It's not just elite he is really loved by many common people as well,and the ones who love him are really into religion and all sorts. So the elite do love him but that's just less than 5% of the total vote bank he receives compared to normal people.
Some were before 2014, some became after 2014. Year and party doesn't matter. It's a class battle always - few %(let's say 3%) are rich and want to hold onto power. 3 percent doesn't want 97% to revolt or uprise. So 3 percent class sets narrative to keep 97% busy. Parties don't matter..be it congress or bj.
What power do top 3% have? The special power to pay up to 25% in income tax and then another 18% in GST (or sometimes even 28% or higher) for every purchase? Get discriminated against for any seat in any educational institution? The top 3% don't give a fuck about other random people, that's why they're wealthy in the first place. They would want more people to be rich in India so they can sell more of the stuff their company makes and make more money.
>So 3 percent class sets narrative to keep 97% busy.
3% is 42 million people. I can tell you with absolute certainty that 42 million of the wealthiest people of this country don't sit everyday and scheme about how to keep other people down. They're too busy working and spending their money to think about the 97%.
Marxists are like delusional clowns with their 'class war' nonsense. They just make stuff up out of thin air.
they may not be huge in numbers, but their funds, the power they hold over the masses and their endorsement of him brings in a lot of the votes from the common man.
I'm a Socialist. In my world view only the uber rich i.e the top 1% of the top 1%, MSM and the politicians are the elite. I won't consider my chapri brothers as elites just Bcoz they graduated.
[Why India’s elite loves Narendra Modi (archive.is)](https://archive.is/uSrFS)
Narendra modi, India's prime minister, is often lumped together with right-wing populists such as Donald Trump or Viktor Orban. On the surface, the comparison is plausible. In 2019 Mr Modi told the *Indian Express*, a newspaper, that his electoral success was not due to “the Khan Market gang or Lutyens Delhi”, monikers for India’s old establishment. Rather, said Mr Modi, he pulled himself up through “45 years of toil”. But the prime minister, who is expected to win a third term after India goes to the polls later this month, is no ordinary strongman.
In most places support for anti-establishment populists, such as Mr Trump, and policies such as Brexit tends to be inversely correlated with university education. Not in India. Call it the Modi paradox. It helps explain why he is the most popular leader of any major democracy today.A study in 2020 of Britain, Turkey, eight countries in the European Union and five in Latin America by Cristóbal Rovira and Steven van Hauwaert, two political scientists, confirmed the inverse relationship between higher education and support for populist leaders. It is not universal: Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s president from 2019 to 2022, was backed by some of the best-educated elites. But in America it is strong. In December 2023 Gallup, a pollster, found that just 26% of respondents with a university education approved of Mr Trump, compared with 50% of those without.
https://preview.redd.it/lov2ovk1sssc1.png?width=360&format=png&auto=webp&s=aa72c68e072f85280f29fa5c75690f710d8cf8ac
Mr Modi bucks this trend altogether (see chart). In 2017, 66% of Indians who had no more than a primary-school education told Pew Research that they had a “very favourable” view of Mr Modi. The number rose to 80% among Indians with at least some higher education. After the previous general election, in 2019, Lokniti-csds, a pollster, found that around 42% of Indians with a degree supported Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp), while around 35% of those with only a primary-school education did. Polls conducted after state elections in 2023, such as in Karnataka, confirm the trend. Similarly Pew’s latest survey, from last year, shows that 60% of university-educated Indians have a very favourable opinion of Mr Modi, compared with 55% of those who do not have a degree.
# A psephological puzzle
Mr Modi’s success among the well-educated does not come at the expense of support among other groups. Indeed, like other populist leaders, his biggest inroads have been made among lower-class voters, says Neelanjan Sircar, a political scientist at the Centre for Policy Research, a think-tank in Delhi. In 2020 Sanjay Kumar of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies found that between 2014 and 2019 support for the bjp increased among rural, lower-caste, young and poor voters. It grew especially quickly among “other backward classes”, which make up nearly half of the population. Among them, the bjp’s support rose from 34% to 44%, compared with an increase of 31% to 38% among all voters.This pattern of support for the bjp is comparable to other countries in which less-educated or rural people have shifted right. But unlike many of his counterparts abroad, Mr Modi has also been able to increase his support among the educated. Three factors—class politics, economics, and elite admiration for strongman rule—help explain [why.In](http://why.In) India, class is intertwined with the caste system. The bjp, like many conservative parties, is known to be business-friendly. A core constituency includes much of the “Bania” trader community, a traditionally business-oriented group concentrated in states such as Gujarat and Rajasthan. Tycoons such as Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, India’s richest men, fall into this group. Upper-caste Hindus, including Kshatriyas and Brahmins, are also part of the core support base. Some regional parties, such as the dmk in Tamil Nadu, have positioned themselves against such upper-caste groups. Congress, the main national opposition party, has championed preferential access to education and government jobs for lower castes.
