Those in Modi’s ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), are hardline Hindu nationalists. Their ideology holds that India was originally a pure Hindu state, with minorities, such as India’s large Muslim population, the supposed result of colonization by outside forces. a b c d Shani, Orrit (2007). Communalism, Caste and Hindu Nationalism: The Violence in Gujarat. Cambridge University Press. pp.168–173. ISBN 978-0-521-68369-2. In a statement, the British broadcaster said that the film had been “rigorously researched” and that the Indian government had declined to comment on the allegations. New and old parliaments stand side by side among the grandiose array of public buildings designed and planned by the architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker about a century ago, after the British government decided to move the capital of the Indian empire from Kolkata to Delhi. They are laid out around a huge central axis, somewhat like the Mall in Washington DC, stretching 3km from the domed Viceroy’s Palace – now the Rashtrapati Bhavan or Presidential Palace – to the India Gate, an arched memorial to the country’s dead in the first world war.

The screening was set for Wednesday night. That morning, Nivedya said, university staff chased her around campus and confiscated her phone. In the afternoon, she and three other students were taken away by police. As former chief minister of India’s Gujarat state, Modi was banned from travelling to the US for a decade after more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed in 2002 in what critics describe as a pogrom. Al Jazeera reached out to four BJP spokespersons and the Indian embassy in Washington, DC, but they declined to comment or did not respond to questions on Thursday’s protest. a b c d e f Nussbaum, Martha Craven (2008). The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future. Harvard University Press. pp.17–28, 50–51. ISBN 978-0-674-03059-6. JSTOR 27639120. On Tuesday, more than a dozen officers from the government’s tax department office raided the offices of the BBC in Mumbai and New Delhi, describing it as a “survey” of operations. Phones and laptops were taken and the offices were sealed as part of a tax evasion investigation, which many viewed as retaliatory action.But the economy is underperforming. India’s farms, where most of its people work, are beset by a crisis of low crop prices. Unemployment is rising, and a controversial currency ban ended up hurting the poor. In September 2013, Modi was named the BJP's candidate for prime minister ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha election. [205] [206] Several BJP leaders, [207] including BJP founding member L. K. Advani who cited concern with leaders who were "concerned with their personal agendas", expressed opposition to Modi's candidature. [208] Modi played a dominant role in the BJP's 2009 general election campaign. [209] [210] Several people who voted for the BJP stated they would have voted for another party if Modi had not been the prime-ministerial candidate. [205] [211] [212] The focus on Modi as an individual was unusual for a BJP election campaign. [207] [213] The election was described as a referendum on Narendra Modi. [185] Modi meets his mother after winning the 2014 Indian general election The activities of a number of Hindu nationalist organisations increased in scope after Modi's appointment as prime minister, sometimes with the government's support. [255] [256] These activities included a Hindu religious conversion programme, a campaign against the supposed Islamic practice of " Love Jihad" and attempts to celebrate Nathuram Godse, the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi, by members of the right-wing organisation Hindu Mahasabha. [257] [258] Government officials, including the Home Minister, defended the conversion programmes. [214]

Over half of India’s 1.4 billion people are under the age of 30, and they are shaping up to be a pivotal political force in the 2024 general election and beyond, Ghosh told NBC News. Modi became an RSS sambhag pracharak (regional organiser) in 1978, overseeing activities in Surat and Vadodara, and in 1979, he went to work for the RSS in Delhi, where he researched and wrote the RSS's history of the Emergency. Shortly after, he returned to Gujarat and in 1985, the RSS assigned him to the BJP. In 1987, Modi helped organise the BJP's campaign in the Ahmedabad municipal election, which the party won comfortably; according to biographers, Modi's planning was responsible for the win. [98] [99] After L. K. Advani became president of the BJP in 1986, the RSS decided to place its members in important positions within the party; Modi's work during the Ahmedabad election led to his selection for this role. Modi was elected organising secretary of the BJP's Gujarat unit later in 1987. [100] Modi with Atal Bihari Vajpayee in c. 2001 The hallmarks of fascism are everywhere. School textbooks are being rewritten to reinforce the fake history behind BJP’s Hindu nationalist agenda. Topics like the theory of evolution and the periodic table have been replaced with traditional Hindu theories, and academics have been silenced for calling out the BJP’s election malpractices. The government has weaponized education in the manner typical of fascist regimes such as Russia. There are other clear indications of India’s slide towards fascism. On press freedom, India ranks 161st out of 180 countries, sandwiched between Venezuela (at 159) and Russia (at 164). Accusations have abounded in India that old colonial powers in the west, uncomfortable with India’s rise, are attempting to stymie its prominence by bringing up old allegations. Modi Kaka Ka Gaon (Modi uncle's town), a 2017 Indian Hindi-language drama film by Tushar Amrish Goel, is the first biopic about Modi. It stars Vikas Mahante in the titular role. [446] PM Narendra Modi, a 2019 Hindi-language biographical drama film by Omung Kumar, stars Vivek Oberoi in the titular role and covers Modi's rise to the premiership. [447] An Indian web series called Modi: Journey of a Common Man, which is based on the same premise, was released in May 2019 on the video streaming platform Eros Now with Ashish Sharma portraying Modi. [448]Now that the Hindi textbooks for anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry are ready, first year students in 13 government medical colleges in Madhya Pradesh will be taught in Hindi from November, though the option of learning in English remains. Sources stating that RSS had a deep impact on the political hierarchy of the BJP, specially in the case of Narendra Modi. [3] [4] [5]

Jaffrelot concludes these signs are ominous for India’s democracy—let alone the political opposition’s general weakness. The evidence he has amassed in Modi’s India is persuasive. However, BJP supporters will likely dismiss it by pointing to the adulation that greets Modi overseas, the pride he has restored among Indian citizens, and the prosperity that is just around the corner. Without sustained economic slowdown or social unrest in India, Modi will remain on a roll.Since Modi was elected in 2014, his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government has pursued Hindu-centric policies that have been accused of targeting and discriminating against India’s 200 million Muslims as part of a rightwing religious nationalist agenda that is moving India away from its secular foundations. Modi has been haunted for decades by allegations of complicity in the violence that took place during the Gujarat riots, which broke out after 59 Hindu pilgrims died on a train that had been set on fire. The fire was blamed on the state’s Muslim population. Since his election as India’s prime minister in 2014, Modi has been accused of presiding over an unprecedented religious polarisation in his country, with several laws discriminating against minority groups, mainly its 200 million Muslims. A protester outside White House holding poster showing a person being beaten during last year’s anti-Muslim riots in New Delhi [Raqib Hameed Naik/Al Jazeera]