WITH India's ruling Hindu nationalists headed for a stunning election victory on Thursday (23), prime minister Narendra Modi's powerful right hand man, Amit Shah, could reap his reward as a potential home minister, an analyst and a party official said.
Shah, who has long been Modi's backroom strategist, helped run one of India's most divisive election campaigns over the past six weeks to rouse the Bharatiya Janata Party's nationalist base and overcome the loss of key state elections in December.
Their efforts blunted voter discontent at lack of jobs and farm distress by portraying the opposition as weak and indecisive at best and at worst, appeasing minority Muslims and arch foe Pakistan, to deftly exploit national security fears.
"Modi and Shah work in tandem," said a BJP official who has worked closely with the steely-eyed 54-year-old Shah.
"There is no doubt that Modi is India's most popular leader and national figure. Translating his personal popularity into a political victory...requires planning and execution to the last detail. Shah has done that to near perfection."
Vote-counting trends suggest Modi's ruling alliance could win an even bigger parliamentary majority than in 2014, showing that the BJP not only held the northern heartland but made huge gains in the east, a political strategy that Shah launched.
Now his reward could be a top government post, probably the federal home, or interior, ministry, bringing vast powers over security forces and domestic intelligence, said political analyst Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
"From a backroom guy who was a bit diffident about all the charges pending against him, Amit Shah's transition is complete. He is now the legitimised inheritor of Modi's legacy."
Modi ran the government for five years with unquestioned authority while Shah, a Hindu hardliner who also hails from the prime minister's western home state of Gujarat, presided over the BJP with an iron hand, as its chief.
For more than a year, he focused propaganda efforts on the eastern state of West Bengal, which is ruled by a firebrand regional leader supported by the state's Muslims.
Shah fuelled nationalist sentiment by accusing his rivals of appeasing Muslims with funding for clerics and religious schools that turned the state into a replica of neighbouring Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country and source of illegal immigrants.
"The BJP may just have cracked open the formula to winning over Bengali votes, and the credit is Shah's," said Sandeep Shastri, pro vice chancellor of Jain University in the southern city of Bengaluru.
Shah kicked off a campaign last month against Muslim immigrants, likening them to termites, while backing citizenship measures for Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs from neighbouring countries of Afgahnistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Then he mocked Rahul Gandhi, the chief of the biggest opposition Congress party, for choosing to run from a Muslim-dominated constituency in the southern state of Kerala.
"When a procession is taken out there, it is difficult to make out whether it is an Indian or a Pakistani procession," he said, sparking renewed accusations that Muslims were not seen as citizens.
Critics have long accused the BJP of a deep-seated hostility against India's 180 million Muslims. The party denies any bias but says it opposes appeasement of any community.
"Amit Shah represents the sinister face of muscular politics that has zero respect for communal harmony, institutional integrity and fair play," said Congress spokesman Sanjay Jha.
Shah's office did not respond to a request for an interview or comments. But party spokesman GVL Narasimha Rao said the opposition had built its campaign on charges against Shah that had not stuck.
"The election is a slap for the abusive opposition that made baseless charges and spread lies," he added.
Both Modi and Shah emerged from the cauldron of politics in their western home state of Gujarat.
A relentless politician, Shah has himself run 29 elections from municipal bodies to parliament and lost none. He travelled 150,000 km (93,200 miles) to address 161 public rallies during the election, he said last week.
"They have been political associates for 30 years-plus," said a Gujarat state official. "They know each other's secrets, theirs has been a relationship of mutual trust, and gains from the association."
Both have been exonerated over concerns about their conduct towards Muslims.
In 2002, Modi faced accusations of looking the other way when mobs attacked Muslims in revenge for the burning of Hindu pilgrims in a train in the worst sectarian bloodletting in independent India. But a special investigation ordered by the Supreme Court absolved him of complicity.
Shah himself was acquitted in 2014 of charges levelled in 2010 over the extra-judicial killing of Muslims accused of terrorism, when he was the home minister in Gujarat.
Shah could be a potential replacement once Modi bows out when he turns 75 in 2025, a rule the prime minister adopted to edge out older party leaders who had sought to resist his rise.
"It's some time off, but at the moment he is best placed to succeed him," added Mukhopadhyay, who has specialised in studying the BJP and right-wing groups allied to it.
