new at NewYorker.com this morning:

Q & A: An Indian Political Theorist on the Triumph of Narendra Modi’s Hindu Nationalism by Isaac Chotiner

[....] Modi will now have five more years to pursue his agenda, with even less opposition.

That agenda ought to worry people. Modi came to power after serving for more than a decade as the chief minister of Gujarat. During his tenure, in 2002, more than a thousand people, the vast majority of them Muslim, were killed during several days of rioting. Modi, who at the very least looked the other way, has been accused of complicity in the massacre and for years was banned from travelling to the U.S. Since he became Prime Minister, in 2014, ethnic violence in India has increased significantly, and it has often been met with purposeful silence from Modi and his party, which is intent on creating an explicitly Hindu nation. During Modi’s 2014 campaign, many commentators were willing to overlook this side of his candidacy in hopes that he would bring economic growth and rid India of corruption and dynastic politics. Not only did Modi fail to deliver on those promises; he weathered the fallout from his own disastrous demonetization scheme, and he finds himself in office with an ever greater mandate.

To discuss what Modi’s victory means for India’s future, I spoke by phone with the writer Pratap Bhanu Mehta, the vice-chancellor of Ashoka University and the co-editor of “The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution.” During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed the reasons for Modi’s huge win, the differences between him and other authoritarians, and what the future holds for India’s Muslims.

This feels like a very bleak day.

Yes, indeed, absolutely unprecedented. Not only do we not have any framework to understand what’s happened but, since India’s independence, actually, I don’t think there has been a mandate which concentrates power in one person to the extent that this mandate does. Not even Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. It is really quite extraordinary.

The columnist Mihir Sharma wrote, of today’s results, “We do not live in Modi’s India. We live in Indians’ India, and the reason so many Indians adore Modi is because he represents their preferred conception of the Indian state and the Indian nation. No other explanation for these results is as compelling.” Do you agree, and, if so, why?

I absolutely agree with that, for the following reasons. Let’s just take Mr. Modi’s own words in this election [....]