Modi's mess: a shock election result spells uncertainty for India

This episode discusses the unexpected outcomes of India's general election, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party, BJP, lost its parliamentary majority, despite still being able to form a government.

1. Modi's BJP lost its majority, a stunning deviation from pre-election forecasts.
2. Economic concerns and fears of constitutional changes influenced the election outcome.
3. Modi will have to engage more with alliance partners, marking a shift from his previous governance style.
4. The opposition, feeling vindicated by the results, anticipates a freer political climate.
5. The election results underscore the resilience and corrective nature of India's democratic system.

1. Election Shockwaves

This chapter outlines the initial reaction to the unexpected election results, highlighting the loss of BJP's majority and Modi's reliance on alliances. Jeremy Page: "Complete shock. How have we ended up with this result, do you think?"

2. Analyzing the Vote

Analysis of vote distribution and its implications, focusing on key states and economic factors influencing voter decisions. Emily Steinmark: "It's a complex picture, because if you look at the national vote share for the two main parties, the BJP and Congress, they haven't actually changed that much compared to 2019."

3. Political Reactions and Future Prospects

Discusses Modi's response to the results and the opposition's jubilation, exploring potential changes in governance style. Rosie Blore: "Do you think he will as a personality be able to work in a coalition?"

1. Engage in informed discussions about international politics to better understand global dynamics.
2. Participate in community discussions or forums to enhance democratic engagement.
3. Stay informed about your local and national political developments to make educated voting decisions.
4. Encourage dialogue on political and economic reforms in your community.
5. Explore more about the impact of economic policies on political outcomes through reading and research.

Narendra Modi, the strongman of India, will have to compromise now his party has lost its majority. What does the surprise result mean for the country? As some foreign investors shy away from Africa, the continent’s private sector is serving domestic customers to fill that hole (10:02). And how mastering circus stunts could help future moon-dwellers exercise (16:42).

People

Narendra Modi, Jeremy Page, Emily Steinmark, Rosie Blore

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IDA Ireland
With the highest number of young stem graduates per capita in the EU, Ireland has the people and skills your company needs to succeed here. IDA Ireland, the National Investment Development Agency, can help you find and nurture the people you need to internationalize and thrive. Our talent is just one of the extraordinary benefits Ireland has to offer. Learn more at ida ireland.com. invest in extraordinary.

The Economist
The Economist.

Rosie Blore
Hello and welcome to the intelligence from the Economist. I'm Rosie Blore. And I'm Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Political and economic risk have created a $30 billion dollar hole in Africa's foreign investment. But more and more homegrown firms are stepping into the breach, many of them serving the continent's own consumers. And one of the thornier problems of long term space travel is how to keep in shape. The solutions so far have been pretty low tech, but scientists have come up with what might be the simplest idea yet by going to the circus.

First up, though, around a billion people were registered to vote in the largest democracy on earth. Narendra Modi, India's prime minister, was forecast to win a sweeping victory. But when votes were counted yesterday, the outcome was a total surprise. Modi's alliance has won enough seats to form a government, probably with him as prime minister his third term. But astonishingly, his BJP party has lost its majority in parliament.

Modi will now have to rely on support from allies to run the country. The strongman of India has been humbled. Well, there's an overwhelming sense of shock across India today. Jeremy Page has been covering India's election for the economist. How you view this result depends on your political views, really.

Jeremy Page
In the opposition, there is a sense of enormous jubilation because they felt the odds were stacked against them over the last few years. With all the erosion of democratic institutions, the restrictions on the media, the arrest of a couple of opposition party leaders just before the election. And if you're in the BJP, there is a real sense of despondency because they were expecting to grow their majority and now they're facing a significantly different political environment. Jeremy, how did Modi respond to these shocking results? Well, he spoke to BJP party members at the party headquarters in New Delhi last night.

Staff there really tried to stir up the crowd, get some Modi, Modi chanting, going. But it was a little bit half hearted. And you could sense when Modi finally started to speak, his body language made him look unhappy, could really sense the disappointment there. But he sort of rallied as he continued to speak.

But he put a positive face on it, pointing out that he'd become the first leader since Nehru to lead his party to three consecutive general election victories, and noting that his party still had more than double the number of seats that Congress does in parliament.

He promised to form a new government and to continue the work that he's done over the last decade. But this was clearly not the result that he wanted. Jeremy, explain to us how this has happened. Complete shock. How have we ended up with this result, do you think?

Emily Steinmark
So? It's a complex picture, because if you look at the national vote share for the two main parties, the BJP and Congress, they haven't actually changed that much compared to 2019, the last general election. But the distribution of votes has changed significantly, and especially in the most sort of populous and politically important states. So particularly in Maharashtra, in West Bengal, in Rajasthan and in Uttar Pradesh, which is India's most populous and politically important states. So there's lots of different things going on.

