‘A win for democracy’ - Indian New Zealanders reflect on 2024 election result

Indian New Zealanders say democracy has triumphed in the country's 2024 election after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party lost its outright majority in parliament and needed support from partners in the National Democratic Alliance to form a government.

Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 240 seats in the 543-member lower house of parliament, less than the 272 needed to form a government and far less than 400 seats it had attempted to win.

National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners won a further 53 seats to drag the coalition over the line.

The result is a setback for Modi, who has achieved outright majorities in previous elections as both chief minister of Gujarat state and leader of the BJP, maintaining a dominant presence in Indian politics for the past decade.

The Modi-led BJP won 282 seats in 2014, increasing the party's share to 303 seats in 2019.

The election outcome represents a resurgence for the opposition INDIA alliance led by Rahul Gandhi's centrist Congress party, contradicting earlier forecasts.

Opposition parties in the INDIA alliance won 230 seats in the election. Congress alone won 99, almost double the 52 it won in 2019.

"I'm really happy that the country has a strong opposition," said Philips Augustine, originally from Kerala, where the BJP won a constituency for the first time.

"It is a stark reminder to other parties that people do matter when it comes to elections."

Aravind Narayan Suresh said the result reflected the country's view of Modi's performance over the past five years.

"Even though the party failed to secure a majority on its own, it's a sign that Modi's efforts to push India towards becoming a global economic power have resonated well with Indians," Suresh said.

He said the BJP's campaign rhetoric - referring to some citizens as "infiltrators" - had backfired, and predicted the new government would face more challenges than it had in the past decade.

The overall election result was a win for Indian democracy, he said, adding that he preferred the stability of an NDA alliance.

"I think Narendra Modi and NDA offers much more political stability and leadership than the Rahul Gandhi and Congress-led INDIA bloc," he said.

Ashley Cherian Abraham was pleased to see that India would be ruled by a coalition government.

"India is known for its secularism and that has taken a huge hit in the past decade," Abraham said. "A coalition might be a roadblock for the BJP's Hindutva push, which is good for India."

He acknowledged Modi's focus on development, citing initiatives such as the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), infrastructure improvements, and increased manufacturing and investment in India over the past 10 years.

Abraham was pleased with Congress' resurgence but believed it would take time for them to become a strong contender to the BJP.

"This election is a win for Indian democracy," he said.

Rejecting Hindutva politics

"This electoral mandate clearly demonstrates that everyday Indians, particularly Hindus, reject politics of hate," said Mohan Dutta, dean's chair professor of communication at Massey University.

Dutta praised the opposition for overcoming significant challenges, including criticism from the mainstream Indian media and the BJP.

In 2023, Gandhi was disqualified as an MP after being convicted for defamatory comments about Modi at an election rally in 2019.

Gandhi was later returned to his seat by India's highest court and, on Tuesday, won two seats he contested with large majorities.

"The work of renovating Rahul Gandhi's image as a leader of the opposition started five years ago, focusing on economic and welfare issues for the poor," Dutta said, noting that rural and marginalised Indians had delivered their verdict in the election.

Gandhi sought to burnish his standing by leading marches across India in 2023 and 2024.

Supporters in India believed these efforts positively impacted the party's voter base.

"I've always said that Hindutva is the biggest threat to Hinduism, and I think people are waking up to that," Dutta said.

"The moral ground of India's political economy is fundamentally based upon India's commitments to its principles of pluralism, its appreciation of diversity and its work of building spaces for diverse faiths and diverse communities."

Venkat Raman, publisher of Indian Newslink, said the turning point in the electoral chain was when BJP's campaign became polarised in Rajasthan with an attack on Muslims.

He said India faced significant challenges such as youth unemployment and a high cost of living.

"The voting pattern shows that not only Muslims but also Hindus voted against BJP," Raman said, adding that educated voters were able to separate emotive appeals from reality.

"It only shows how well-educated people in India or, at least, how aware they are [of elections]," he said. "They are able to separate the emotive appeals into the reality appeals and it's a big return for the Indian National Congress."

He believed Modi faced a significant challenge in navigating a coalition arrangement.

Discussing the impact the election result had on the New Zealand Indian community, Raman said the community was very intelligent.

"There are a large number of people who are pro-BJP or pro-Modi," he said. "But many of them will be able to see how politics works, and some of them are in touch with their people in India, so I think they will come to terms with the reality."

New Zealand reacts

The Indian Overseas Congress New Zealand was satisfied with the 2024 election outcome.

"We are happy with the results," said Deepak Sharma, vice president of Indian Overseas Congress New Zealand.

Sharma acknowledged room for improvement but saw the BJP's failure to reach 272 seats as a positive outcome.

"This is an ideological battle, and we are on the right path," he said, adding that he believed Rahul Gandhi and the INDIA alliance would eventually take power from the Modi-led NDA.

Rakesh Maiher, convener of the Overseas Friends of BJP in New Zealand, was disappointed Modi's party failed to secure an outright majority.

He attributed this to overconfidence on top of the BJP's poor grassroots efforts in rural areas.

In the 2014 and 2019 elections, the BJP gained many seats in the Hindi heartland regions of northern and western India, including the state of Karnataka in the south.

However, after Tuesday's results, the party lost a significant number of seats in states such as Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state where a BJP-led local government is in power.

While the BJP lost seats in its dominant regions, it also gained a few in new areas.

For the first time, the BJP won the eastern state of Odisha, also gaining a seat for the first time in the southern state of Kerala.

"We have done well in many parts of the country like Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and even won a seat in Kerala, but are upset we didn't cross the 350- to 400-seat mark," Maiher said.

He remained confident the BJP would form a government.

Sunil Kaushal, president of the Waitakere Indian Association, expected Modi to return but not the landslide predicted by exit polls.

He said the BJP would now need to find a middle ground with coalition partners.

"Congress has done well, and the INDIA alliance is a strong opposition now," said Kaushal, who believed India's economic development would continue on an upward trajectory regardless of the election results.

In January 2024, Modi inaugurated a temple to the Hindu god Ram in Ayodhya, fulfilling a decades-long Hindu nationalist pledge to replace a 16th-century mosque that was torn down by Hindu mobs in 1992.

The demolition sparked riots that killed nearly 2,000 people.

Many Hindus believed the Babri Mosque was built by Muslim invaders on the ruins of a temple where the Hindu god was born.

The movement to build the temple helped propel the BJP into political prominence in the 1990s. Modi's rivals have said that the BJP would use the Ram temple to seek votes for the 2024 general election.

However, on Tuesday, the ruling party lost Faizabad - the Ayodhya constituency in which the Ram temple is located - to the Samajwadi Party, a regional party supporting the opposition INDIA bloc.

"BJP losing Ayodhya and many parts of Uttar Pradesh speaks volumes," Kaushal said.