When India’s 2024 general election results were announced a year ago, they surprised almost everyone. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party—which was expected to win its third straight parliamentary majority—took less than 240 of the country’s 545 seats. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised his supporters a supermajority in parliament; instead, he was forced into a coalition with other parties. It is the first time Modi has ever had to depend on politicians from outside the BJP to prop up his government.

The election results were, naturally, celebrated by India’s opposition. They were also celebrated by millions of ordinary Indians who have been repressed by Modi’s Hindu nationalist policies. As prime minister, Modi revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, the country’s only Muslim-majority state. He enacted a series of citizenship laws that discriminate against Muslims. And his government constructed a temple to Ram on the site of a former mosque in Ayodhya, the mythical birthplace of the eponymous hero of a Hindu epic. Modi’s most recent campaign celebrated these achievements, and the prime minister engaged in the trademark Muslim-baiting and Islamophobia that helped him decisively win previous elections. When he then failed to sweep the 2024 contest, liberals concluded there were limits to Hindu nationalism. The BJP, they thought, might finally be losing its grip over the country.

It is true that the election diminished Modi. The prime minister’s personal charisma, traditionally considered an invaluable asset, appears to have lost some of its sway. But the BJP has won most of the regional elections that have taken place since the national one, including in places where it was expected to lose. It has done so without moderating its Hindu nationalist stance. Instead, its shift was tactical. Rather than relying on Modi, it began depending more on the 100-year-old Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh—its parent body and India’s overarching Hindu nationalist organization.

In many ways, this is a return to the norm. The RSS exercised control over the BJP until Modi won an overwhelming victory in 2014. Although Modi is still ideologically beholden to the body, his political popularity ensured that he did not have to answer to it. Unlike previous BJP leaders, he did not travel to the RSS headquarters to meet the organization’s leader. Instead, the RSS chief came to him. But no more: in March, Modi made a pilgrimage to the organization’s headquarters for the first time since becoming prime minister. The most recent state election campaigns were not waged in Modi’s name or image. Instead, they were waged by the organization’s vast cadre of members, who went door to door to ensure the BJP’s success.

The RSS’s success should be a wake-up call to anyone who thinks that Hindu nationalism is waning. It suggests that any predictions of the BJP’s demise were greatly exaggerated and that the party is........

© Foreign Affairs