Jeremy Page
But I think one of the early conclusions is that economic anxiety, particularly over a shortage of good quality jobs and overinflation, has played a very important role. And the other thing is that there were, I think, considerable fears that if the BJP and its allies had reached their target of 400 seats in parliament, that would have been enough to change the constitution, which would have allowed them to scrap the secular preamble of the constitution. So concern about economic anxiety and concern about changing the constitution, and he's lost his majority. What does all this mean for the party? Can the BJP form a stable government?

Well, the BJP is still the biggest party in parliament by quite a long margin, has more than twice as many seats as Congress, and actually has more seats than the entire opposition alliance put together. So Modi is almost certainly going to continue as prime minister. And yes, they will be able to form a government, but the crucial point is that he will now, now have to make compromises with several of his alliance partners because he doesn't, on his own, have the numbers to form that government. And he's going to have to do that on every new initiative. Whether it's a new piece of legislation, he'll have to do it in bargaining over cabinet posts in the new government.

So this is a very different kind of political setup than the one he's used to. And there are two leaders in the alliance who are particularly important. They're going to be the sort of kingmakers in this process. One is from the eastern state of Bihar, the other from the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. And between them, they have enough seats to give the PJP the power to form a government or to take that away.

So they're also being courted very aggressively now by the opposition, be making all sorts of promises behind closed doors. The BJP almost certainly has much greater resources to try and persuade those allies to stay on side and possibly even recruit more. You mentioned the word compromise there. Modi's a strong man and everything that you've said suggests he really is going to have to be nice to his allies and try and make it work. How might that government operate?

Rosie Blore
Do you think he will as a personality be able to work in a coalition? I think this is a really big question because he hasn't dealt with a political setup like this since he really had his big break in government when he became the chief minister of Gujarat back in 2001. Since then his approach to government has really been one of centralizing power as much as possible in his own hands. He's a micromanager. He doesn't even like devolving decisions to his own ministers let alone to alliance partners.

Jeremy Page
He pays enormous attention to detail. He likes to get involved in decisions and give orders directly to people in the bureaucracy. And now he's going to have to deal with his own alliance partners. He's going to be dealing with an emboldened opposition which controls a lot of India state governments and that's going to really complicate policymaking. It could improve policymaking because there is an argument that consensus building is a better way to govern in India because it is so diverse and so complicated.

But it's going to be a very difficult transition for Mister Modi to make. You mentioned the emboldened opposition. How have they responded to these surprising events? They are ecstatic. It's almost as though they feel that they've won the election though of course they haven't.

There's been a sort of outpouring of celebration and relief and I think that's because they felt that the odds were stacked against them in this election to such an extent. There had been such an erosion of democratic institutions over the last few years, curbs on the freedom of the press, of the judiciary, even of the Election commission. So I think what you're seeing amongst opposition supporters is this sense of relief that in spite of all that, or perhaps to an extent because of it, indian voters have pushed back and now imposed some limits on Mister Modi's powers. So they hope that this will create a slightly freer political environment in the years ahead. Absolutely fascinating stuff.

Rosie Blore
Incredible moment Jeremy. I guess the question we all want to know the answers to is what's going to happen next? What does this all mean for India? That's very hard to tell. I think it depends to a large extent on the message that Mister Modi takes away from this.

Jeremy Page
I think there's a couple of potential paths ahead. One is that Mister Modi dials back his more ideological instincts, his desire to push that hindu nationalism and his authoritarian approach to government, and that he focuses more on the kind of consensus building that is really needed to tackle some of India's long term economic problems. And if he does that, that could be potentially a very good thing for India. I think the alternative path is that he tries to sort of double down on his ideological agenda in some ways to compensate for his party's poor performance. That could really amplify the regional and religious divides in India, and I think could end up being a sort of hindrance to his economic agenda.

So all in all, I think this is a great result for indian democracy. It bolsters the argument that India's political system is resilient enough to correct itself. But I think the real test comes in the years ahead, and the question will be whether Modi is willing to change the way he governs. Fantastic. Incredibly interesting times.

Rosie Blore
Thank you so much, Jeremy. Thanks, Rosie.

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With the highest number of young stem graduates per capita in the EU, Ireland has the people and skills your company needs to succeed here. IDa Ireland, the National Investment Development Agency, can help you find and nurture the people you need to internationalize and thrive. Our talent is just one of the extraordinary benefits Ireland has to offer. Learn more@idairland.com invest in extraordinary.

