{"id":21016,"date":"2025-06-30T04:04:25","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T04:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=21016"},"modified":"2025-06-30T04:04:27","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T04:04:27","slug":"indias-social-regression-under-modis-eleven-years-may-not-be-mendable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=21016","title":{"rendered":"India\u2019s Social Regression Under Modi\u2019s Eleven Years May Not Be Mendable"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

While much has been written about the Modi regime\u2019s economic failures and diplomatic missteps, the most insidious damage lies elsewhere \u2013 in the corrosion of India\u2019s socio-cultural fabric.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a short-lived euphoria last month when Narendra Modi completed 11 years in office as prime minister. As expected, his bhakts<\/em> hailed the occasion as the making of a \u201cbrave new India\u201d. In the midst of mounting criticism \u2013 particularly over Modi\u2019s conspicuous silence in the face of repeated humiliations by the president of the United States, who has consistently hyphenated India with Pakistan, claimed credit for the ceasefire, and publicly paraded illegal Indian migrants in handcuffs and leg chains \u2013such triumphalism only underscored the sheer inversion of meaning<\/em> that characterises his tenure. This inversion may well define his 11 years in power: a period during which a subcontinent-sized nation has been steadily reduced to geopolitical inconsequence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While much has been written about the Modi regime\u2019s economic failures and diplomatic missteps, the most insidious damage lies elsewhere \u2013 in the corrosion of India\u2019s socio-cultural fabric. This damage is evident in the erosion of the country\u2019s pluralistic ethos and the hardening of its deepest societal fault lines. A comparative glance at key social indicators from the pre-2014 era to the present reveals a sharp regression into communal majoritarianism, anti-intellectualism and institutionalised discrimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The socio-cultural tapestry \u2013 painstakingly woven over three centuries of colonial modernity, the egalitarian impulses of the freedom struggle, and the republican values enshrined in the Constitution \u2013 has been torn apart. What remains is a nation draped in the anachronistic garb of medievalism. Unlike the damage in other sectors, which may be reversible with time and will, the rupture in the socio-cultural domain presents a far more formidable challenge in today\u2019s fast-paced, interconnected world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assessing the damage<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One of the starkest transformations has been in the realm of communal harmony. During the UPA-era (2011\u20132014), India witnessed around 600 communal incidents per year, as per Ministry of Home Affairs data. Under Modi, that number surged to over 1,000 per year between 2017 and 2022, according to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). Even more chilling has been the rise of cow-related lynchings \u2013 from rare and scattered incidents earlier, to over 300 cases between 2014 and 2024. Hate speech cases have exploded fivefold, emboldened by weak police response and tacit political encouragement. Cases such as the Bulandshahr lynching of a police officer in 2018<\/a> or the Palghar mob killings in 2020<\/a> highlight how vigilante justice has replaced rule of law in many regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This surge in communal aggression is matched by the shrinking of the democratic space for dissent and expression. India\u2019s global press freedom ranking fell from 140 in 2014 to 161 out of 180 countries in 2024, according to Reporters Without Borders. Sedition cases, once rarely invoked (25 cases\/year pre-2014) have gone up by 160%, to over 70 cases annually. Universities have become ideological battlegrounds, with Mughal and peoples\u2019 histories purged from curricula and dissenting students at institutions like Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) or Jamia Milia Islamia charged under anti-terror laws. The transformation from occasional censorship of dissenting research (e.g., economists critical of GDP data revisions facing backlash) to systematic erasure of liberal academia is unmistakable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The status of minorities, especially Muslims, reveals further institutional exclusion. Muslim representation in the Lok Sabha declined from 30 MPs in 2009 to just 24 in 2024, and for the first time since Independence, Modi\u2019s cabinet includes no Muslim ministers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anti-conversion laws, once limited to a few BJP-ruled states, have now spread to 12 states, further criminalising interfaith relationships and religious change. The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the push for a National Register of Citizens (NRC) signal a concerted effort to redraw the contours of Indian citizenship around Hindu identity. The \u201cHijab bans\u201d in Karnataka and the Gyanvapi mosque dispute underscore a deepening siege on Muslim civil liberties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caste and gender justice, who had seen incremental progress in earlier decades, have also taken a hit. Atrocities against Dalits rose from 39,000 cases in 2013 to over 50,900 in 2022, per the NCRB. While the UPA avoided breaching the Supreme Court-mandated 50% reservation cap, the Modi government instituted a 10% quota for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) among upper castes \u2013 effectively diluting affirmative action and possibly paving the way for abolition of caste-based reservations. Iconic incidents like the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula<\/a> and the flogging of Dalits in Una (2016)<\/a> marked a return of caste pride couched in euphemisms like \u201cSamajik Samrasta\u201d (social harmony), replacing the rhetoric of social justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tribal rights, too, have faced a rollback. Forest land diversions rose<\/a> from 1.5 lakh hectares (2009-14) to 3.5 lakh hectares post-2014, with corporate projects like POSCO and Vedanta prioritised over local consent. Lakhs of Adivasis have been displaced post-2014 due to unbridled development projects and anti-naxal operations. The dilution of the Forest Conservation Rules in 2022 bypassed the requirement for tribal consent under the Forest Rights Act, leading to what many activists term a \u201csecond dispossession.