Indian election: The BJP of Prime Minister Modi is looking for American backers.

Some claim that Modi has ignited a surge of Hindu nationalism and curtailed fundamental freedoms, while his admirers say he brought India to the attention of the world stage.

The world’s largest democratic election, which will determine whether to grant Prime Minister Narendra Modi a third term, begins this week in India with about 970 million voters. After a campaign that spanned India and the US, the election will take place over the course of six weeks.

Supporters of Modi point to him as having brought India to the attention of the world and made it one of the economies with the quickest rate of growth. But according to his detractors, Modi has inflamed religious tensions with Muslims and other minorities, suppressed press freedom, cracked down on opponents, and ignited a wave of Hindu nationalism.

The abroad branch of Prime Minister Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has recruited Americans of Indian descent to campaign for him in the weeks before the election, which starts on Friday. They can do this by making phone calls to friends and relatives in India or by going to India themselves.

Last month, over sixty followers of Modi showed out for an event at the Potomac Community Center in Maryland. Many of them were dressed in saffron scarves, which are a symbol of Hindu nationalism.

The Overseas Friends of BJP officials gave a list of what they considered to be Modi’s accomplishments since he took office in 2014, including advances in technology, education, infrastructure, and pharmaceuticals. More recently, they included the opening of a large Hindu temple on a contentious holy site.

Many in attendance were willing to assist, and it was suggested that they use these as talking points to encourage friends and relatives in India to vote for Modi.

“Especially when they see me, that I’m from [the] United States, it carries a weight,” said Kanwaljit Soni, OFBJP’s coordinator for the Sikh community, who was planning to travel to India to campaign ahead of the election, which runs from April 19 to June 1.

He is accustomed to this pattern. He claimed that he spent three weeks in India during the most recent election in 2019 going from rural to village urging people to support the BJP.

He declared, “I’m going to the various states where my roots are.”

Recognizing the immense challenge of unseating Modi, the disintegrated opposition has attempted to unite into a single alliance by putting up a single candidate to take on the BJP. However, a large number of candidates have already left the coalition or joined the BJP.

Party against party is no longer the norm. According to Sanjoy Chakravorty, a geography, urban studies, and global studies professor at Temple University in Philadelphia and the author of “The Truth About Us: The Politics of Information From Manu to Modi,” “it’s a person against a person, and there is no other credible person with a national stature like Modi.

What the opposition claims are Modi and his government’s strong-arm tactics have further restrained them. When Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was detained last month over charges of corruption, which he refutes, there were rallies and dozens of opposition members were imprisoned or under investigation.

In a tax dispute, the Indian National Congress, the main opposition party, had its bank accounts frozen by Modi’s government last month. The party claimed that the action limited its capacity to run for office and was driven by politics.

India’s democracy is still strong, according to Modi, and there is “absolutely no discrimination.” According to his administration, the Congress party’s funds were stopped because it neglected to file tax returns for previous donations and is afraid of suffering a historic defeat.

By holding rallies across the country, the Congress party has also attempted to garner support from Indian Americans by claiming that India cannot afford a third term for Modi.

“People in India are afraid to speak out because democracy is going through an existential crisis right now,” stated George Abraham, vice president of the Indian Overseas Congress.

However, it is challenging to match Modi, who, according to analysts, has created the image of a “great leader,” with his likeness showing up on everything from vaccination certificates to billboards around India. This has also reached the Indian diaspora in the United States, who are now more engaged in domestic politics than they have ever been.

A few hundred protestors attended Modi’s state visit to Washington DC last year, but thousands of South Asians also flocked to the city’s landmarks, either to show their support for him or simply to enjoy the momentous occasion.

According to Chakravorty, “it’s the convergence of the entire nation into a person.”

In order to assist Modi and the BJP in winning handily, Overseas Friends of BJP President Adapa Prasad stated that the organization wanted to connect with around 50,000 members of the Indian diaspora living in the United States.

And it was just the first stop—Maryland.

The group intended to host pre-election demonstrations in 20 American cities, emulating Prime Minister Modi’s televised “Chai Pe Charcha,” or “discussions over tea,” programs in which he engages in discourse with public figures and citizens on a range of topics.

The Census Bureau estimates that there are 4.4 million Americans of Indian descent, making them the largest Asian American community. They may still have family ties in India even if many of them are citizens of the United States and cannot vote in Indian elections.

According to Prasad, individuals who are unable to visit India can still participate in the campaign over the phone.

According to him, those who are “sympathetic to BJP” will phone their Indian relatives and ask them to cast a ballot.

India’s parliamentary system is multiparty, with the winner being the candidate with the highest votes in their local seat. The prime minister is chosen by the party fielding the most candidates in the legislature. Even though Modi’s party received 37% of the votes in 2019, it won 303 out of the 543 seats.

Maryland party supporters screamed “Victory of Mother India” and “This time, above 400” in Hindi, alluding to the BJP’s objective of winning more than 400 seats, as they were surrounded by about a dozen party flags.

Peeyush Uniyal, a resident of Ellicott City, Maryland, who hails from the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, called Modi a “sensible leader” and said that “especially from the development point of view, I think it becomes a no-brainer.

He brushed off worries over Hindu nationalism’s rise as “overblown.”

Upasana Dhankhar, a native of Virginia, said it was her first time being involved in politics. The key, according to Dhankhar, a former Indian history professor, is “the consistency of leadership.”

She immigrated to the United States in 2019, the year Modi repealed Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which gave Kashmir, the country’s sole Muslim-majority area, semiautonomous status. Following the highly condemned action in the disputed zone, hundreds of troops arrived and there was a six-month communications blackout.

Resolving the Kashmir issue was important, Dhankhar stated, paraphrasing a point made on the PowerPoint slide “Article 370 SCRAPPED.”

Chakravorty stated that the BJP’s US campaign served as an additional means of igniting Modi’s global following.

He declared, “They want to be part of the rising civilization as a whole.”

EDITED (April 16, 2024, 1:55 p.m. Eastern Time): An earlier version of this article’s headline misrepresented Narendra Modi’s viewpoint due to an editing error. Rather than president, he is prime minister.