Shah was not gunning for any post, said the official who had worked with him, but added that he would be ready for any government responsibility as Modi's "man of the match", using the cricketing parlance beloved of millions of Indians.
TENSIONS with Pakistan, fluctuating ties with Bangladesh, and growing Chinese influence in Nepal and Sri Lanka have complicated India’s neighbourhood policy, a top foreign policy and security expert has said.
C Raja Mohan, distinguished professor at the Motwani Jodeja Institute for American Studies at OP Jindal Global University, has a new book out, called India and the Rebalancing of Asia.
He also described how India’s engagement with the US, Japan, Australia and Europe has moved from symbolism to one of substance. Raja Mohan said, “After independence, India withdrew from regional security politics, focusing on global issues and non-alignment. But the past decade has seen a reversal. India is now back in the Asian balance of power. The very concept of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ reflects that, putting the ‘Indo’ into the ‘Pacific.’”
The idea, he explained, has deep historical roots: “The British once viewed the Indian and Pacific Oceans as interconnected realms. Now, after decades of separation, those spaces are merging again.”
Narendra Modi with Xi Jinping and (right)Vladimir Putin at last month’s SCO summit in China
While India once aspired to build a “post-Western order” alongside China, those dreams have long since faded, according to the expert.
“Contradictions between India and China have sharpened,” he said, citing territorial disputes, a $100 billion (£75bn) trade deficit, and China’s growing influence among India’s neighbours.
By contrast, India’s ties with the US and Europe have strengthened.
“Where once India shunned security cooperation with Washington, it is now deeply engaged,” he said. Yet he emphasised that India remains an independent actor, “not a traditional ally like Japan or Australia.”
His comments were made during the Adelphi series, hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) last month. According to the expert, who is also a visiting research professor at the National University of Singapore, the return of India to regional security politics marks a significant change in its foreign policy since independence. Popular discussions about the “rise of Asia” tend to oversimplify what Raja Mohan explained was a deeply uneven transformation. “It’s more accurate to say Asia as a whole is rising,” he said, adding, “but not evenly. China has risen much faster than the rest.”
This imbalance has created internal contradictions within Asia, according to the academic. “China’s sense of entitlement to regional dominance and its territorial claims have provoked reactions from other Asian countries,” he said.
While China’s economic ascent, once “a marriage of Western capital and Chinese labour”, that relationship has strained over the past 15 years as the Asian country grew into a global military and economic powerhouse, according to Raja Mohan.
And the US, which previously nurtured China’s growth, now seeks to restore balance in Asia, shifting from a policy of engagement to one of cautious competition, he said.
Dwelling on India’s rise, he said, “The question is not whether India can match China alone, but whether it can help build coalitions that limit unilateralism. History shows weaker states can play crucial balancing roles, as China once did against the Soviet Union.”
He explored how the US-China and India-China dynamics might evolve, particularly under US president Donald Trump.
“Some believe the US is retrenching to focus on Asia, others think Trump might seek a grand bargain with China,” Raja Mohan said. “Much depends on how Washington manages its ties with Russia and its global posture.”
He also described how India’s engagement with the US, Japan, Australia and Europe has moved from symbolism to one of substance. Raja Mohan said, “After independence, India withdrew from regional security politics, focusing on global issues and non-alignment. But the past decade has seen a reversal. India is now back in the Asian balance of power. The very concept of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ reflects that, putting the ‘Indo’ into the ‘Pacific.’”
The idea, he explained, has deep historical roots: “The British once viewed the Indian and Pacific Oceans as interconnected realms. Now, after decades of separation, those spaces are merging again.”
While India once aspired to build a “post-Western order” alongside China, those dreams have long since faded, according to the expert.
“Contradictions between India and China have sharpened,” he said, citing territorial disputes, a $100 billion (£75bn) trade deficit, and China’s growing influence among India’s neighbours.
By contrast, India’s ties with the US and Europe have strengthened.
“Where once India shunned security cooperation with Washington, it is now deeply engaged,” he said. Yet he emphasised that India remains an independent actor, “not a traditional ally like Japan or Australia.”
His comments were made during the Adelphi series, hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) last month. According to the expert, who is also a visiting research professor at the National University of Singapore, the return of India to regional security politics marks a significant change in its foreign policy since independence. Popular discussions about the “rise of Asia” tend to oversimplify what Raja Mohan explained was a deeply uneven transformation. “It’s more accurate to say Asia as a whole is rising,” he said, adding, “but not evenly. China has risen much faster than the rest.”
