What’s worse than 2020 in America?

The year began with protests. Encouraged by a new law imposing the first religious test ever for Indian citizenship, Muslims and secularists held noisy meetings. Protesters feared the government would combine the new law, which accelerates the naturalization of non-Muslims in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, with a national register proposed by citizens to deprive the Muslim minority in India. The pandemic halted protests, but not before the Hindu-Muslim clashes in Delhi in February killed more than 50 people, mostly Muslims.

India reacted slowly to the threat of the virus, but in late March, Mr Modi abruptly declared a nationwide blockade just four hours earlier, leaving many people stranded in cities without work, money or transport. Television screens soon filled with images of thousands of newly unemployed migrant workers going home to remote villages.

Experts differ on whether Mr Modi’s blockade was an untouched disaster or a knee-jerk response that still saved lives. In any case, India is one of the countries most affected by the pandemic. As for the total number of formally reported cases, it lags behind only in the US. On Tuesday, 10.2 million Indians caught Covid-19 and 147,901 died. Given incomplete reports in the poorer parts of the country, the actual figures are almost certainly higher.

In terms of officially recorded cases and deaths per million people, India looks better than most Western countries, but worse than its densely populated Asian counterparts, including Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Success stories in East Asia such as Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam are almost in another universe.

The Indian economy slowed just before the pandemic, in part due to a bizarre cash ban in 2016 and a nationwide embarrassment of a complicated tax on goods and services. The pandemic pushed her over a rock. The International Monetary Fund estimates that India’s gross domestic product will shrink by 10.3% by the end of the fiscal year, easily the worst performance since independence in 1947. Among the group of 20 economies, only Argentina and Italy will likely contract more. In terms of per capita income, India lagged behind Bangladesh.

Adding to Mr Modi’s problems, China has chosen the moment of turmoil in India to investigate weaknesses along a 2,200-mile border with the Himalayas. In May, hundreds of People’s Liberation Army troops set up tents on the territory claimed by both countries, blocking Indian access to traditional patrol routes and threatening access to a strategic Indian air base. In June, Chinese troops armed with nails and iron rods wrapped in barbed wire clashed with Indian soldiers. The clash killed 20 Indians and an unspecified number of Chinese, the worst loss of life on the China-India border in 50 years.

India has responded by banning dozens of Chinese applications, including TikTok and WeChat,

and by strengthening military cooperation with the United States, Japan and Australia. But despite diplomatic talks, a large military buildup on both sides and eight rounds of military negotiations, PLA troops show no signs of liberating the newly occupied territory five times larger than Manhattan.

What does all this mean for Mr. Modi? This depends on whether Indian politics follows its traditional pattern of punishing leaders who do not keep their promises or whether it has entered a new phase of Hindu-nationalist ancestry.

If history provides clues, he has reason to worry. In 1971, Indira Gandhi comfortably won the second national election. Two years later, amid high inflation, student protests erupted in much of the country, threatening national stability. In 2009, the Congress Party ran for re-election with the longest national term in nearly two decades. Two years later, a growing anti-corruption movement has undermined the legitimacy of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

However, the prediction of Mr Modi’s downfall would be premature. For a start, he has dominated Indian politics in an unprecedented way since the 1980s. Much of the domestic media acts more like a dairy dog ​​than a watchdog, amplifying government talks and saving criticism. An opaque fundraising system gives the ruling Bharatiya Janata a fatter wallet than all its opponents. Many ardent supporters believe that India is in the early stages of a glorious Hindu renaissance. These are not people willing to change loyalties based on IMF projections.

Meanwhile, the inept leader of the Congress Party, Rahul Gandhi, a fourth-generation dynastic politician, symbolizes a blatant opposition devoid of ideas and charisma. Last month, the BJP and its allies retained power in Bihar, India’s third most populous state.

The year ends at the beginning, with protests. Since the end of November, tens of thousands of farmers have camped on the Delhi borders to protest against sensitive but politically risky new laws that give the private sector a greater role in agriculture. Mr Modi can overcome this challenge, as he has in the past. But 2020 was the toughest year he faced as prime minister.