Asia | A weakened strongman

What does Modi 3.0 look like?

India’s prime minister is 100 days into his third term. It’s not smooth sailing

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi walking on a red carpet in the Red Fort monument during Independence Day celebrations
Photograph: AP
|Delhi

For mANY Indians, the general election result in June was a stunning repudiation of Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister. But to hear him speak of it, that isn’t the case. He insists that, despite the loss of his party’s parliamentary majority, which has forced him to rely on coalition partners, the vote was for “continuity”. He has barely changed his cabinet since cobbling together a government. He has doubled down on pledges to turn India into a developed country by 2047, the centenary of its independence. And his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is campaigning for imminent regional elections on a familiar platform of development and Hindu nationalism.

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This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Modified Modi”

From the September 21st 2024 edition

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