Why the 2019 election may be the most crucial in India's history

The BJP will try to convince the Hindu majority to vote along sectarian lines in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

In April-May next year an estimated 900 million Indians will be heading to the polls to elect their next parliament. In the 70-odd years since India's independence, this will likely be the first election that seriously challenges the country's inclusive political culture.

If the current government led by the Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi secures another emphatic mandate, the country will move dangerously close to becoming a majoritarian state.

A decisive victory would give the BJP hegemonic control over all state institutions, as well as the media and public discourse. This would further undermine the integrity and autonomy of different arms of the state, including the judiciary, public watchdogs and, more importantly, state-run educational institutions. Moreover, another BJP victory would put the freedoms and security of approximately 175 million Indian Muslims in jeopardy.

Amid waning public support for the government caused by economic failures, the BJP recently took a series of steps to accentuate India's growing religious polarisation. It appears the far-right party is trying to secure an electoral victory not by convincing Indians that it will implement a strong social, economic and political agenda, but by fomenting the Hindu majority's prejudices against Muslims and convincing them to vote along religious lines.

Fuelling religious polarisation

In 2014, Modi was voted into office for two reasons. First, anti-incumbent sentiment against the Congress-led coalition government was rampant, mainly as a result of corruption accusations and a downward drift in governance. Second, Modi managed to raise Indians' hopes about their country's future by making several ambitious promises.

Despite his controversial past - he was accused of initiating and condoning the 2002 Gujarat riots that resulted in the death of almost 1,000 people, many of them Muslims - Modi succeeded in presenting himself as a messiah of development throughout the election campaign. 

Once in power, however, he moved away from the reformist image he created for himself. 

He did follow through some of his campaign promises, such as starting pro-poor economic schemes and innovative programmes but mostly used sectarian, Hindu-nationalist dog whistles to consolidate his power. As a result, Muslims became open targets for discrimination and abuse.

The Modi government's tacit promotion of sectarian politics resulted in disquiet in what is identified as "Middle India" - a burgeoning demographic block of urban middle-classes who are socially liberal and economically conservative.

They backed Modi in the 2014 election, mostly because they believed he had left divisive politics behind and was committed to economic policies that would help everyone prosper. They expected him to act as a neo-Thatcherite reformer and save the struggling Indian economy. However, only a couple of months into his reign, Middle India realised that he is no unifying reformer.

Over the past four years, the BJP government has repeatedly turned a blind eye on attacks by fringe groups on religious minorities. According to data from IndiaSpend, which tracks news about violence in English-language media, reports of religious-based hate-crimes - mainly targeting Muslims - have spiked significantly since 2014.

Modi himself did little more than deliver periodical tepid words of caution in the face of growing religious polarisation. He likely believes that firing up Hindu-nationalist sentiments would give him an electoral advantage. In the end, he was right. Sectarian politics did partially cost the BJP the support of Middle India but simultaneously made it more popular among wider Hindu masses across the country (As seen in the party's landslide victory in India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, in March 2017).

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