During his election campaign, the Indian prime minister, re-elected in June, had announced an action plan for the first 100 days of his third term. The deadline arrived on Tuesday, September 17, with poor results. Narendra Modi, 74, is no longer the leader who reigned unchallenged for 10 years over the world's most populous country.
Although Modi has made numerous trips abroad – to Italy, Russia, Austria, Poland, Ukraine, Brunei and Singapore –, the intensity of his diplomatic activity has not matched his commitment at home: The past three months have been marked by political weakness and relative inertia.
The first parliamentary session, which ended in mid-August, showed the narrow margins for action of a government with no majority of its own, obliged to form an alliance with two fickle regional leaders, the "chief ministers" of the states of Bihar (north) and Andhra Pradesh (south). On three occasions, he had to abandon projects. The three texts, drafted without consultation, were aimed at Muslims, underprivileged castes and the independent media, his usual targets. His allies did not follow suit, anxious not to alienate the Muslim community and the lower castes.
The parliamentary landscape has changed radically, with a stronger opposition putting the executive on the defensive. "These U-turns show that Modi's political authority has been undermined," said political scientist Asim Ali. "He has not been able to impose a consensual program that could bring the population together, which partly reflects the limited nature of his leadership skills."
The only major reforms mentioned by the prime minister in his annual Independence Day speech on August 15 – the introduction of a uniform civil code and reform of the electoral calendar to combine general elections for the lower house and regional polls in 28 states on the same day – are unlikely to see the light of day: Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) does not have a qualified majority. The days of the second mandate (2019-2024) seem long forgotten, when the all-powerful prime minister unexpectedly decided to abolish Article 370 of the constitution, giving semi-autonomy to Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region disputed since partition between India and Pakistan, and perpetually subject to internal unrest.
Urgent projects – such as the decennial population census, an essential tool for determining the real state of the country and adjusting redistribution programs, which should have been started in 2021 – have still not begun. In early September, the 14-member Standing Committee on Statistics, headed by the eminent economist Pronab Sen, expressed concern about the delay and the impact of the lack of recent data on its work. In response, the government decided to abruptly dissolve the body.
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