The Modi myth and the false binary of Hindutva vs economic development
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A few days after fresh instances of censorship (an actor’s claim of being disinvited from a university event for his anti-establishment views and the cancellation of a scheduled discussion on political prisoners by a prominent Mumbai cultural festival), India hosted a flamboyant visit by French President Emmanuel Macron amidst the fanfare of the Artificial Intelligence Impact Summit 2026 which was held in New Delhi. Most people would say there is no connection between the suppression of dissent and India’s staging of these high-profile events.
For many years now, it has been widely held that the relentless erosion of civil liberties in the country (seen in recurring attacks on minorities, the arrest of civil rights activists, tax raids on media houses and threats to cartoonists and stand-up comics) is attributable to the authoritarian personality of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his powerful appeal as a fundamentalist Hindu leader. Conventional wisdom within the liberal intelligentsia, articulated in numerous books, documentary films and media columns has it that the Hindutva rhetoric of historical injustice and hurt pride has turned millions of Indians into adulators of Modi and the promise he holds out for majoritarian rule.
I have long argued that this explanation, axiomatic for many, is erroneous....