The Indian Prime Minister, re-elected in June, announced during his election campaign an action plan for the first hundred days of his third term. The deadline has arrived, Tuesday 17 September: the results are very meagre. Narendra Modi, 74, is no longer the leader who reigned for ten years in the most populous country in the world.
Modi has certainly increased his foreign travels (Italy, Russia, Austria, Poland, Ukraine, Brunei, Singapore), but the intensity of his diplomatic activity has not been on a par with his commitment to his own country: the last three months have been marked by political strife, weakening and relative inertia.
The first parliamentary session, which ended in mid-August, revealed the narrow margins of action of a government without a majority of its own, forced to ally itself with two versatile regional leaders, the “chief ministers” of the states of Bihar (north) and Andhra Pradesh (south). Three times it had to abandon projects. The three texts, written without consultation, targeted Muslims, underprivileged castes and independent media, the usual targets. Its allies did not follow it, anxious not to alienate the Muslim community and the lower castes.
On the defensive
The parliamentary landscape has changed radically and the stronger opposition now puts the executive on the defensive. “These radical changes show that Modi’s political authority is being undermined, says political scientist Asim Ali. He has been unable to impose a consensus agenda that can unite the population, which partly reflects the limited nature of his leadership skills. »
The only major reforms mentioned by the Prime Minister, during his annual speech on 15 August to celebrate independence, are the establishment of a uniform civil code and a reform of the electoral calendar aimed at grouping the general elections for the Lower House and the regional elections on the same day. The elections in twenty-eight states are unlikely to see the light of day: the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Mr Modi’s party, does not have a qualified majority. The time for the second term (2019-2024) seems far away, when the all-powerful Prime Minister decided to brutally abolish, to everyone’s surprise, Article 370 of the Constitution, which granted semi-autonomy to Kashmir, a region with a Muslim majority that has been disputed since partition between India and Pakistan, and is perpetually subject to internal unrest.
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