Economist
Electoral wrestling can turn ugly. Lalu has managed to keep his fellow Yadavs aligned with the Muslims in his Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) party, giving him a powerful store of votes. The NDA needs to lure swing-voting Hindus away from the grand alliance. They have arguments on their side: look how well all the BJP-led states have fared, and consider how Lalu would make any coalition unstable. But the fact is that a cruder tactic—driving a wedge between Hindus and Muslims—could also help the BJP, as it did in parliamentary elections in next-door Uttar Pradesh (UP), India’s most populous state, in 2014.
A gruesome reminder of communal tensions was the lynching on September 28th of a Muslim man in UP. He was accused by a Hindu mob of having slaughtered a calf (cattle are sacred to Hindus) and eaten its meat. Some BJP politicians jumped to make inflammatory remarks in sympathy with the killers, and a nationwide row ensued, with further violence.
The lynching—and the reaction to it—generated national alarm. Yet the prime minister stayed silent for eight days. When Mr Modi finally spoke, it was to offer a vague homily and later to call it a “sad” incident. With his eye on Bihar, some say, he wants to encourage cattle-revering Yadavs to see themselves as Hindu first and foremost. In protest at the Modi government’s apparent insouciance, dozens of Indian writers have returned their national awards. The Bihar election is coming to matter as much to India as a whole as to the state itself. more
Electoral wrestling can turn ugly. Lalu has managed to keep his fellow Yadavs aligned with the Muslims in his Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) party, giving him a powerful store of votes. The NDA needs to lure swing-voting Hindus away from the grand alliance. They have arguments on their side: look how well all the BJP-led states have fared, and consider how Lalu would make any coalition unstable. But the fact is that a cruder tactic—driving a wedge between Hindus and Muslims—could also help the BJP, as it did in parliamentary elections in next-door Uttar Pradesh (UP), India’s most populous state, in 2014.
A gruesome reminder of communal tensions was the lynching on September 28th of a Muslim man in UP. He was accused by a Hindu mob of having slaughtered a calf (cattle are sacred to Hindus) and eaten its meat. Some BJP politicians jumped to make inflammatory remarks in sympathy with the killers, and a nationwide row ensued, with further violence.
The lynching—and the reaction to it—generated national alarm. Yet the prime minister stayed silent for eight days. When Mr Modi finally spoke, it was to offer a vague homily and later to call it a “sad” incident. With his eye on Bihar, some say, he wants to encourage cattle-revering Yadavs to see themselves as Hindu first and foremost. In protest at the Modi government’s apparent insouciance, dozens of Indian writers have returned their national awards. The Bihar election is coming to matter as much to India as a whole as to the state itself. more
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