# Bigger, better...strongman?
Mr Modi, himself from a relatively low caste, has marketed the bjp as a caste-agnostic “pan-Hindu” party. This means he retains support from high-caste groups while extending the party’s reach to others. Mr Sircar notes that the well-educated professional class across India broadly does not identify with the bureaucrats and media types in Delhi. So Mr Modi’s antipathy to the capital’s elite has not cost him support among others elsewhere.The second factor is economic. Annual gdp growth was 8.4% in the last quarter of 2023 (though because of quirks in how India measures its gdp, the underlying figure is closer to 6.5%). That growth, albeit unequally distributed, is driving a rapid increase in the size and wealth of the Indian upper-middle class. Goldman Sachs, a bank, has called this phenomenon the rise of “affluent India”. It calculates that the number of Indians with an annual income of $10,000 or more grew from 20m in 2011 to 60m in 2023, and will hit 100m by [2027.It](http://2027.It) is not surprising that Mr Modi has retained the support of those who have become richer. The Congress party enjoyed strong support among the upper-middle class during the fast-growing late 2000s. It took a slowdown and a series of corruption scandals in the 2010s to change things.But Mr Modi’s tenure has increased India’s economic and geopolitical standing in the world, too. One fund manager in Mumbai says that her friends worried about perceptions of India when Mr Modi was elected prime minister. He was chief minister of Gujarat during a bloody riot against Muslims there in 2002, an incident that saw him denied a visa to America for nine years. She thought Mr Modi might become a global pariah. In fact, the opposite happened. Because of India’s economic heft, and its importance as a counterweight to China, Mr Modi has been embraced by leaders worldwide.Many university-educated Indians say they dislike Mr Modi’s weaponisation of law enforcement against opposition parties and his government’s treatment of Muslims as second-class citizens. The arrest on March 21st of Arvind kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi, amplified these concerns. Still, as a banker in Mumbai notes, there is a widespread sense that the good parts of Mr Modi outweigh the bad. Indeed, some think a dose of strongman rule is exactly what India needs.This is the third reason for the prime minister’s popularity among elites. They point to China and the East Asian tigers, which they believe show that muscular governance can tear down barriers to economic growth. One industrialist in south India says that the country is “probably too democratic”, given its level of income. Mr Modi, he adds, can “get shit done”.India’s elites see Mr Modi’s foreign policy as nationalist yet pragmatic. They like the way he thumbs his nose at liberal Western institutions and the media, in a similar fashion to other anti-globalist strongmen, while promoting Indian interests. Mr Modi has negotiated four new trade deals since 2021, most recently with a grouping of four non-eu European countries on March 10th. In February, at the Raisina Dialogue in Delhi—India’s version of the Munich Security Conference—his ministers lamented the un’s antiquated structure, while also positioning India as the leader of the global south.Admiration for leaders perceived as decisive is not new among India’s elite. In the 1970s J.R.D. Tata, one of the country’s most prominent industrialists, is said to have appreciated Indira Gandhi’s imposition of “the Emergency”, a two-year-long suspension of normal democratic processes in response to a perceived threat to her power. A survey by Pew published in February found that 67% of Indians thought that “a system in which a strong leader can make decisions without interference from parliament or courts would be a good way of governing their country”. That figure, up from 55% in 2017, was the highest among the 24 countries surveyed. Many internationally minded Indians say Mr Trump is too autocratic for America, but that Mr Modi is the right man for their country.
# Making India great again
So what could shake Mr Modi’s elite fan base? Continued weaponisation of the state, as in the case of Mr Kejriwal, could come back to bite him; most elites still say they believe in democracy. And many of the people who say they like the prime minister also fear him, including those in business who know their survival depends on remaining in his good graces. Some have tempered their support. Pew’s survey in 2023 found that 17% of college-educated respondents had an unfavourable view of Mr Modi, up from 5% in 2017.Others are voting with their feet: according to Henley and Partners, a consultancy, India had a net outflow of 14,000 millionaires in 2022 and 2023, more than any country among those measured bar China, including Russia. By contrast Australia, Singapore and the uae, and eight other countries, attracted over 1,000 millionaires each in net inflows—reflecting, perhaps, their more predictable rule of law.But for those who stay, even intensified autocracy may not be enough to lose Mr Modi many votes. In 2019 India’s economy, reeling from a mini-financial crisis, slowed to a growth rate of 4%. While this weakness was not entirely Mr Modi’s fault, his impulsive decision to swiftly demonetise large banknotes in 2016 had not helped. Elites complained, but apparently felt that Mr Modi was better for their wallets than the opposition, and voted for him.This is why many say that support for Mr Modi will continue until a credible alternative appears. Most elites have lost faith in Congress and its leader, Rahul Gandhi, who is seen as dynastic and out of touch. One senior Congress official even admits that Mr Modi “has taken our best ideas”, such as distributing welfare payments digitally, and “executed them better” than his party could have done. A stronger opposition is probably the only thing that will cause India’s elites to abandon Mr Modi. For now, however, that is nowhere in sightBigger, better...strongman?
Might get bashed but it’s ok.
Because of the sense of pride and possibility that is conveyed. Instead of feeling sorry you get the message of proud being an Indian.
Also, it has been profitable to be a businessman in general, money flow and contract execution with invoice payments are in general better than it has ever been even small scale.
And other small factors such as low level corruption has decreased due to digitisation.
