Patna, Bihar – Sanjeev Kumar is 27 years old and unemployed – a desperate situation made worse by the imminent retirement of his car salesman father within a few years.
The business administration graduate from Patna, capital of the eastern Indian state of Bihar, voted for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2019, hoping to land one of the millions of new jobs promised by the party who governs the country and its leader.
Kumar took two exams for jobs in so-called Group D posts in the Indian Railways. This professional category is the lowest in the public sector employment hierarchy in India, but it brings with it attractive benefits and job security.
He failed none of the tests and complains that there are far fewer jobs advertised as available than are actually available.
“Things are getting a little difficult now. My father is retiring soon and there is pressure on me to get a job. We are a middle-class family,” Kumar told Al Jazeera.
But none of this, Kumar added, will stop him from voting for Modi again in the ongoing Indian national elections. Bihar, the third most populous state in India, with more than 100 million inhabitants, votes in the seven phases of the gigantic electoral process – the next phase will be on May 7.
“We’re not getting jobs, that’s true. But at least the country is fine,” Kumar told Al Jazeera.
Kumar’s policy choice underscores a broader pattern that, at first glance, may seem contradictory, but which analysts say is critical to Modi’s success: The prime minister’s cult popularity appears untouched by many voters’ dissatisfaction over the their economic situation.
A recent survey of 10,000 voters published by New Delhi-based think tank the Center for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) and its subsidiary, Lokniti, found that inflation and lack of jobs are voters’ main concerns Indians. Nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of respondents said getting a job was more difficult than it was five years ago. Only 12% of respondents said that getting a job was easier. The opinion on inflation was similar, with 71 percent of respondents saying that there had been an increase in the price of essential products in the last five years.
However, the same survey also found that voters’ confidence in Modi remained largely unshaken, with almost two-thirds of respondents saying they would vote for the BJP in the current elections.
The reasons, voters and analysts say, are many – from the perception of India’s growing global status under Modi and the belief among many that the current government is less corrupt than previous ones, to careful image management and a cocktail of religion-based policies.
‘Improvement of India’s status’
Among the many promises that brought Modi to power in 2014, the creation of 20 million jobs every year was one of the most prominent – and it had repercussions in a country where more than half of its 1.4 billion inhabitants are under 30. years.
However, unemployment reached new highs under his government, despite India being one of the world’s fastest growing economies. The International Labor Organization and the Institute for Human Development, in a report this year, said the country’s youth represented 83 percent of the country’s unemployed population – two-thirds of them with a secondary education diploma or higher.
The government rejected the report, citing “inconsistency in the data”.
However, the Modi government itself acknowledged last year that almost a million jobs were vacant in various government departments, with the largest number – 290,000 – of these jobs only in the railways.
Still, as India votes, unemployment problems are not a powerful enough reason for many young people in Bihar – the poorest among India’s large states – to vote against Modi.
“Modi has improved India’s status on the international stage, which will actually help us get more jobs,” Kumar said. “I heard that Tesla wants to invest in India because of the ease of doing business that Modi has facilitated in the country.”
In fact, Tesla boss Elon Musk postponed a visit to India last week despite having traveled to China.
What attracts Kumar most, he said, are two things Modi did in his second term – building a temple to the Hindu god Ram in the city of Ayodhya and abolishing the Muslim practice of “triple talaq” or divorce. Both issues figure prominently in the BJP’s election manifesto.
In January, Modi inaugurated the grand Ram temple, which was built on the site of the 16th-century Babri Mosque until a Hindu mob demolished it in 1992, claiming it was Ram’s birthplace. A popular – and polarizing – movement for the temple, which began in the 1980s, essentially catapulted the BJP into India’s political mainstream.
Similarly, the Modi government passed a law in 2019 that bans “triple talaq” – a practice under which a Muslim man can divorce his wife simply by saying “talaq” – the Arabic word for divorce – three times. all at once, as opposed to the recommended utterance over a period of three months. Although the practice is rare among Indian Muslims, many in the community viewed the ban as yet another attack on their fundamental rights to freely practice their religion.
Kumar sees the ban differently. “People say this government is against Muslims and minorities, but it has helped Muslim women by ending the draconian practice of triple talaq,” Kumar told Al Jazeera.
What about the destruction of the Babri Mosque? “No one is stopping Muslims in the country from practicing their faith. But, for example, if in the past Muslim rulers demolished temples to build a mosque in their place, this needs to be corrected,” said Kumar. “He [Modi] corrected a 500-year-old wrong committed against Hindus.”
‘Modi’s guarantees’
Other unemployed youth in Bihar that Al Jazeera spoke to cited the Modi government’s clean image compared to that of previous governments, its emphasis on the so-called “digital revolution” and India’s international status as reasons behind their support. to Modi.
Like Kumar, Aman Gupta, also 27, is preparing for public office, but has been unable to get it for five years. Yet he also believes that only Modi can transform India into a global power.
“Internationally, the world sees India as an emerging superpower. As the largest democracy, we are pushing hard for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, despite China trying to block us. I heard that the UN even asked Modi to act as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia,” he said.
While there have been suggestions that India, with its close historical ties to Russia, could help negotiate an end to Moscow’s war against its neighbor, which it invaded in February 2022, New Delhi has largely preferred to remain on the sidelines. of the conflict.
In India too, Gupta said, Modi has won their trust.
Gupta referred to the direct benefit transfers that the government provides through a series of schemes to some of the most vulnerable in Indian society. “People are getting money in their bank accounts,” he said. “The government is also providing low-interest loans for young people to start their own businesses.”
Neelanjan Sircar, senior fellow at the Center for Political Research in New Delhi, said that although surveys like the one carried out by CSDS-Lokniti point to concerns about economic hardship, the BJP’s branding of Modi helped him avoid any major consequences.
“A big part of what the BJP does is think about how to centralize all political assignments around Modi,” he said. His campaign promises are presented as “Modi guarantees”.
“This is the strategy of a party where the leader is a cult figure and the party is the vehicle for the leader,” Sircar told Al Jazeera.
“Whether it is economic problems or even issues such as violence in [the northeastern state of] Manipur, Modi is not directly tarnished. People can blame [the] other BJP leaders. In regional elections, as a consequence, [the] The BJP can be eliminated. But it is not anger against Modi,” he said.
More than 200 people were killed in ethnic clashes in Manipur last year. Although the BJP rules Manipur, Modi is yet to visit the state since the violence began.
Chandrachur Singh, professor of political science at Delhi University, said the opposition – a consortium of nearly two dozen parties – has failed to rally people around the economic crisis despite considering it a prominent election issue.
“The problem with the opposition is that it is a union of parties with divergent views, whose only agenda appears to be to dislodge Modi. To people, that doesn’t seem like a good enough agenda,” he told Al Jazeera.
Singh said the fact that the opposition has not projected a “face” against Modi is also a problem. “[Congress Party leader] Rahul Gandhi is slowly emerging as that leader, but in terms of perception, he is still far behind Modi,” he said.
Back in Patna, Kumar and Gupta agree.
“It’s also a question of who else can we vote for,” Kumar said. “Rahul Gandhi is good as a leader of a political party, but I don’t see him leading the nation. He does not have the same leadership skills as Modi.”
Gupta said he does not believe the opposition has the capacity to deliver on its promises on jobs and the economy. “The only agenda of the opposition is to destroy the BJP. Everything else seems secondary.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
