A victory for Modi will damage democracy if it rests on outlawing dissent

The world’s largest elections have begun in India, amid claims the race has already been won. If Narendra Modi were to secure a third term with a big parliamentary majority, his achievement would match that of the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Whatever the outcome, the loser has been Indian democracy. Unlike Mr Nehru, who anonymously criticised his own leadership, Mr Modi has little time for his opponents.

Democracies run best when there is a contest of ideas and equal treatment of citizens in everyday administration. These are in short supply in Modi’s India. The main opposition Congress party found its bank accounts frozen. All the leading Indian politicians arrested by enforcement and tax authorities belong to the opposition and none to the ruling party. Mr Modi can massively outspend his rivals. Since 2018, Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party has received about $1.54bn from wealthy donors, more than all other political parties combined.

After 10 years in power, voters may be in a mood to surprise Mr Modi. Polls suggest that Indians are most worried about unemployment, inflation and income insecurity. On these issues, Mr Modi has a poor record. Most voters say corruption has got worse under his rule. Recent economic growth so disproportionately benefits the rich that India is more unequal today than under colonial rule.

Resistance to Mr Modi is a dangerous business. He has used election victories to characterise opposition to bulldozing constitutional rights as acts of an enemy within.

Modern India has never defined its identity in terms of religion or ethnicity. Most Indians are classed as Hindu, but the country is home to 200 million Muslims. Hindu nationalists – such as Mr Modi – seek primacy for fellow adherents. That is why vigilante groups associated with the ruling party violently police society at the grassroots level with impunity. If Mr Modi were to lose power, these organisations would make any return to the status quo ante very difficult.

Only a mass movement, writes Christophe Jaffrelot of King’s College London in his book Gujarat Under Modi, could counter a vigilantism that forms a “state deeper than the official one”. That is not as unlikely as it sounds. Mr Modi is not popular in southern India, where there has been a political mobilisation around regional cultural identity that challenges Hinduism’s hierarchies. The upshot, particularly in Tamil Nadu, has been more effective institutions and better outcomes on health, education and poverty reduction, as well as more economic dynamism.

To obscure the lack of progress in its populous northern strongholds, Mr Modi’s party militantly asserts Hinduism. One of its opponents in north India, Arvind Kejriwal, attempted to emulate the southern model in Delhi. His arrest last month might be seen as a sign of Mr Modi’s insecurity rather than his confidence. He has much to be insecure about