Puja Changoiwala is an award-winning Indian journalist and author.
The gigantic northern state of Uttar Pradesh is the most politically important in India, sending more representatives to the country’s 543-seat parliament than any other. In 2014 and 2019, Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 71 and 62 of the 80 seats in the Hindu-majority region, respectively, and it was expected to do well there again; in January, the Indian Prime Minister inaugurated a grand temple to the Hindu god Ram there, built on the site of a mosque demolished by Hindu nationalists.
But on June 4, the day of India’s electoral reckoning, Uttar Pradesh delivered just 33 seats to the BJP. The majority went to the opposition alliance, led in the state by the socialist Samajwadi Party. Just as Uttar Pradesh fuelled the BJP’s victories in previous elections, its losses there this time effectively denied the saffron party a majority government.
What distinguished the opposition alliance was its focus on the underprivileged, including caste and religious minorities, and saving rozi roti (employment). Mr. Modi, meanwhile, remained committed to his deeply polarizing rhetoric, even claiming in the state that “the day I do Hindu-Muslim, I will be unworthy of public life.” But over the years, Uttar Pradesh has seen several protests by its youth against the government’s schemes to recruit them into the armed forces and railway sector, or as schoolteachers and police constables, among other jobs. While Mr. Modi’s free ration scheme brought some relief to households there, unemployment was the dominant concern.
Overlooking the economic pain in Indian households has deeply affected the BJP’s political arithmetic. Although Mr. Modi has formed government again, the party’s stumble in Uttar Pradesh is a microcosm of the Indian electorate’s clear message for the Prime Minister: They prefer bread to bigotry.
India is the fastest-developing economy in the world, but its GDP and infrastructure boosts have failed to create enough jobs for what is now the world’s largest population. A pre-election survey showed that unemployment was the most important issue for Indian voters – and according to a recent report by the International Labour Organization, 83 per cent of India’s unemployed work force comprises its youth.
Between 2017 and 2023, India has experienced a consistent decline in manufacturing and salaried jobs, while those in the low-paying, informal, and lower-production farm sector have increased. Indians are now anxious for work, which is evident in the desperate flights of young people to war zones like Russia for jobs. Thousands more have signed up for work in Israel amid the war in Gaza.
With joblessness becoming the central issue, the opposition accused Mr. Modi of turning India into a “centre of unemployment,” calling the situation “a ticking bomb.” He has refused to acknowledge the crisis, and his government has been reluctant to release official unemployment figures in the past; the data it did release for 2022-2023 pegged the rate at 3.2 per cent, much lower than the 8.3 per cent calculated by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy.
Wages, too, have failed to grow under Mr. Modi’s rule. Between 2014, when the Prime Minister came to power, and 2022, real wages have stagnated at less than 1 per cent. Some of his economic policies have only made things worse, too: In 2016, for instance, his government abruptly nullified 86 per cent of India’s cash in an effort to wipe out black-market currency from the country. That deeply affected India’s micro, small, and medium enterprises, which largely operate in the informal sector, form the spine of the Indian economy, and generate the most non-farm jobs in the country.
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Then there’s India’s rising cost of living in recent years, from daily necessities and health care, to education and housing. Household debt reached a record high of nearly 40 per cent of GDP this year, while net financial savings dropped to record lows. Economists blamed the development on low incomes and a slowdown in consumption in the economy.
At the same time, India has become one of the most unequal countries in the world, with 40.1 per cent of the total wealth concentrated among the richest 1 per cent. Meanwhile, about 10 per cent of the population still languishes below the poverty line of US$2.15 per day. The United Nations says that more than 74 per cent of India’s population – more than a billion people – cannot afford even a healthy diet.
Mr. Modi was sworn in as Prime Minister for a third term on Sunday. But he must accept the message of India’s electorate with a democratic spirit, and ensure that people’s basic needs trump divisive rhetoric – and that, as the country treads the road to becoming an economic superpower, its government takes its poor with it.