“India has won!” president-elect Narendra Modi tweeted Friday night. But we may soon find the country has made a Faustian bargain with religious nationalism — and all such bargains have the same end result.
Five weeks of voting, 550 million+ votes cast, and the largest democracy in the world has voted overwhelmingly for the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), a powerful — and dangerous, according to some — comingling of nationalism and revisionist Hinduism. The distinctiveness of India’s secular constitution, championed by such legendary thinkers as Rajeev Bhargava, will undergo its greatest test yet and will likely not emerge unscathed.
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