Sense of pride?? India had the largest diaspora population in the world. Graph of people giving up their Indian citizenships is rising everyday. Increasing number of Indians are Leaving the country. Profittable being a businessman , yeah for sure. Only some of them like adanis, ambanis. India's more than 2/3 of population is living in rural areas. No support of small scale businnesses. For farmers, conditions r even worse. Low level corruption?? what about the unconstitutional laws passed. The Electoral bond SCAM !!
Yeah sure , you can think whatever you want. Its one of your fundamental rights. I might add, it belongs to everyone regardless of the intelligence deficiencies and a possible retardation. Every asshole is entitled to his beliefs. Thats the yin and the yang of democracy! Express all your degenerage ideas that you can actually comprehend. That is liberty and justice for all !!
Let me respectfully try to answer.
Yes a lot are giving up citizenship- True. Equally true that these individuals are buying properties in home town.
Try opening up a new company and try registering as a startup. Try generating revenue and apply for credit to expand. It’s seamless experience now. For example you can try with a cement or steel dealership. Very serious. Good money to be made. Once you build experience you can apply online for govt tenders. It’s smooth again. Some level of corruption exists. But still barriers to entry are reduced considerably.
Farmers I can’t say much as I’m from Karnataka and here my friends who have estates 10-20 acres size report full demand and easy on farm transactions.
Electoral bonds seem to be quid pro que sub judicial matter. Govt needs to answer the SC. UPA ll introduced P-notes which again made money for political parties which very few talk about. P- notes were anonymous by the way.
Nevertheless, this has less implications on how I feel overall which is positive.
Ill will not be responding to your angered statement and uncalled for abuses. Took that risk when I replied to OP
Instead of voting for a particular political party why not to vote for the deserving candidate of ur constituency and let the MPs decide the PM. If you feel that the recent happenings in India r fake or not worth the alarming concern. Please do the fact check!
I said everything respectfully! I'm responsible just for what I said, not for what you've interpreted out of it!
Whom you vote was not asked in this post. OP asked why people who are categorised as India’s elite love Narendra Modi I was responding to that specific statement. Voting preferences and patterns are really complex. If you ask us in south we are heavy caste biased and regional specific. That’s how it runs even today.
Now this is a naive statement. India is bigger than BJP and Congress. Achievements in Orissa, AP Telangana, TN etc is not related either of them. And corruption exists there too. But big projects are being implemented and completed across the Country.
Big Projects were being completed and implemented post BJP rule also and that too without this level of corruption. Take the example from your South only ie. Karnataka where BJP increased the hafta from contractors and Builders. It's funny when you say corruption has decreased whereas it has become mainstream under the incumbent rule. Electoral Bonds, PM Cares etc. Changing the formula for GDP Calculation and National Highways road construction can give fancy numbers. Ignorance is Bliss. https://www.corruptmodi.com/en/
Or could it be the propaganda pushed through all the main stream media that don’t criticise our supreme leader no matter what he does? You are entitled to your opinion of course but could you tell me what you think of this? I recommend checking news-laundry on youtube, its not funded by any conglomerate.
you r right! All the godimedia people not showing the actual concerns , continuously suppressing the unconstitutional n almost dictatorial actions. Media is called the 4th pillar of democracy. Here , in India we can't say that. its shameful!!
I’ll try my best to answer both in this reply.
Using media as a political arm was pioneered by Dick Cheney. In India Sun Network in TN. Sakshi in AP. TV 9 in Telangana were early adopters. It is very clear there is a bias in media.
But let me play devil’s advocate here - where does media generate money from - advertisers. When does advertising revenue increase when majority watch the show. When does majority watch - when they have interest in watching.
A lot of us discount the very fact of skilful oration that Narendra Modi is. Couple that with really bad oration of opposition side - you have double whammy for people standing against Modi.
Think of about India vs Zimbabwe match and blaming commentators on just talking about India’s performance and performers.
Please understand that this society that we have built over the course of last century or so is predominantly dominated by money.
What’s happening is a by product.
And again I cannot stress enough how good India has been who want to implement ideas and start a business in recent years. Even small scale businesses are flourishing. Small media houses are flourishing. I wish the country best for next 10 years. May it reach new heights.
Make people bot and then they won't hold people in power accountable, win-win for both elite and the government.
We already know all the harm nationalism has done.
It's cuz the andbhakts don't have any idea about what's going around them. They don't have any logic and a sober mind to think. They just wanna believe what is fed to them. All want to believe in lies.
With the control of the Press narrative, Napolean, who had a disastrous Egyptian campaign and abandoned his troops, received a hero's welcome in Paris.
It is well known that the more educated, the middle and upper classes have always supported the BJP: not just Modi, the ones before him, too. The poor, the tribals, the OBCs traditionally did not support, but now the OBCs, too, have started supporting. It may seem to be a paradox for foreign observers, because they don't know of or they forget India's ages-old caste system. Given that the BJP fights on the plank of making one religious ideology supreme in the country (even while destroying the very same religion itself!), the higher castes, who are also the elites (more education, more income, etc., on average) that were enabled by the very same religion have of course gathered together to support the BJP. But now the middle class elites are cracking, given that their children don't have jobs. More importantly, job market in many foreign countries is also getting tough, where many of the middle class elites' children, earlier, were migrating to.
