Modi Era in Indian Politics Reaches an Inflection Point
Halfway Through Modi 3.0, Is Indian Politics Entering a Turbulent Phase? (Image video grab)
By MANISH ANAND
From the July 20 police crackdown to October’s street demonstrations, growing unrest across major cities raises questions about political stability and the trajectory of Modi’s third term.
New Delhi, October 9, 2026 — Within hours of Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserting that he will not relax until achieving ‘Viksit Bharat’ in 2047, an AI video of him hit the internet with ferocious velocity and acceleration — mocking, ridiculing, and lampooning. In months in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, then BJP president Amit Shah, now the Union Minister for Home Affairs, had first spoken of his party’s long stay in power, saying there’s no stopping the BJP till 2047.
As is the BJP’s wont, fed by creators as amplifiers, and institutionalized by cheering policy pundits at the Niti Aayog, Shah’s political rhetoric soon transformed into a new slogan — Viksit Bharat by 2047.
The slogan had taken birth after noting a few lessons of Modi making a few promises with a short time span. He had promised farmers’ income doubling by 2019. Modi’s Railways Minister in his first term Suresh Prabhu on floor of Parliament had promised “train tickets on demand by 2019.” Modi in his 2014 election campaign speeches had promised two crore jobs annually. The basket of promises had arrived with the label of “acche din.”
By 2019, the promises were found to have been still born. Twelve years after Prabhu made the promise in Parliament, the people feel frustrated to see that they cannot book a confirmed rail ticket even 45 days in advance. Farmers were transferred ₹3000 every four months to forget the promise of doubling of their incomes. Almost 80 crores were given free foodgrains, 5kg per person per month, to forget the original sin of promising two crore jobs annually.
Modi’s election czar Amit Shah is pinned down by the youth activists, drawn from the ranks of the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), and the Left-affiliated students’ unions. Rahul Gandhi, leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, also has found his mojo, as he takes streets in his bid to assert that India’s official Opposition party also has air in its lung.
By all accounts, Shah is blundering away Modi’s political space by seemingly suggesting a case of “People vs State” as the police wrestle with protestors to give scenes for eternity to remember that democratic rights of the people to protests were sought to have been crushed by the ruling dispensation. In Delhi and elsewhere also, the police generally carry a negative image among the people unlike the armed forces with whom patriotism and nationalism define their perceptions. Shah seems to have forgotten the key lesson of the BJP’s defeat in Delhi’s 2015 Assembly elections: the people don’t have positive perception of the police figure.
From July 20 police crackdown to the October stirrings, Modi is witnessing India’s key centres turning restive. New Delhi, Mumbai, Prayagraj, Bengaluru, Ranchi, Patna, and many more cities now see their streets easily filled with sloganeering people. The administrative response to stirrings is now suggestive of panic: declaring dray days in Delhi for October 9 and 10!
Half the tenure of the third term of Modi at helm of power at the Centre is now gone. Another half may turn more chaotic. Chaos in politics is generally a sign of anti-incumbency. The air now smells of inflection point in the Indian politics. The Modi era in the Indian politics may possibly have entered its most critical stage.
(This is an opinion piece. Views expressed are the author’s own.)
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