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Rosie Blore
From mining to maize property to pipelines, Africa has been a magnet for foreign investment. A chinese mining company has opened a $300 million lithium processing plant in Zimbabwe. The country has one of the world's largest reserves of the metal, which is used in electric car batteries. China is the largest investor on the continent. Firms from America, Britain and France, and more recently Gulf states are also spending billions on projects there, creating thousands of jobs.

But some foreign investors have been pulling out of Africa, leaving a large gap to be filled. Higher interest rates have made it risky to invest in these countries. And political dysfunction with coups across the Sahel and dysfunction in South Africa and currency crises in many of the big economies has left investors jaded. Anjani Trivedi is a global business correspondent for the Economist. But Africa's private sector is stepping in and businesses are looking for local solutions and local supplies and hoping to make up for some of the loss in foreign investment and hoping that they can spur economic growth.

So when you say that foreign firms have been retreating, how dramatic has that retreat actually been? Can you put some numbers on it for us? Global foreign direct investment into Africa has gone from 80 billion in 2021 to about 48 billion last year. Big businesses have shuttered production, large banks have pulled out or sold to local groups as they look to manage risk on the continent. 30 billion sounds like a lot of investment to lose in two years.

Is Africa's private sector ready? Is it really in a position to fill that hole? Well, there are a few other options. I was recently in Kigali at the Africa CEO Forum, which was a gathering of CEO's regional bosses of multinationals, politicians and development financiers, and they were all talking about boosting cross border investment within the continent, looking for local supply chains and how they can connect the logistics corridors across the continent. Aliko Dangote, Africa's richest man, who runs Dangote Industries, which is a nigerian conglomerate that does everything from cement to sugar milling, made it very clear, he said, that Africans will have to do it.

Anjani Trivedi
And if they wait for foreigners, it's not going to happen. That sentiment was generally echoed by businessmen at the forum. And african businesses are expanding. They are getting better at catering to the continent's consumers to understand local preferences in other countries and also work with international partners to help international partners localize. That sounds like a fascinating and really important shift.

Rosie Blore
If these companies are moving from catering to export markets to actually serving consumers within Africa, what does that really involve? So they're taking a closer look at local needs and trying to understand preferences better. Kenyan consumers tend to trust their local brands. Nigerians don't. Consumers make different choices on brands, especially around pricing.

Anjani Trivedi
The other issue for a lot of african businesses is managing logistics, is managing currencies between different countries, and they are finding ways to work with african companies in other countries as well. African construction and engineering firms have been quite successful at winning contracts of local highways that connect countries across the continent, major infrastructure projects. And that has given more confidence in the business circles that african companies can do it on their own. For Africa, I guess the $30 billion question is, will it work? Is there enough of a market for african companies to keep buying and selling more and more to each other?

There are 1.4 billion people across the continent, across 54 countries. So there is a market. It's geographically at least close and connected. The other thing is, also across the continent, digital solutions are picking up, which makes adoption easier for a lot of african companies, whether it's digital wallets, payments, communicating more around supply chains. So if we look at the trade numbers, for example, if we look at intra african exports, so that's exports from african countries to other african countries, exports are up by 32% since 2018, and it was about 100 billion last year.

Now, that compares to about 20% growth for exports out of the continent. So that's a significant rise in trade. Still small compared to other inter regional trade like Europe or Asia, but it is growing. I feel like there's a buck coming here. Well, there are still several obstacles to such cross border commerce.

The african continental Free Trade agreement, for instance, is hamstrung by very basic rules of trade, like tracing the origin of goods, visa rules. You know, the billionaire boss of Dangote Industries complained that he still needed 35 visas within Africa on his nigerian passport. However, one thing struck me at the forum was that there are certain countries in Africa, whether it's Cote d'Ivoire or whether it's more northern Africa, like Morocco or Senegal, where there is immense potential already. The trade, the business, everything that's happening there, there's a mindset to fix governance and fix policy and make things happen. So we're starting to see this divergence in the way different countries within the continent are operating.

And so I think over the next few years, what is likely to happen is that certain regions will start seeing trade grow faster than other regions within Africa. So whether that's East Africa or certain parts of West Africa, first, those areas will become hotspots, and over time, the broader continent will become more connected. These are all very encouraging signs for the continent's private sector, and there will be many more gatherings like the one in Kigali. But the question is whether business leaders and policymakers can actually get together and continue to work through the sticking points so that trade continues to grow and that they can actually step in and fill the gaps left by the loss of foreign investment. Anjani, thank you very much.

Thanks, Rosie.

The Economist
If you went to the big top of a circus about a century ago, you would have seen a newfangled, the ominous sounding wall of death.