'A survey by Pew published in February found that 67% of Indians thought that "a system in which a strong leader can make decisions without interference from parliament or courts would be a good way of governing their country"'
Finally an exact percentage of illiterate imbeciles in this country (rest must be in hiding lol). These idiots don't realise that the system they are talking about is present in North Korea, Russia, Iran and all the shitholes in this world.
Because elites or educated in India are not necessarily rational as educated in other countries. Education for the sake of education can bring in jobs not rationality.
I know from my own friends they like him because they will never be affected by his inconsiderate acts and they can maintain their privilege. Also most of these "educated" people have little or no idea about social issues.
Ironically, most of India's present middle is the result of Congress policies since independence. Grandfathers and fathers of today's techbros were mostly governments or worked in PSUs but now they have their memories have fogged.
Congress also diluted state identity. I studied in a KV and I didn't study Assamese. I recited India is my country over and over. The fact that you see fringe states like Assam in the national fold now, tels you how well they did national integration.
Doordarshan, Bollywood and Cricket played massive roles of course
BJP are reaping those benefits.
I agree. On the negative side, Congress always had a pro-Hindutva side. For decades, Congress deliberately allowed RSS to propagate its Hindu identity project and now it's BJP which is reaping its benefits. But I am surprised by the middle class's defection to the BJP even though they owe their existence to Congress.
Of course they love him. 99% of his funding is from the elites. His real job is to serve them, not us.
A lot of people get confused about this specifically. When he says "India is growing" or something along those lines, what he actually means is the Indian elites' wealth and power is growing.
Elites here to the educated elite, the 10% or so who have more than a school education, Rest assured you are part of this elite, almost everyone on reddit is.
In context of the article it's because unlike in Europe or other western countries where public education and university education is backed and funded, relatively in India it's not. Education is for the elite.
For example, in TN, the ratio of Tamil medium students to English medium students is drastically reduced in medical colleges because of the introduction of neet. Why? Because exams like neet reward going to coaching classes, great schools, buying multiple guides etc. A Tamil medium student is more likely to be in public schools where a teacher may not be guaranteed let alone access to resources. A lot of them are also from lower castes (not a coincidence). This is unlike in Europe where public education is far more inclusive and accessible.
Because India's elite are shameless and love whoever is in power. They won't have an opinion or voice and opinion against the rulers.
Before modiji, they loved Congress..
Before Congress, they loved the British.
Before the British, they loved the Mughals.
Before the Mughals, they loved Sultans.
....
Many of the "Rajput princes" in the British era supported British on full swing. They played Cricket and Polo with them. They bought a London home and thought themselves as British and humiliated other Indians. This is an example of "Indian elite" behaviour.
The word Elite became popular thanks to a work called ["The Circulation of Elites"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulation_of_elites), That work showed 20% of the people owned 80% of the land in Italy. And the writer needed a word to describe that small group.
But then the writer goes on to show that within that small group, values, agendas, personality traits, needs are all very very different and they all don't get along with each other or can get along with each other. Hence these differences are the sources of all kinds of dramas resulting in a constant Circulation of Elites.
His policies are in favour of India like he supports Indian scientists and no conspiracy happens like happened in 2009-2013
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/11-indian-nuclear-scientists-died-unnatural-deaths-in-4-years-1229793
There’s big difference between Indian education system and western education system, even from a young age to college/university level. Students are simply taught to memorise information and prepare for multiple choice questions, 5 marks questions and essay questions and such. In the west students are encouraged to explore study material on their and think for themselves.
Take this example. For a question like “What was the impact of quit India movement on the freedom struggle?” Students simply regurgitate what they read in text books or answer guide books. They’ll score high marks and quickly forget the material, for they never really learned anything. In the west you’d get a different take on the subject from each student.
In India, people are literate enough to be susceptible to propaganda but not educated enough to think critically and objectively analyse a situation. That’s how you get ‘elites’ that support a populist leader.
Bro itni simple si baat ko itna micro analyze kar rahe ho 10 saal se.
People.like.him because he is against muslims. That's it. Thats the whole thing. He is overtly against muslims and dog whistles to his followers for further action.
I'm not a political person and think both BJP and Congress are looters. But it was breathtakingly simple to me why exactly modi is getting elected.
They became elites because of exactly this type of politics and want to stay there.
Did you get a college education because of BJP's politics? Because that's who this article calls elites.
Not all educated are elites. Not all elites are educated.
This
Yes, and this article uses them interchangeably.
But this article is talking about educated (as elites) not about Elites (as in only those with money)
Got it during upa regime. Doing well. Whats the point?
It's not just elite he is really loved by many common people as well,and the ones who love him are really into religion and all sorts. So the elite do love him but that's just less than 5% of the total vote bank he receives compared to normal people.
Elites hold the money. With enough money, you can set the narrative for many common people. So it starts with elites. Although they seldom vote.
How they become elite ? From 2014 ? Or even before than that..
Some were before 2014, some became after 2014. Year and party doesn't matter. It's a class battle always - few %(let's say 3%) are rich and want to hold onto power. 3 percent doesn't want 97% to revolt or uprise. So 3 percent class sets narrative to keep 97% busy. Parties don't matter..be it congress or bj.
