Why voters in South India are more resistant to Modi’s Hindu politics

By SIBI ARASU and KRUTIKA PATHI

CHENNAI, India (AP) — Prime Minister Narendra Modi has had almost complete control over Indian politics since he came to power a decade ago, with one exception: He has failed to win over the country’s wealthier southern region .

Five states in southern India account for about 20% of the country’s population and 30% of its economy. They are the heartbeat of India’s manufacturing and high-tech sectors. They are ethnically diverse and proudly multilingual. They provide women with educational and employment opportunities and have a long history of progressive politics.

None are controlled by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party – a stark rejection of her Hindu nationalist agenda, which enjoys broad support in northern India.

The BJP is expected to win India’s elections when the results are announced in June, giving Modi another five years as prime minister. But the chance of strong resistance in the south is also high. That would deprive Modi of his ambition to unite all of India behind him and limit how far he can push the BJP agenda of promoting one religion and language over others.

“If you imagine a Hindi-speaking, unified civilization as the reason you exist, then that becomes a major barrier to overcome,” says data scientist and political analyst Neelakantan RS.

Voters and leaders of India’s southern states have different needs than their counterparts in the north, which is more rural and densely populated. One thing they want is greater recognition by the Modi government of the key role their region plays in advancing the country’s economy.

They believe that their outsized contribution to India’s tax base is betrayed by Modi’s preferential treatment for poorer northern states, which receive a disproportionate amount of government money for development projects and social welfare programs.

Modi’s injection of religion into politics only exacerbates tensions with many southern voters.

Despite strong opposition, Modi is aggressively campaigning in the south. His aim is for the BJP to win enough seats in the lower house of Parliament to secure a two-thirds majority. That much power could embolden the party to try to change the constitution to serve its Hindu-centric goals, said political analyst Kavitha Muralidharan.

“A supermajority is what they need to launch a massive, pan-India, Hindutva experiment,” Muralidharan said, referring to the age-old ideology that guided Modi.

MODI’S SOUTHERN STRATEGY

Modi has made around 20 trips to five southern states this year: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana. They control roughly a quarter of the 543 seats in the lower house of Parliament – ​​and if the BJP can win just a few more than the 29 seats it won from these states in 2019, its supermajority is within reach.

But experts are skeptical this will happen because southern voters have deep ties to regional political parties that have dominated for decades and are the BJP’s toughest electoral opponents nationally.

Modi is heavily focused on the southernmost state, Tamil Nadu, where the BJP failed to win any of the 39 seats in the 2019 elections.

On a recent visit there, Modi wore the region’s traditional white silk garment – a veshti – wrapped around his lower body, and used artificial intelligence software to have his speeches translated from Hindi to Tamil in real time.

“As the oldest language in the world, Tamil fills us with immense pride,” Modi said recently, in an apparent attempt to quell rumors that the BJP wants to impose the Hindi language on the state.

Still, Dileep Kumar, a computer engineer in Bengaluru, says voters in Tamil Nadu are wary. “I can’t go and say to a Hindi man, brother, please stop speaking Hindi and start speaking in Tamil. That’s not going to work, is it?” he said.

A BJP candidate running for parliament in the state capital, Chennai, believes the party has its best chance in years to gain support.

“His frequent visits help us,” said Tamilisai Soundararajan. “People here were electrified when they saw the Prime Minister.”

But the incumbent she faces is questionable. The Hindu-centric politics will not resonate in a country with a long history of social justice and equal rights movements, says Thamizhachi Thangapandian, a retired university professor who is a member of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Party, the BJP’s strongest rival in Tamilnadu.

The beat of drums and fireworks welcomed Thangapandian as she greeted voters who recently rode in an open-top tuk-tuk through the lanes of Chennai. Her party’s achievements blared through a series of loudspeakers, including a reference to shutting out the ‘religion-mad’ BJP.

Modi frequently mentions the recent construction of a Hindu temple on top of a destroyed mosque during his campaign, but the issue does not animate voters in southern India as it does elsewhere.

South India is home to some of the country’s most visited temples and has millions of Hindu devotees. What sets it apart, experts say, is that religion has not been weaponized for political gain.

“People here are religious,” says Muralidharan, the political analyst. “But it doesn’t turn into frenzy.”

The BJP’s religious fanaticism is making leaders in the region nervous because of the potential to cause a “disturbance of the peace” in a place with a global reputation as a good place to do business, says G Sundarrajan, a robotics scientist entrepreneur in Chennai, where Hyundai and Foxconn (the maker of Apple iPhones) have established factories.

“Investors prefer Tamil Nadu precisely because it is peaceful, has a large educated workforce and gets support from the local government,” he said.

Modi is toning down his Hindu nationalist rhetoric during his visit to the south and instead focusing his speeches on economics. For example, he has promised to build a high-speed rail line across southern India and help develop fishing and car manufacturing.

TENSION OVER THE REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH

South India’s economy is more industrialized than that of the north, its cities are more urbanized and its youth are better educated.

South Indian cities have also become a magnet for global tech companies looking to diversify beyond China, including Apple and Google. The enormous potential for India’s economy, now the fifth largest in the world, is a point of pride for Modi.

But political leaders in South India feel shortchanged by Modi.

Tamil Nadu, India’s second-richest state, receives far less in return for every rupee of taxes it pays, compared to poorer northern states such as Uttar Pradesh or Bihar, which receive public investments two to three times as much the amount they pay in taxes.

This tension over the redistribution of wealth from south to north existed long before Modi came to power. But the BJP has made it worse.

Southern leaders believe Modi’s priorities lie in the north, where he gets most of his support. They fear that the BJP government will take away even more decision-making power from states as their majority grows, Muralidharan said.

Southern leaders have protested the Modi government for holding back development funding, abusing federal agencies to target political opponents in the region, and not sending enough emergency aid after natural disasters.

And they believe that their fight against the BJP and Modi is existential.

“In South India, the threat of being reduced to a puppet state is a serious problem,” says Neelakantan, the political analyst.

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Pathi reported from New Delhi.