After the severe setback suffered in the 2024 parliamentary polls, the BJP has won four out of the six subsequent assembly elections — Maharashtra, Delhi, Haryana and Bihar – and also put up a good show in various local body polls across states.

This has prompted some commentators to conclude that despite all his failures on the economy, trade, foreign policy -- thus alienating neighbours, and a dismal performance in social sectors, Modi remains the darling of the middle classes. The Indian middle class is addicted to Modi and this accounts for his repeated electoral successes, said a leading political writer.

Such loud claims, however, tend to conceal the hard facts on the ground. What actually gives the much-needed cushion to the ruling party is the Hindutvised vote bank it has carefully crafted over the years. In states like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal and Punjab, where this has not happened, secular parties dominate the narrative. This explains the relentless efforts to spread the politics of hate in those regions with enormous funds and manpower.

After taking over as Prime Minister, Narendra Modi first introduced a PMO-centric command system under which everything was to be micro-managed by a team of bureaucrats he brought from Gujarat. He ordered the secretaries and joint secretaries to directly report to him with ideas for better governance.

In the process, most ministers, barring those like Arun Jaitely, were reduced to non-entities and cabinet decisions became a mere formality. The bureaucrats in the PMO became the real decision-makers and enforcers. Modi believed that such concentrated power would enable him to effectively micro-manage government policies and set the agenda for the country. As for the ministers, he decided to meet them one by one to understand their problems. The emphasis was on strengthening the delivery system.

But within months, the PMO-centric command system ended up in chaos. Then he switched to the perilous but more fail-safe communal plank, giving overriding priority to the Hindutva project because it could paper over all failures of government such as economic mismanagement, neglect of the social sectors and foreign policy disasters, especially the alienation of the neighbours.

Consider the abysmal state of the economy. The Indian rupee has for the first time fallen below the 90-mark against the dollar, and an independent study has found that one vegetarian and one non-vegetarian thali a day is out of the reach of most Indians. There was much trumpeting about India replacing Japan as the fourth largest economy, but this carefully concealed the real story – India’s GDP per capita is as low as $2,694. This, according to World Bank figures, is 12 times lower than Japan's $32,487, and 20 times lower than Germany's $56,103. See the irony. India also ranked 107th for hunger among 121 nations. In fact, India fares worse than all of its south Asian neighbours, except the war-torn Afghanistan which ranks 109. At 84 and 99, Bangladesh and Pakistan have a better score. 

Inequality, another scourge, in India is “among highest in the world”. According to the World Inequality Report released last month, the top 10% of earners account for 58% of the national income while the bottom 50% get only 15%. The wealthiest 10% of Indians hold nearly two-thirds of country’s wealth, with the richest 1% holding 40% of the wealth.

Much to India’s embarrassment, the IMF has also given it a ‘C’ grade for the government finance data infrastructure. It found several confusing mixups in the data system and said economists, investors and policy-makers find it difficult to get accurate and timely data on India.

According to Viral Acharya, who was once deputy governor of RBI under Modi, the government’s post-Covid economic policy led to a ‘K’ shaped growth where different parts of the economy performed divergently. “The rich did not spend what the poor in these sectors earned,” he said. The savings glut among the wealthy is insufficient to drive the economy, he said, adding that policy makers need to raise incomes for more people. The poor tend to, and want to, spend more.

The sharpest criticism came from Arvind Subramanian, who was chief economic advisor to the government of India during the early Modi years. In an interview to Karan Thapar, he said: “The economy is not in a good shape on all fronts.” Subramanian, who is at present a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington DC, said the slowdown in the Indian economy is not because of short-term factors but is structural. The government’s handling of the economy must change if things have to be improved. The real danger, he warned, was that India could become old even before it becomes a credible middle-income country with a per capita income of $5,000. At the moment, India’s per capita income is just $2,600.

In 2024, the IMF headquarters came out with a highly unusual rebuttal. Its executive director Krishnamurthy Subramanian had made a growth forecast of 8% for India as against the IMF’s official projection of just 6.5%. This forced the IMF to officially reassert its position and publicly reject its own director’s personal views. Subramanian had earlier served as India’s chief economic advisor, and was the country’s representative in the IMF. Thus, in effect, the government’s nominee had tried to force its version of the achchhe din claim through the IMF.

Watch the anger with which the establishment has responded to foreign media criticism of the Indian economy. This alone loudly speaks of Delhi’s discomfort with hard facts. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has asked people to have ‘faith’ in the Indian economy. "Don’t give in to the foreign bullying," she appealed to Indians. Note the word "bullying". Her party colleague Swapan Dasgupta offered a historical background to the western ‘hatred’ and said they had earlier described India as a land of poverty and exotica. Unfortunately, sections of intellectuals in India fell prey to such propaganda, he lamented.

India’s foreign policy fiasco is all the more glaring with regard to its relations with neighbours. Obsession with transactional and security-centric diplomacy has undercut the trust the country had fostered with neighbours via previous economic engagement.

In Trump’s first term, Modi hailed his ‘dear friend’. When Trump was seeking re-election, the Prime Minister appeared with him at a mega rally of Indian Americans and famously said ‘Abki bar Trump Sarkar’. In his second term, however, Trump has been making humiliating statements about India and Modi has remained silent.

The attempt to avoid a confrontation with Trump was visible again in India’s evasive reaction to the US intervention in Venezuela. While almost the entire world, including the UN, denounced it forthright, India delayed a response. The statement that was finally issued avoided mentioning the US for the aggression. This is at a time when even New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani called up Trump to protest against the Venezuela intervention.

But the silence has not helped. At the House GOP Members’ Retreat, Trump recalled a meeting with Modi, and said, “Prime Minister Modi came to see me, ‘Sir, may I see you please’. Yes! I have a very good relationship with him. He's not that happy with me because you know they're paying a lot of tariffs now because they're not doing the oil, but they are, they've now reduced it very substantially, as you know, from Russia.” Speaking to journalists on board the Air Force One, Trump said: “Modi knew I was not happy over India’s Russian oil import…. He also knew it was important to make me happy.”

It remains to be seen how Modi’s relationship with Trump unfolds as the US President presses ahead with his neo-imperialist expansionism on other nations and territories, including Colombia, Mexico, Greenland, Iran and Cuba. The wish list is rather long. He has already recorded his intention.

P. Raman is a veteran journalist and political commentator.

In an age of fractured mandates, personality cults and transactional alliances, P. Raman brings clarity to India’s shifting political equations. With Realpolitik, the veteran journalist peers beneath the slogans and spin to reveal the power plays, spectacle, crises and insecurities driving India’s politics.

This article went live on January twelfth, two thousand twenty six, at fifty-six minutes past ten in the morning.

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