14 The Economist February 12th 2022
BriefingUttar Pradesh
T
he state of Uttar Pradesh is a tad larger
than the United Kingdom and three
and a half times as populous. Covering
much of the vast, fertile Gangetic Plain and
pressed up against the border with Nepal,
it is home to such treasures as the Taj Ma
hal and the Hindu holy city of Varanasi, as
well as fastexpanding industrial zones, an
astonishing 97,941 villages and the constit
uencies of oneinseven Indian mps. In
creasing the number of parliamentary
seats it took in up (India loves initials)
from 10 to 71 was a key part of the success
which saw the Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp)
win power in 2014 and made its leader, Na
rendra Modi, India’s prime minister.
The state also packs in a disproportion
ate quota of despair. It seems to fester with
India’s grisliest crimes, its harshest op
pressions by caste, sex or faith, its most
feckless politicians and its most polluted
environments. It has remained grindingly
poor. At $991, nominal gdp per person
amounts to less than half of the country’s
modest average, and lower than that of any
other Asian country save Afghanistan and
Tajikistan (see chart 1 on next page). On February 10th up’s 150m voters be
gan the monthlong process of voting for
the state’s legislative assembly. It is the
world’s largest subnational election. The
bjp’s effectiveness in defending its majori
ty in up’s legislature—it currently holds
303 of 403 elected seats—will be keenly
watched throughout the country.
Three years into his second term, Mr
Modi remains the strongest and most pop
ular prime minister India has had since In
dira Gandhi in the 1970s. But political
headwinds are mounting. Covid19, infla
tion, everstarker disparities in wealth and
intractable youth unemployment have all
eaten away at the bjp’s narrative of “devel
opment for all”.
Policy blunders such as a flopped effort
at farm reform have angered voters across
the country. Resistance to Mr Modi’s cen
tralising, homogenising tendencies has
stiffened, too, particularly in the nonHin
dispeaking peripheries of the country.
The headwinds were seen at full force in
last year’s legislative elections in West
Bengal, another big, important state. The
bjprolled its full juggernaut into the fray,laden with money and national figures,
only for the local Trinamool Congress to
pull its wheels off and chase Mr Modi’s
men back to Delhi.
In contrast to Bengal, upsits at the core
of the Hindispeaking, religiously conser
vative hinterland that is the bjp’s natural
habitat. But disaffection has seeped in
here, too. The verdict its voters deliver over
the coming month—for electoral purposes
the state is divided into seven slices which
vote in sequence—will be a powerful sig
nal as to India’s political future.
A severe setback could throw doubt on
the bjp’s ability to win a third fiveyear
term of national power in 2024. On the
other hand, a strong showing will encour
age Mr Modi to complete his refashioning
of India into a Hindu rashtra, a state whose
defining feature is not the diversity of its
citizens but the faith of its 80% Hindu ma
jority. This ideology of Hindutva is the
bjp’s reason for being, and Mr Modi has
been pursuing it in an increasingly auto
cratic manner. His view of the transforma
tion he is bringing about seems increas
ingly tied to his own metamorphosis from
politician into high priest of the new order.
A convincing victory in upis important
to this project not just because of the state’s
size but also because of who runs it: Yogi
Adityanath, leader of a religious order in
eastern up. He is 22 years younger than the
71yearold Mr Modi, who gave him his job.
As the prime minister’s anointed viceroy
in India’s most populous state he is natu
rally viewed as a potential heir. B ARABANKI, DELHI AND LUCKNOW
The largest local elections in the world will show what lies in store for India
and its prime minister, Narendra ModiThe other midterms