\u201d The move to vacate mineral-rich forests of Adivasis by unleashing genocide in the name of eliminating naxalism has been an associated feature of the regime.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even welfare schemes, once seen as neutral instruments of inclusion, have become vehicles for majoritarian signalling. While earlier governments maintained a universal approach to schemes like MNREGA and the public distribution system (PDS), recent years have seen exclusions \u2013 Muslim farmers being denied PM-KISAN benefits in several BJP-ruled states, for instance. Despite initial success, the Ujjwala scheme faltered, with 25% of beneficiaries reverting to firewood due to high refill costs. Welfare distribution has been openly communalised, as seen in vaccine campaigns tied to temples and slogans like \u201c80 versus 20\u201d in Uttar Pradesh, implicitly pitting Hindus against Muslims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Culturally, the nation has undergone a profound homogenisation. The BJP\u2019s aggressive push for Hindi as a national language led to fierce protests in the Northeast and Tamil Nadu. Folk cultures and regional traditions have been overshadowed by state-promoted Hindu festivals, while artists like M.F. Husain have been posthumously targeted<\/a> and filmmakers like Pa Ranjith boycotted for their ideological stance.<\/a> The shift from celebrating diversity to imposing cultural uniformity is emblematic of the regime\u2019s \u201cOne Nation, One Culture\u201d policy drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alongside this cultural narrowing has come a rise in pseudoscience and anti-intellectualism. Scientific funding dropped from 0.8% of GDP in 2013 to 0.6% in 2023, while government-sponsored platforms saw bizarre claims \u2013 such as plastic surgery existing in Vedic times \u2013 gain official endorsement. The New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 promotes Sanskrit and \u201cIndian Knowledge Systems\u201d at the cost of critical thinking. The push for \u201cBharatiya Science\u201d exemplifies the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh\u2019s long-held disdain for evidence-based rationality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps most disturbingly, the Modi-era has witnessed the criminalisation of humanitarian compassion. Over 20,000 NGO licenses<\/a> were revoked<\/a> under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), including for Amnesty International and CARE India. Christian community<\/a> and institutions<\/a> have been targeted in BJP-ruled states like Assam. Humanitarian work \u2013 especially in minority or tribal areas \u2013 is now frequently branded \u201canti-national.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The public discourse has normalised previously taboo expressions of hatred. What were once isolated hate speech cases \u2013 such as Varun Gandhi\u2019s inflammatory 2009 campaign speech<\/a> \u2013 have now become routine. Public figures like Yati Narsinghanand and BJP leaders like Anurag Thakur have openly called for violence against Muslims, without facing legal consequences. Rather, such hate mongers have been immediately awarded by the regime. \u201cSabka Saath, Sabka Vikas\u201d<\/em> has devolved into dog-whistles like \u201cGoli maaro saalon ko,<\/em>\u201d chanted by BJP supporters during the 2020 Delhi election rallies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This normalisation of hate has led to urban segregation and ghettoisation. Discrimination in housing against Muslims, once confined to certain cities like Mumbai, has become systemic across India, where entire housing societies have barred Muslim tenants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bulldozer has become a political symbol, routinely deployed in BJP states like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh to demolish Muslim-owned homes after communal unrest, often without due process. The infamous \u201cCorona Jihad\u201d narrative of 2020, which blamed Muslims for spreading COVID-19, further entrenched social apartheid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taken together, these trends indicate not merely a breakdown but a rewriting of India\u2019s social contract. Where the pre-2014 era was marked by contested but intact constitutional values \u2013 such as secularism, social justice and pluralism \u2013 the past 11 years have seen a wholesale shift toward majoritarian dominance. Indicators point to a social order that is more exclusionary, more intolerant and more unequal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reference Link:- https:\/\/thewire.in\/society\/indias-social-regression-under-modis-eleven-years-may-not-be-mendable<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While much has been written about the Modi regime\u2019s economic failures and diplomatic missteps, the most insidious damage lies elsewhere \u2013 in the corrosion of India\u2019s socio-cultural fabric. There was a short-lived euphoria last month when Narendra Modi completed 11 years in office as prime minister. As expected, his bhakts hailed the occasion as the making of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[20611,2680,105,39,20613,2701,265,1803,20612,10468,125,20610],"class_list":["post-21016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sample-category","tag-deterioration","tag-extremism","tag-geopolitics-2","tag-india","tag-indias-social-regression-under-modis-eleven-years-may-not-be-mendable","tag-intolerance","tag-modi","tag-rss","tag-social-fabric-2","tag-supression-of-minorities","tag-terrorism","tag-unmendable"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21016"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21018,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21016\/revisions\/21018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}