Imagine a circular wooden racetrack, maybe 10 meters in diameter, flat at the bottom, but with increasingly sloped sides. Daredevil motorcyclists ride around the track, gaining speed and gaining height.

Soon enough, physics permits a seemingly gravity defying path. The daredevils are circling the wall parallel to the ground.

It was and is a site to compete with the lion tamers and the high wire acts. And now scientists reckon it can do more, keeping future spacefarers fit in low. Gravity environments like space and on the moon, our bodies stop behaving like they're supposed to. Emily Steinmark writes about science for the. Our muscles atrophy, our bones become brittle, our fitness goes down.

Emily Steinmark
Motor skills start to break down. Cardiovascular health is much worse, and exercise can help prevent some of this stuff, which is why astronauts at the moment spend about 2 hours a day strapped to exercise bikes and trying to run on treadmills. But normal forms of exercise struggle to really combat all of the negative effects. So scientists, being scientists, they've started thinking about a better option, which I'm going. To guess involved something like a wall of death.

That's exactly what it involves. So these researchers at the University of Milan, they basically rented for a day a wall of death, the kind that you use on fairgrounds from a fairground. And then they had two brave volunteers, a man and a woman, and they attached them to a bit of bungee cord hanging from a crane above the wall of death. And this relieved them of five, six of their body weight, in effect mimicking the low gravity on the moon. And so, dangling this way, the volunteers were then able to run up a tiny ramp at the bottom and then eventually run perfectly horizontal inside the wall of death.

And in the beginning, they needed a little bit of help. But after five to seven attempts, they could do this completely independently. And the idea is that astronauts would start to run inside this moon tube and that the same forces that keep water in a bucket when you swing it around on a rope take effect to kind of create an experience of artificial gravity. Right. So I have begun to wish I was one of these volunteers because it looks and sounds fun.

The Economist
That's it then. Question solved. You just need to put a wall of death on the moon? Well, you do need a bit of practice. It's not something that people are used to, certainly running horizontally, but they both got pretty good at it.

Emily Steinmark
After, like five to seven attempts, they could start on their own, and they got really good speeds, averaging around 20 km an hour. And so the findings do seem to suggest that you could run horizontally inside a wall of death and counteract this lack of gravity and potentially some of these negative effects that come with living in space. That's certainly what Alberto Manetti, who's the lead author of the study, told me when I spoke to him. Every 12 hours, you then jump on the wall and make two, three laps, and then you stand and keep on reading your book. Alberta has been thinking a lot about how astronauts bodies will degrade on the moon, living there as part of a future planned lunar base, and how exercise like what hes suggesting may be possible for these extremely busy people, two minutes.

Alberto Manetti
Every 12 hours is a very, very, very short time. And whenever they are certainly a very busy schedule during the day because they will need to build up the village, let's say that is around you need to train, but it would be really nice if the training could be short. That said, doctors, I spoke to mention that this kind of intense physical activity carries the risk of injuries. And when you're on the moon or otherwise in space, healthcare facilities are limited and far away. So you dont want to make things too dangerous.

The Economist
You dont want sort of brutal running injuries when youre on the way to Mars. No. So do you think that Alberto is onto something here, that the easy technological fix then is just this kind of basically shape of a big tube? I think its very low tech and perhaps ingeniously so. Theres no need to build a fancy gym.

Emily Steinmark
All you really need is a circular wall. And Alberto suggests that if you build the lunar base as a sort of circular dome structure, then astronauts can just jog around on the walls and they don't even have to do it for very long because it's an intense workout. So on those merits, it's pretty good. More broadly, this kind of research will just open more opportunities for space exploration and thinking about what it would be like if humans ever get to live permanently on a different structure in space. It seems funny that the way to stay as fit as you are on earth is to do something that you absolutely could not do on Earth unless you were on a motorcycle.

Absolutely. I mean, this kind of bonkers take on what we could potentially achieve in space is Alberto's whole thing. Previously, he's been doing research on whether humans can walk on water in space or at least in microgravity. And, you know, it turns out you can if you're wearing these tiny little flipper things. So, you know, just be prepared to see more things coming out of his lab focused on impossibilities on earth, that could signal something we could do in the future in space.

The Economist
Emily, thanks very much for your time. Thank you very much.

Rosie Blore
That's all for this episode of the intelligence. Let us know what you think of the show. You can get in touch@podcasteconomist.com. we'll see you back here tomorrow.

IDA Ireland
With the highest number of young stem graduates per capita in the EU, Ireland has the people and skills your company needs to succeed here. IDA Ireland, the National Investment Development Agency, can help you find and nurture the people you need to internationalize and thrive. Our talent is just one of the extraordinary benefits Ireland has to offer. Learn more@idairland.com. invest in extraordinary.