What’s at stake for India and its allies as polls open in world’s largest election

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• John Yang:

  In India, the world's largest election is underway. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is heavily favored to win a third term. But his consolidation of power and crackdown on dissent have some questioning his commitment to democratic values.

• John Yang (voice-over):

  From the state of Tamil Nadu in the south to West Bengal in the northeast, voters in the world's most populous democracy are casting their ballots.

• Saraswati Guring (through translator):

  I feel very happy after casting the vote. I come here every time and I was waiting for this day because this is in the interest of my nation.

• John Yang (voice-over):

  Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP Party are heavily favored to win a third term. His approval rating is at a staggering 75 percent. He's touting himself as the driver behind the nation's rising economy.

  That brings in the support of the business elite, while generous welfare programs appeal to the impoverished majority. There's also Modi's Hindu nationalism in this overwhelmingly Hindu nation. It's emboldened Hindu nationalists to attack minority Muslims and Christians.

• Mary Das (through translator):

  The first thing I came to vote for is to have a country without any religious disharmony. We've all come to vote. Hindus, Muslims, Christians, we're all together and this unity should grow.

• John Yang (voice-over):

  Modi's critics point to rising unemployment and a widening gap between the rich and poor. The opposition is unified behind the National Congress Party, which governed India for decades after the nation gained independence from England.

  The coalition is led by Rahul Gandhi, the son, grandson and great grandson of Indian prime minister. His backers say Modi is using the government for political ends, targeted corruption investigations, freezing bank accounts and putting party leaders in prison.

  Staging an election with nearly a billion eligible voters is a massive undertaking, about a million polling places and 12 million election workers.

  By law, every voter must be within 2 kilometers or a little more than a mile of a polling station. To set them up, officials trek over rough and mountainous terrain and across rivers. As the first phase of voting began Friday, lines were long despite a summer heat wave.

• Swati Kamlesh Gaur (through translator):

  Everyone feels very hot indeed, and the sunlight is quite harsh. However, despite the harsh conditions, we are coming to vote.

• Atinder Singh (through translator):

  If the new government is able to solve unemployment, then it will be good.

• Gaje Singh (through translator):

  I want the new government to be devoted to the service of the nation, the poor, the common man.

• John Yang:

  Voting will take a total of six weeks, so results won't be known until June 4. Earlier, I spoke with Irfan Nooruddin. He's a professor of Indian Politics at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. I asked him what the issues were that are on voter's minds.

  Irfan Nooruddin, Professor of Indian Politics, Georgetown University: Many of the issues are the same that exist anywhere in the world. When you have a democratic election, jobs are the number one concern expressed by voters the economy shows great signs of improving at the macro level, but at the individual level, especially among the less skilled population and the rural population, job distrust remains high.

  There are also concerns about food inflation and food security. But overall, the ruling party is projecting an image of success in transforming the India of the past into an India that is now a global player, a partner of the United States, and asking voters to continue trusting them to lead India to middle income status and an advanced democracy.

  The big question for the opposition is whether they can get voters to focus on increasing religious intolerance and what they argue is democratic backsliding.

• John Yang:

  You mentioned unemployment, you mentioned inflation. You mentioned the gap between the rich and the poor. If this were an American president running for reelection, this would be trouble for him. Why is Mr. Modi so far ahead in the polls?

• Irfan Nooruddin:

  Mister Modi has done an incredible job of managing the narrative around these issues. So while jobs and rising inequality are things that voters express some concern about, they are also bought into a narrative that India's economy has taken a wild change and is now headed in the right direction under his leadership.

  But a large part of it is also that the opposition does not seem to offer most Indian voters a very credible alternative. And so maybe it is also that they don't think that the other guys would do any better and are willing to try Mr. Modi, at least one more time.

• John Yang:

  You mentioned also India's relationship with the United States. What's at stake for the United States in this election?

• Irfan Nooruddin:

  Well, India has emerged as a major partner for the United States economically. And then you have the geopolitics, you have China, which for both the Trump administration and the Biden administration now has emerged as sort of the single biggest strategic threat for the United States. And in that way, India seems to have a clear, different logic, which is this is a way for the United States to have a major democratic partner in the region that can help balance against an aggressive, rising China.

  So what's at stake? Well, have we really gotten the bet right on India? Will India be the partner that we need in the region? It'll be very awkward and embarrassing for an American president that has invested India to see India backslide into autocracy.

  And so one could argue, without maybe overstating it, that in the long run, America's credibility when it comes to talking about issues of democracy and human rights is also at stake and that India is a large part of that larger global narrative.

• John Yang:

  You talk about a democracy in India, but Freedom House rates India as only partly free. Leading up to the election, Mr. Modi has — his opponents say that he's gone after the opposition using the tools of government. How committed do you see Mr. Modi to the democratic values?

• Irfan Nooruddin:

  Mister Modi is a committed electoral democrat. And by that I mean, you know, he wins elections. He does it very successfully. The election itself will be free and fair in the context of the election day voting. India does this very, very well, in spite of the incredible logistical challenges of holding an election for 950 million eligible voters.

  But the free and fair question is also one of has the opposition had a level playing field in getting its message out to the citizens of the country to say, hey, we are a credible alternative? Here's how we can critique the record of the existing government.

  And there are some concerns. The media, by and large, is not offer critical takes on the Modi government's record. And the opposition, I think feels between the arrests of senior leaders and the use of the tax authorities to freeze assets of prominent opposition parties, then maybe the playing field hasn't been as level as we would like. And I think that's going to raise a lot of concerns for international observers of this election.

• John Yang:

  How troubling or how worrying is the religious violence we've seen India lately?

• Irfan Nooruddin:

  Tremendously concerning. India's great contribution to democracy over the last 70 years has been a model of a multiethnic, multi religious country that manages to still have peaceful elections on a regular basis.

  And so any encroachment of religious tension and religious violence into that public domain is very sad, but also makes you worry as to what the future might hold. There has been a rising majoritarianism within the Indian population that has now really been manifested by the BJP, the ruling party. So there are open appeals on the grounds of religion.

  Prime Minister Modi inaugurated a massive temple in the city of Ayodhya in February to break fanfare, but one that really saw a political figure crossing a line into religious authority in a way that we haven't seen before.

  There is rising attacks on Muslim minorities and other minorities, Christian minorities India. There is a reason to be worried about rising violence and increased impunity on the part of religious vigilantes who really act quite boldly to attack anyone that they don't see as conforming to their vision of what India is, a world in which 200 million Muslims and another 50 million religious minorities are worried that at any given moment they might be attacked without any protection of the state machinery of law and order, the judicial system is one in which those citizens become second class citizens in their own country. That is not what we imagine for a functioning democracy.

• John Yang:

  Irfan Nooruddin of Georgetown University, thank you very much.

• Irfan Nooruddin:

  You're very welcome. Thank you.