India Fears Modi Will Become 'More Aggressive' Despite Loss Of Majority

As Narendra Modi traversed India during recent months, campaigning for a third term in power, he repeated the same refrain.

- Hannah Ellis-Petersen

The past decade "was just a trailer", the prime minister told crowds, adding: "There is plenty more to come."

The expectation, among his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) and most analysts and pollsters, was that India's election would easily return him to power with the same supermajority - if not larger - that he has enjoyed over the past decade.

Yet instead, this month's results dealt a sobering blow. While the BJP won the most seats, the party lost its parliamentary majority for the first time under Modi. In order to return to power, he is suddenly beholden to coalition partners - an assortment of regional parties with widely differing ideologies.

All eyes are now on how Modi will govern, after decades of political leadership at the state and then national level, during which he has never had to engage in consensus politics.

Coalition restraints

Since the shock election result, Modi's public messages have emphasised the theme of consensus, and that the prime minister's office should be "the people's, not Modi's". Yet this narrative has been belied by his cabinet appointments, where the BJP successfully refused to relinquish any powerful seats. All remain occupied by the prime minister's closest allies, including Amit Shah as home minister, while crucial coalition parties got little more than heavy industries and food processing.

There is still not a single Muslim in the cabinet and - for the first time in India's history - no Muslims appointed as ministers anywhere in the country.