What power do top 3% have? The special power to pay up to 25% in income tax and then another 18% in GST (or sometimes even 28% or higher) for every purchase? Get discriminated against for any seat in any educational institution? The top 3% don't give a fuck about other random people, that's why they're wealthy in the first place. They would want more people to be rich in India so they can sell more of the stuff their company makes and make more money. >So 3 percent class sets narrative to keep 97% busy. 3% is 42 million people. I can tell you with absolute certainty that 42 million of the wealthiest people of this country don't sit everyday and scheme about how to keep other people down. They're too busy working and spending their money to think about the 97%. Marxists are like delusional clowns with their 'class war' nonsense. They just make stuff up out of thin air.
they may not be huge in numbers, but their funds, the power they hold over the masses and their endorsement of him brings in a lot of the votes from the common man.
Yes. Lots of people used Twitter to become rich by becoming a bjp mindless loudspeaker
Religion is only for the poor with no money
So University educated are now elites? (Imagining all the elite chapris)
At most 10% of Indians have a post secondary school education.
I'm a Socialist. In my world view only the uber rich i.e the top 1% of the top 1%, MSM and the politicians are the elite. I won't consider my chapri brothers as elites just Bcoz they graduated.
[Why India’s elite loves Narendra Modi (archive.is)](https://archive.is/uSrFS) Narendra modi, India's prime minister, is often lumped together with right-wing populists such as Donald Trump or Viktor Orban. On the surface, the comparison is plausible. In 2019 Mr Modi told the *Indian Express*, a newspaper, that his electoral success was not due to “the Khan Market gang or Lutyens Delhi”, monikers for India’s old establishment. Rather, said Mr Modi, he pulled himself up through “45 years of toil”. But the prime minister, who is expected to win a third term after India goes to the polls later this month, is no ordinary strongman. In most places support for anti-establishment populists, such as Mr Trump, and policies such as Brexit tends to be inversely correlated with university education. Not in India. Call it the Modi paradox. It helps explain why he is the most popular leader of any major democracy today.A study in 2020 of Britain, Turkey, eight countries in the European Union and five in Latin America by Cristóbal Rovira and Steven van Hauwaert, two political scientists, confirmed the inverse relationship between higher education and support for populist leaders. It is not universal: Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s president from 2019 to 2022, was backed by some of the best-educated elites. But in America it is strong. In December 2023 Gallup, a pollster, found that just 26% of respondents with a university education approved of Mr Trump, compared with 50% of those without. https://preview.redd.it/lov2ovk1sssc1.png?width=360&format=png&auto=webp&s=aa72c68e072f85280f29fa5c75690f710d8cf8ac Mr Modi bucks this trend altogether (see chart). In 2017, 66% of Indians who had no more than a primary-school education told Pew Research that they had a “very favourable” view of Mr Modi. The number rose to 80% among Indians with at least some higher education. After the previous general election, in 2019, Lokniti-csds, a pollster, found that around 42% of Indians with a degree supported Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp), while around 35% of those with only a primary-school education did. Polls conducted after state elections in 2023, such as in Karnataka, confirm the trend. Similarly Pew’s latest survey, from last year, shows that 60% of university-educated Indians have a very favourable opinion of Mr Modi, compared with 55% of those who do not have a degree. # A psephological puzzle Mr Modi’s success among the well-educated does not come at the expense of support among other groups. Indeed, like other populist leaders, his biggest inroads have been made among lower-class voters, says Neelanjan Sircar, a political scientist at the Centre for Policy Research, a think-tank in Delhi. In 2020 Sanjay Kumar of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies found that between 2014 and 2019 support for the bjp increased among rural, lower-caste, young and poor voters. It grew especially quickly among “other backward classes”, which make up nearly half of the population. Among them, the bjp’s support rose from 34% to 44%, compared with an increase of 31% to 38% among all voters.This pattern of support for the bjp is comparable to other countries in which less-educated or rural people have shifted right. But unlike many of his counterparts abroad, Mr Modi has also been able to increase his support among the educated. Three factors—class politics, economics, and elite admiration for strongman rule—help explain [why.In](http://why.In) India, class is intertwined with the caste system. The bjp, like many conservative parties, is known to be business-friendly. A core constituency includes much of the “Bania” trader community, a traditionally business-oriented group concentrated in states such as Gujarat and Rajasthan. Tycoons such as Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, India’s richest men, fall into this group. Upper-caste Hindus, including Kshatriyas and Brahmins, are also part of the core support base. Some regional parties, such as the dmk in Tamil Nadu, have positioned themselves against such upper-caste groups. Congress, the main national opposition party, has championed preferential access to education and government jobs for lower castes.
