The passage of the contentious Waqf Act in the parliament may have enduring constitutional implications but it may also have drastic political fallouts. Since legal experts will keep discussing how the newly passed Waqf Act violates or does not violate constitutional provisions with regard to safeguarding the interests of minorities, a closer look at what it means politically may be pertinent. The Waqf Act, by all means, is the latest instance in a series of such attempts through which Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party have attempted to assert their weight on India’s political landscape. Make no mistake, it is Modi’s show of strength – at a time when he may be at his weakest. Ever since Modi’s brute majority of his second term was cut short in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and he became dependent on his allies like never before in the last decade, he has not missed a chance to project himself as unputdownable, or may I say, invincible. Projections and perception matter much more to Modi than anything else. From time to time, he has used his power as the prime minister to consolidate his political position. This, he has done to such a striking effect that many of us cannot tell the difference between the Indian government and the Bharatiya Janata Party. In the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, he used the Ayodhya Ram Temple’s consecration ceremony as a political tool, propping up his supporters and cadres to create a manufactured hysteria. He also beat his own drum by claiming that he will turn India into a developed country by 2047, and assured people that his third term will surely see India as the third largest economy of the world. Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his residence lighting ‘Ramjyoti’ at his residence in Delhi on January 22, 2024 to celebrate the consecration of Ram Temple in Ayodhya. Photo: X (Twitter)/@BJP4IndiaNone of these worked. The BJP ended up losing even the Lok Sabha seat of Faizabad – where Ayodhya is – in what could be the most humiliating loss that the party may have faced in Modi’s era. It finished second to the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, the state which was the bedrock of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. It miserably failed in Maharashtra, which the BJP considers the financial epicentre of the country, along with Gujarat.The hurriedly put-together INDIA alliance cut the BJP at the pass – and stopped Modi from creating a historical landmark, that of winning his third consecutive elections with a majority of his own. This series of reverses set Modi back from his erstwhile position. There was a time when most observers asked, “If not Modi, then who?”Everyone thought that Modi had got a taste of humility, so it became all the more important for him to reclaim the political narrative in his favour and show that he was completely in control, in spite of his increased dependence on wily allies like Nitish Kumar and N. Chandrababu Naidu. The reclamation process first began through an organised exercise in erasing public memory. The elaborate exercise was a step-by-step process. First, soon after its losses in the Lok Sabha polls, a large section of BJP leaders started to give almost the same media bites, saying that the opposition forces misled the people through a false narrative. They kept repeating that the BJP was committed to upholding constitutional values. The push was designed to make people forget that the idea that only a wholesome majority for the BJP will allow it to change the secular constitution came from BJP’s own top leaders, not the opposition. Secondly, in Modi’s first speech in the parliament in July 2024, he made it a point to emphasise on the aspect of continuity from his previous terms. The prime minister clubbed all criticism of his government as anti-national conspiracy or “deshvirodhi kshadyantra” by the Congress and its “ecosystem” and vowed to nip it in the bud. This indicated a surefooted continuity in the way the Modi government has cracked down strongly against protestors, dissenters and critics.“Modi is still strong, his voice is still strong and his determination is also strong. I want to assure all Indian people that Modi is not one to be scared and nor will be his government,” the prime minister said as he thumped his chest. This came hours after Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi tore into thriving hate politics, price rise, and unemployment in the country.Since then, almost all his speeches have hovered around similar messaging. Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually addresses the Jain Community people on the occasion of Vishva Navkar Mahamantra Divas, in Ahmedabad, Wednesday, April 9, 2025. Photo: PTI.None of Modi’s rhetoric was new. It was not even old wine in a new bottle. We were again told that any criticism of Modi and his policies was a conspiracy against the nation – that Modi is the nation, and the nation is Modi. And all the ills and failures of the country were because of the Congress. We were again signalled by the high command that muscular nationalism and brutal crushing of any form of dissent is the only way forward in the Modi rule. Thirdly, the BJP knew that none of these strategies would stick if it didn’t have victories to back them up – and derail the united opposition’s plans to mount a more sustained attack. Thus, it spent all its energy to reclaim the states that it had lost in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. It micromanaged the win in the Haryana elections in such a way that Congress was left dumbfounded. It registered its biggest ever win in Maharashtra by putting into work all the power it had at the Centre. BJP’s excellent performance in the Jammu region in the very first elections of the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir also cemented its larger political signalling. With respect to Uttar Pradesh, after a certain gap, one saw hate speeches and hate crimes flourish again immediately after the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, as if someone had again alerted the Hindutva cadre to go berserk against minorities. Such is the situation now that even multicultural festivals like Holi and Diwali are being discussed hate crimes perpetrated by Hindutva groups across north India. No Hindu festival has gone by in the last one year which Hindutva cadre have not used to put down Muslims. While such events appeared to be dogged attempts by the BJP to pivot the political narrative towards its favourite political binary – Hindu-Muslim or secular-communal – the UP state machinery was also deployed with an unforeseen impunity to ensure victories in the state by-polls. Remember how multiple videos came to light where the state police were seen stopping Muslim voters from reaching polling booths in the bypolls? Adityanath, in such a context, went the extra mile to project himself as an indefatigable hardliner. Also read: UP Bypolls Marred by Allegations of Police Misconduct, Discrimination Against MuslimsFourthly, one may remember that in the months before the Lok Sabha polls, there was a visible fallout between the RSS and the BJP. Party president J.P. Nadda actually went on record to say that the BJP is big enough now to not depend on the RSS for elections. As a result, the RSS reportedly did not put its weight behind the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. BJP’s losses in Maharashtra and UP were attributed to the lack of enthusiasm among the RSS cadres. Last week, Modi finally paid a visit to the RSS headquarters in Nagpur – his first ever visit there as the prime minister. He swore his allegiance to the RSS, and also reportedly sought RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat’s approval for the next BJP president. But more importantly, Modi used the visit to again project that the Sangh parivar is a united house, and also the biggest political formation in India currently. And finally, the Waqf Amendment Act. This Bill was perhaps the first in Modi’s 11-year rule to have been extensively discussed in the parliament. It was not passed like previous ones which affected the reading down of Article 370, or criminalisation of Triple Talaq, or any other such legislation adopted without any discussion thanks to the brute strength of the BJP in the Lok Sabha. In 2019, after securing an unprecedented victory in the Lok Sabha elections, the Modi government unilaterally ended constitutional autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir by making changes to Article 370. It hammered down the view that it is the only Goliath and there are no Davids around the corner. Cut to 2025, the Waqf Bill came as the perfect legal instrument to embolden the BJP’s long-term Hindutva project and pin down Muslims. Although the Bill was decidedly against Muslims – in a ploy to direct political conversations around the Hindu-Muslim binary again – it was projected by the saffron party as a progressive law for the Muslim community. Imagine the irony. The BJP claimed that it was a reformative law for the community, but it was passed without a single Muslim MP in favour of it. The only Muslim MP from BJP, Gulam Ali, spoke on the matter but did not utter a single word in defence of the bill. Rather, he chose the occasion to attack the Congress, enabling the BJP’s larger political narrative against the grand old party. But this legislation was also an opportunity for Modi to show that in spite of his reduced strength in the parliament, he still has the political nous to swing decisions in his favour – which he did. He could mobilise his secular allies like Janata Dal (United), Telugu Desam Party, Lok Jan Shakti Party, and even those sitting on the fence like the Biju Janata Dal to a certain extent, to vote in favour of a party that the Muslim community virulently opposed across the country.The Waqf Bill was actually Modi’s way of telling the opposition that he remains the most powerful, both outside and inside the parliament. Yet, Modi’s show of strength has come at a time when his popularity has been on the decline. The Indian economy is dwindling, and the global economic order is unpredictable with Trump’s disruptive tariffs. Price rise and unemployment have shown signs of levelling up. Despite repeated assurances, Modi has failed to conduct the census or implement the women’s reservation Bill. Meanwhile, Dravidian parties have upped their ante against BJP’s saffronisation project, while courts have also begun to question the Union government’s authoritarian moves – think the recent Supreme Court’s decision to crack down on Tamil Nadu governor’s “illegal” stalling of Tamil Nadu government’s legislations.At the same time, BJP has struggled to fulfil its poll promises after winning state elections. Does anyone remember the much touted allowances for women like the Ladki Bahin Yojana in Maharashtra promised by the BJP? Well, the BJP governments haven’t been able to implement the schemes in both Delhi and Maharashtra. The prime minister surely doesn’t want people to talk about these teething issues. Thus, he has resorted back to his tried and tested cocktail of Hindutva aggression, muscular nationalism, and political grandstanding.His elaborate investment in showing his strength is not merely a diversionary tactic but also an exercise to signal his purported control over the entire institutional framework of India. At the heart of it is a message that almost every polarising and authoritarian leader has used across the world: the TINA factor, that “There is No Alternative”. And, that has led to heightened tensions across multiple ends of the political spectrum – a situation where Modi may surely thrive but which will come at the cost of the wellbeing of Indian people. He has, of course, been helped by opposition forces that have been in complete disarray. The INDIA bloc that did its first meeting to mount a sustained and joint opposition to Modi in his third term immediately after the 2024 elections appears to have scattered. When the alliance could have hit the Modi dispensation after weakening it in the Lok Sabha polls, its leaders were seen speaking against each other. Others continued to send mixed signals, with little or no long-term vision to present a political alternative. The top leaders of the INDIA bloc have not had a single meeting after July 2024. The only exception in the opposition camp may have been the DMK that has stuck to its Dravidian guns and pushed the BJP into a corner. It was only during the discussions on the Waqf Bill that they came together to mount a joint protest after a long time. But they still resemble players who are without a plan. Through a series of disingenuous moves, Modi has managed to keep the opposition tangled in a vicious trap and forced it to sway away from its effective narrative of constitutional nationalism which can contrast effectively against BJP’s Hindu nationalism. Yet, the larger questions remain: For how long will Prime Minister Narendra Modi dodge the bullet? And, for how long can he successfully continue to sway people away from the immediate issues that affect their lives? The changing global order surely does not seem to be going in his favour.
