India’s General Election

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       News Analysis

       Narendra Modi Fell to Earth After Making It All About Himself

       The Indian leader used his singular persona to lift his party to new heights. Then the opposition found a way to use his cult of personality against him.

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       Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India addressing his supporters at Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters in New Delhi on Wednesday. He won his second re-election, but lost his party’s majority in Parliament.Credit...Atul Loke for The New York Times

       By Mujib Mashal, Suhasini Raj and Hari Kumar

       Mujib Mashal and Hari Kumar reported from New Delhi, and Suhasini Raj from Varanasi, India.

       June 5, 2024Updated 12:00 p.m. ET

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       When everything became about Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, his party and its century-old Hindu-nationalist network were propelled to unimagined heights.

       On the back of his singular charisma and political skill, a onetime-fringe religious ideology was pulled to the center of Indian life. Landslide election victories remade India’s politics, once dominated by diverse coalitions representing a nation that had shaped its independence on secular principles.

       But there were always risks in wrapping a party’s fortunes so completely in the image of one man, in inundating a country of many religions, castes and cultures with that leader’s name, face and voice. Voters could start to think that everything was about him, not them. They could even revolt.

       On Tuesday, Mr. Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., fell back to earth. After having promised their biggest election romp yet, they lost more than 60 seats. Mr. Modi will remain in office for a third term, but only with the help of a contentious coalition of parties, some of which are opposed to his core beliefs and want power of their own.

       With the result, India’s strained democracy appeared to roar back to life, its beaten-down political opposition reinvigorated. And after a decade in which Mr. Modi’s success in entrenching Hindu supremacy had often felt like the new common sense, India is seeing its leader and itself in a new light, and trying to understand this unexpected turn.

       Most fundamentally, the opposition, newly coalesced for what it called a do-or-die moment as Mr. Modi increasingly tilted the playing field, found a way to use the cult of personality around him to its advantage.

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       Mujib Mashal is the South Asia bureau chief for The Times, helping to lead coverage of India and the diverse region around it, including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan. More about Mujib Mashal

       Suhasini Raj is a reporter based in New Delhi who has covered India for The Times since 2014. More about Suhasini Raj

       Hari Kumar covers India, based out of New Delhi. He has been a journalist for more than two decades. More about Hari Kumar

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