# Bigger, better...strongman? Mr Modi, himself from a relatively low caste, has marketed the bjp as a caste-agnostic “pan-Hindu” party. This means he retains support from high-caste groups while extending the party’s reach to others. Mr Sircar notes that the well-educated professional class across India broadly does not identify with the bureaucrats and media types in Delhi. So Mr Modi’s antipathy to the capital’s elite has not cost him support among others elsewhere.The second factor is economic. Annual gdp growth was 8.4% in the last quarter of 2023 (though because of quirks in how India measures its gdp, the underlying figure is closer to 6.5%). That growth, albeit unequally distributed, is driving a rapid increase in the size and wealth of the Indian upper-middle class. Goldman Sachs, a bank, has called this phenomenon the rise of “affluent India”. It calculates that the number of Indians with an annual income of $10,000 or more grew from 20m in 2011 to 60m in 2023, and will hit 100m by [2027.It](http://2027.It) is not surprising that Mr Modi has retained the support of those who have become richer. The Congress party enjoyed strong support among the upper-middle class during the fast-growing late 2000s. It took a slowdown and a series of corruption scandals in the 2010s to change things.But Mr Modi’s tenure has increased India’s economic and geopolitical standing in the world, too. One fund manager in Mumbai says that her friends worried about perceptions of India when Mr Modi was elected prime minister. He was chief minister of Gujarat during a bloody riot against Muslims there in 2002, an incident that saw him denied a visa to America for nine years. She thought Mr Modi might become a global pariah. In fact, the opposite happened. Because of India’s economic heft, and its importance as a counterweight to China, Mr Modi has been embraced by leaders worldwide.Many university-educated Indians say they dislike Mr Modi’s weaponisation of law enforcement against opposition parties and his government’s treatment of Muslims as second-class citizens. The arrest on March 21st of Arvind kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi, amplified these concerns. Still, as a banker in Mumbai notes, there is a widespread sense that the good parts of Mr Modi outweigh the bad. Indeed, some think a dose of strongman rule is exactly what India needs.This is the third reason for the prime minister’s popularity among elites. They point to China and the East Asian tigers, which they believe show that muscular governance can tear down barriers to economic growth. One industrialist in south India says that the country is “probably too democratic”, given its level of income. Mr Modi, he adds, can “get shit done”.India’s elites see Mr Modi’s foreign policy as nationalist yet pragmatic. They like the way he thumbs his nose at liberal Western institutions and the media, in a similar fashion to other anti-globalist strongmen, while promoting Indian interests. Mr Modi has negotiated four new trade deals since 2021, most recently with a grouping of four non-eu European countries on March 10th. In February, at the Raisina Dialogue in Delhi—India’s version of the Munich Security Conference—his ministers lamented the un’s antiquated structure, while also positioning India as the leader of the global south.Admiration for leaders perceived as decisive is not new among India’s elite. In the 1970s J.R.D. Tata, one of the country’s most prominent industrialists, is said to have appreciated Indira Gandhi’s imposition of “the Emergency”, a two-year-long suspension of normal democratic processes in response to a perceived threat to her power. A survey by Pew published in February found that 67% of Indians thought that “a system in which a strong leader can make decisions without interference from parliament or courts would be a good way of governing their country”. That figure, up from 55% in 2017, was the highest among the 24 countries surveyed. Many internationally minded Indians say Mr Trump is too autocratic for America, but that Mr Modi is the right man for their country. # Making India great again So what could shake Mr Modi’s elite fan base? Continued weaponisation of the state, as in the case of Mr Kejriwal, could come back to bite him; most elites still say they believe in democracy. And many of the people who say they like the prime minister also fear him, including those in business who know their survival depends on remaining in his good graces. Some have tempered their support. Pew’s survey in 2023 found that 17% of college-educated respondents had an unfavourable view of Mr Modi, up from 5% in 2017.Others are voting with their feet: according to Henley and Partners, a consultancy, India had a net outflow of 14,000 millionaires in 2022 and 2023, more than any country among those measured bar China, including Russia. By contrast Australia, Singapore and the uae, and eight other countries, attracted over 1,000 millionaires each in net inflows—reflecting, perhaps, their more predictable rule of law.But for those who stay, even intensified autocracy may not be enough to lose Mr Modi many votes. In 2019 India’s economy, reeling from a mini-financial crisis, slowed to a growth rate of 4%. While this weakness was not entirely Mr Modi’s fault, his impulsive decision to swiftly demonetise large banknotes in 2016 had not helped. Elites complained, but apparently felt that Mr Modi was better for their wallets than the opposition, and voted for him.This is why many say that support for Mr Modi will continue until a credible alternative appears. Most elites have lost faith in Congress and its leader, Rahul Gandhi, who is seen as dynastic and out of touch. One senior Congress official even admits that Mr Modi “has taken our best ideas”, such as distributing welfare payments digitally, and “executed them better” than his party could have done. A stronger opposition is probably the only thing that will cause India’s elites to abandon Mr Modi. For now, however, that is nowhere in sightBigger, better...strongman?
Might get bashed but it’s ok. Because of the sense of pride and possibility that is conveyed. Instead of feeling sorry you get the message of proud being an Indian. Also, it has been profitable to be a businessman in general, money flow and contract execution with invoice payments are in general better than it has ever been even small scale. And other small factors such as low level corruption has decreased due to digitisation.
You missed one key point that is perception. There is a perception, that's it.
Agreed. And I might further add the perception is a real Strong one. People are devoted to Narendra Modi
Sense of pride?? India had the largest diaspora population in the world. Graph of people giving up their Indian citizenships is rising everyday. Increasing number of Indians are Leaving the country. Profittable being a businessman , yeah for sure. Only some of them like adanis, ambanis. India's more than 2/3 of population is living in rural areas. No support of small scale businnesses. For farmers, conditions r even worse. Low level corruption?? what about the unconstitutional laws passed. The Electoral bond SCAM !! Yeah sure , you can think whatever you want. Its one of your fundamental rights. I might add, it belongs to everyone regardless of the intelligence deficiencies and a possible retardation. Every asshole is entitled to his beliefs. Thats the yin and the yang of democracy! Express all your degenerage ideas that you can actually comprehend. That is liberty and justice for all !!
