins. This populist style finds expression in a constant use of emotions (including the fear of the Other) and a systematic rejection of the establishment (associated with the Congress and its leaders in his discourse). But populism is also conducive to authoritarianism: as the leader claims that he epitomizes the people, he concentrates power at the expense of his ministers, his party, the parliament, federalism… and there is very little space left for the opposition, as all the other political forces are seen as illegitimate and depicted as anti-national. Hence the objective of a “Congress free India”. In some states, even when Congress won the elections, they lost power after sometime when some of his elected representatives defected for various, opaque reasons to the BJP, the new hegemon.
Christophe Jeffrelot: To summarize a book in few sentences is not easy, but I can list the subjects scrutinized by the contributors under two large rubrics: national-populism and ethnic democracy. While BJP could never win a majority in the Lok Sabha before Narendra Modi took over power in the party, Modi has brought something new to it: a national-populist repertoire that combines the Hindutva ideology of the Sangh Parivar and a new style as Modi relates directly to the people in a very effective manner (he’s a good orator in particular), claiming that he comes from the people because of his plebeian origins. This populist style finds expression in a constant use of emotions (including the fear of the Other) and a systematic rejection of the establishment (associated with the Congress and its leaders in his discourse). But populism is also conducive to authoritarianism: as the leader claims that he epitomizes the people, he concentrates power at the expense of his ministers, his party, the parliament, federalism… and there is very little space left for the opposition, as all the other political forces are seen as illegitimate and depicted as anti-national. Hence the objective of a “Congress free India”. In some states, even when Congress won the elections, they lost power after sometime when some of his elected representatives defected for various, opaque reasons to the BJP, the new hegemon.
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