This imbalance has created internal contradictions within Asia, according to the academic. “China’s sense of entitlement to regional dominance and its territorial claims have provoked reactions from other Asian countries,” he said.
While China’s economic ascent, once “a marriage of Western capital and Chinese labour”, that relationship has strained over the past 15 years as the Asian country grew into a global military and economic powerhouse, according to Raja Mohan.
And the US, which previously nurtured China’s growth, now seeks to restore balance in Asia, shifting from a policy of engagement to one of cautious competition, he said.
Dwelling on India’s rise, he said, “The question is not whether India can match China alone, but whether it can help build coalitions that limit unilateralism. History shows weaker states can play crucial balancing roles, as China once did against the Soviet Union.”
He explored how the US-China and India-China dynamics might evolve, particularly under US president Donald Trump.
“Some believe the US is retrenching to focus on Asia, others think Trump might seek a grand bargain with China,” Raja Mohan said. “Much depends on how Washington manages its ties with Russia and its global posture.”
China, he noted, has already toned down its aggressive “wolf warrior” diplomacy, realising that assertiveness has backfired. Yet the underlying structural contradictions between China and both the US and India “are unlikely to disappear.”
Asked about India’s balancing act between the US and Russia, especially after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the expert was pragmatic.
“India has steadily moved closer to the US and the West, but Trump’s trade-first approach has caused turbulence,” Raja Mohan said.
He cited the threats of high tariffs on Indian imports and resentment over trade imbalances with Washington DC.
On Russia, Raja Mohan’s view was that the relationship has been “in slow decline since the 1990s.”
While India’s GDP now outpaces Russia’s, it continues to engage Moscow for practical reasons. “India’s oil purchases from Russia rose from two per cent to forty per cent after 2022. That’s pragmatism, not alignment,” Raja Mohan said.
He added that prime minister Narendra Modi’s recent handshakes with China’s president Xi Jinping and Russia’s president Vladimir Putin at the Shanghai Co-operation Organization (SCO) summit in China were “signals, reminders to the West that India has options.”
Raja Mohan said India was at the cusp of a historic transformation. “India once provided security across Asia - in both world wars, millions of Indian soldiers fought overseas. That history was forgotten when India withdrew from global security,” he said.
“Now we are reclaiming that role. Ideally, the partnership with the US is the best. But if not, India and other Asian powers will have to shoulder the burden themselves.”
“Japan, Korea, India, Australia - all will have to do more on their own,” he said. “We’ll need to pull up our own bootstraps.”
Dr Benjamin Rhode, senior fellow at IISS, chaired the session.
aggressive “wolf warrior” diplomacy, realising that assertiveness has backfired. Yet the underlying structural contradictions between China and both the US and India “are unlikely to disappear.”
Asked about India’s balancing act between the US and Russia, especially after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the expert was pragmatic.
“India has steadily moved closer to the US and the West, but Trump’s trade-first approach has caused turbulence,” Raja Mohan said.
He cited the threats of high tariffs on Indian imports and resentment over trade imbalances with Washington DC.
On Russia, Raja Mohan’s view was that the relationship has been “in slow decline since the 1990s.”
While India’s GDP now outpaces Russia’s, it continues to engage Moscow for practical reasons. “India’s oil purchases from Russia rose from two per cent to forty per cent after 2022. That’s pragmatism, not alignment,” Raja Mohan said.
He added that prime minister Narendra Modi’s recent handshakes with China’s president Xi Jinping and Russia’s president Vladimir Putin at the Shanghai Co-operation Organization (SCO) summit in China were “signals, reminders to the West that India has options.”
Raja Mohan said India was at the cusp of a historic transformation. “India once provided security across Asia - in both world wars, millions of Indian soldiers fought overseas. That history was forgotten when India withdrew from global security,” he said.
“Now we are reclaiming that role. Ideally, the partnership with the US is the best. But if not, India and other Asian powers will have to shoulder the burden themselves.”
“Japan, Korea, India, Australia - all will have to do more on their own,” he said. “We’ll need to pull up our own bootstraps.”
Dr Benjamin Rhode, senior fellow at IISS, chaired the session.
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