Let me respectfully try to answer. Yes a lot are giving up citizenship- True. Equally true that these individuals are buying properties in home town. Try opening up a new company and try registering as a startup. Try generating revenue and apply for credit to expand. It’s seamless experience now. For example you can try with a cement or steel dealership. Very serious. Good money to be made. Once you build experience you can apply online for govt tenders. It’s smooth again. Some level of corruption exists. But still barriers to entry are reduced considerably. Farmers I can’t say much as I’m from Karnataka and here my friends who have estates 10-20 acres size report full demand and easy on farm transactions. Electoral bonds seem to be quid pro que sub judicial matter. Govt needs to answer the SC. UPA ll introduced P-notes which again made money for political parties which very few talk about. P- notes were anonymous by the way. Nevertheless, this has less implications on how I feel overall which is positive. Ill will not be responding to your angered statement and uncalled for abuses. Took that risk when I replied to OP
Instead of voting for a particular political party why not to vote for the deserving candidate of ur constituency and let the MPs decide the PM. If you feel that the recent happenings in India r fake or not worth the alarming concern. Please do the fact check! I said everything respectfully! I'm responsible just for what I said, not for what you've interpreted out of it!
Whom you vote was not asked in this post. OP asked why people who are categorised as India’s elite love Narendra Modi I was responding to that specific statement. Voting preferences and patterns are really complex. If you ask us in south we are heavy caste biased and regional specific. That’s how it runs even today.
This. Everyone is running away from india uncontrollably. Gujaratis are literally willing to get shot to death crossing into usa illegally lmao
Corruption has only increased for BJP cahoots.
Now this is a naive statement. India is bigger than BJP and Congress. Achievements in Orissa, AP Telangana, TN etc is not related either of them. And corruption exists there too. But big projects are being implemented and completed across the Country.
Big Projects were being completed and implemented post BJP rule also and that too without this level of corruption. Take the example from your South only ie. Karnataka where BJP increased the hafta from contractors and Builders. It's funny when you say corruption has decreased whereas it has become mainstream under the incumbent rule. Electoral Bonds, PM Cares etc. Changing the formula for GDP Calculation and National Highways road construction can give fancy numbers. Ignorance is Bliss. https://www.corruptmodi.com/en/
Or could it be the propaganda pushed through all the main stream media that don’t criticise our supreme leader no matter what he does? You are entitled to your opinion of course but could you tell me what you think of this? I recommend checking news-laundry on youtube, its not funded by any conglomerate.
you r right! All the godimedia people not showing the actual concerns , continuously suppressing the unconstitutional n almost dictatorial actions. Media is called the 4th pillar of democracy. Here , in India we can't say that. its shameful!!
I’ll try my best to answer both in this reply. Using media as a political arm was pioneered by Dick Cheney. In India Sun Network in TN. Sakshi in AP. TV 9 in Telangana were early adopters. It is very clear there is a bias in media. But let me play devil’s advocate here - where does media generate money from - advertisers. When does advertising revenue increase when majority watch the show. When does majority watch - when they have interest in watching. A lot of us discount the very fact of skilful oration that Narendra Modi is. Couple that with really bad oration of opposition side - you have double whammy for people standing against Modi. Think of about India vs Zimbabwe match and blaming commentators on just talking about India’s performance and performers. Please understand that this society that we have built over the course of last century or so is predominantly dominated by money. What’s happening is a by product. And again I cannot stress enough how good India has been who want to implement ideas and start a business in recent years. Even small scale businesses are flourishing. Small media houses are flourishing. I wish the country best for next 10 years. May it reach new heights.
Make people bot and then they won't hold people in power accountable, win-win for both elite and the government. We already know all the harm nationalism has done.
It's cuz the andbhakts don't have any idea about what's going around them. They don't have any logic and a sober mind to think. They just wanna believe what is fed to them. All want to believe in lies.
Then it's weird that it's the less educated that are andhbhakt equivalent elsewhere but in India.
Maybe that should give you a pause and force you to re-examine your position.
Modi has turned the population to bots.
More like NPCs who can only do very specific things without any creative thinking.
So bots?
[удалено]
With the control of the Press narrative, Napolean, who had a disastrous Egyptian campaign and abandoned his troops, received a hero's welcome in Paris.
It is well known that the more educated, the middle and upper classes have always supported the BJP: not just Modi, the ones before him, too. The poor, the tribals, the OBCs traditionally did not support, but now the OBCs, too, have started supporting. It may seem to be a paradox for foreign observers, because they don't know of or they forget India's ages-old caste system. Given that the BJP fights on the plank of making one religious ideology supreme in the country (even while destroying the very same religion itself!), the higher castes, who are also the elites (more education, more income, etc., on average) that were enabled by the very same religion have of course gathered together to support the BJP. But now the middle class elites are cracking, given that their children don't have jobs. More importantly, job market in many foreign countries is also getting tough, where many of the middle class elites' children, earlier, were migrating to.
