Maria Cano

Narendra Modi, prime minister of India since 2014, won this year’s election by a landslide last Thursday (Das, 2019). His party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept parliament, securing a majority with 303 seats (Ayres, 2019). This victory follows a campaign focused on national security, Hindu-first rhetoric, and a promise to be “tough on Pakistan” (Ayres, 2019; Schmall, 2019). Tensions between the two countries remain high since the February bombing in Kashmir and subsequent military skirmish. In the last days of the election, Pakistan revealed that it had successfully tested the Shaheen II, a medium-range ballistic missile able to carry both conventional and nuclear warheads up to 1,500 kilometers (ISPR, 2019). While all South Asian leaders were invited to Modi’s 2014 inauguration, this year Imran Khan has been excluded, suggesting that tensions between the two nations will not resolve any time soon (Madan, 2019).

Government of Pakistan: Information Report