With its recent wins in state elections the party of India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, is on course for the political conquest of India. In Gujarat, Modi’s home state, the BJP retained power while in the swing state of Himachal Pradesh, voters swung right. The BJP has replaced Congress as the nation’s pan-India party: the BJP and its allies control 19 states while Congress and allies hold four. A comment in the Hindustan Times suggests that BJP formula is intact: in the run up to 2019 elections it will talk of infrastructure, corruption-free governance, and strong leadership and punctuate it with muscular Hindu nationalism. Today, we ask where Modi is taking India. Our guest is the author of “How India Became Territorial: Foreign Policy, Diaspora, Geopolitics” as well as “The Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb: Science, Secrecy and the Postcolonial State”.
Presented by: Sharaad Kuttan