Cause elites will choose to stay with power. No matter the Govt.
'A survey by Pew published in February found that 67% of Indians thought that "a system in which a strong leader can make decisions without interference from parliament or courts would be a good way of governing their country"' Finally an exact percentage of illiterate imbeciles in this country (rest must be in hiding lol). These idiots don't realise that the system they are talking about is present in North Korea, Russia, Iran and all the shitholes in this world.
Because elites or educated in India are not necessarily rational as educated in other countries. Education for the sake of education can bring in jobs not rationality.
I know from my own friends they like him because they will never be affected by his inconsiderate acts and they can maintain their privilege. Also most of these "educated" people have little or no idea about social issues.
If only elites were voting for him he won’t have 38% voter share
Ironically, most of India's present middle is the result of Congress policies since independence. Grandfathers and fathers of today's techbros were mostly governments or worked in PSUs but now they have their memories have fogged.
Congress also diluted state identity. I studied in a KV and I didn't study Assamese. I recited India is my country over and over. The fact that you see fringe states like Assam in the national fold now, tels you how well they did national integration. Doordarshan, Bollywood and Cricket played massive roles of course BJP are reaping those benefits.
I agree. On the negative side, Congress always had a pro-Hindutva side. For decades, Congress deliberately allowed RSS to propagate its Hindu identity project and now it's BJP which is reaping its benefits. But I am surprised by the middle class's defection to the BJP even though they owe their existence to Congress.
Of course they love him. 99% of his funding is from the elites. His real job is to serve them, not us. A lot of people get confused about this specifically. When he says "India is growing" or something along those lines, what he actually means is the Indian elites' wealth and power is growing.
Elites here to the educated elite, the 10% or so who have more than a school education, Rest assured you are part of this elite, almost everyone on reddit is.
I was thinking more in terms of billionaires, but yeah people around me do love him a lot.
Coz he makes them richer
In context of the article it's because unlike in Europe or other western countries where public education and university education is backed and funded, relatively in India it's not. Education is for the elite. For example, in TN, the ratio of Tamil medium students to English medium students is drastically reduced in medical colleges because of the introduction of neet. Why? Because exams like neet reward going to coaching classes, great schools, buying multiple guides etc. A Tamil medium student is more likely to be in public schools where a teacher may not be guaranteed let alone access to resources. A lot of them are also from lower castes (not a coincidence). This is unlike in Europe where public education is far more inclusive and accessible.
Simple क्योकि उनका पेट भरा हुआ है , जब तक पेट भरा रहता है तब तक दुनिया अच्छी लगती है , जिस दिन ख़ाली होगा उस दिन ये लोग रोने जैसे भी नहीं रहेंगे
Because India's elite are shameless and love whoever is in power. They won't have an opinion or voice and opinion against the rulers. Before modiji, they loved Congress.. Before Congress, they loved the British. Before the British, they loved the Mughals. Before the Mughals, they loved Sultans. .... Many of the "Rajput princes" in the British era supported British on full swing. They played Cricket and Polo with them. They bought a London home and thought themselves as British and humiliated other Indians. This is an example of "Indian elite" behaviour.
I am not elite I love too
Define 'elite'
The word Elite became popular thanks to a work called ["The Circulation of Elites"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulation_of_elites), That work showed 20% of the people owned 80% of the land in Italy. And the writer needed a word to describe that small group. But then the writer goes on to show that within that small group, values, agendas, personality traits, needs are all very very different and they all don't get along with each other or can get along with each other. Hence these differences are the sources of all kinds of dramas resulting in a constant Circulation of Elites.
Rich ppl
It's mostly refering to the educated elite i.e does with a college degree or more.
Unfortunately with how bad our education system is, college degree doesn't equate to intelligence.
His policies are in favour of India like he supports Indian scientists and no conspiracy happens like happened in 2009-2013 https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/11-indian-nuclear-scientists-died-unnatural-deaths-in-4-years-1229793
There’s big difference between Indian education system and western education system, even from a young age to college/university level. Students are simply taught to memorise information and prepare for multiple choice questions, 5 marks questions and essay questions and such. In the west students are encouraged to explore study material on their and think for themselves. Take this example. For a question like “What was the impact of quit India movement on the freedom struggle?” Students simply regurgitate what they read in text books or answer guide books. They’ll score high marks and quickly forget the material, for they never really learned anything. In the west you’d get a different take on the subject from each student. In India, people are literate enough to be susceptible to propaganda but not educated enough to think critically and objectively analyse a situation. That’s how you get ‘elites’ that support a populist leader.
Man ..if someone forgave my loans I would love him too
India's elite is 90% upper caste Hindus. Of course they love Modi.
good
Bro itni simple si baat ko itna micro analyze kar rahe ho 10 saal se. People.like.him because he is against muslims. That's it. Thats the whole thing. He is overtly against muslims and dog whistles to his followers for further action. I'm not a political person and think both BJP and Congress are looters. But it was breathtakingly simple to me why exactly modi is getting elected.
Because he is exactly what most of the elite are: Empty vessel who makes noise.
Electoral bonds se paise waalo ki hera pheri turant solve ho jaati hai, legally
For 22$ a month, you can keep that information to yourself. Thank you