Edited by Ruby Mellen BY JOANNA SLATER   (Sam Panthaki/AFP/Getty) Roughly 1 in 8 people on Earth are eligible to vote in elections  that start Thursday in India. With 900 million voters, the polls are  a testament to India’s democracy and its commitment to universal  franchise (All adults were eligible to vote starting with its first national election, unlike in many countries). The polls are not only extensive, but consequential. In some ways,  India is at a crossroads. Its economy is expanding, but not nearly  fast enough to lift tens of millions of people into the middle class the way its neighbor China has. Meanwhile, India appears to have embraced a form of religious nationalism that could change the character of its democracy. Narendra Modi, India’s polarizing and charismatic prime minister,  intends to take India forward on both fronts. The leader of the  Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, he swept to power in 2014, promising millions of jobs and an end to corruption scandals. Modi’s victory marked the ascendancy of a form of nationalism  “based not on secular principles but on the premise that Indian culture  is conterminous with Hindu culture, ” wrote Milan Vaishnav of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in a recent article about the elections. The outcome of this campaign will “determine the contours of India’s future as a secular republic” committed to embracing diversity and religious pluralism. Eighty percent of Indians are Hindu, but the country also is home to  the world’s second-largest Muslim population, with pockets of  Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists and other religious minorities. I ndia’s cultural and linguistic diversity make it more like the European  Union than one of its member states, Ruchir Sharma wrote in the Guardian. That “in turn restricts the ability of one leader, even  one as charismatic as Modi, to dominate the country.” Yet Modi has come closer than any leader in recent times. Although  India has a parliamentary system, Modi has managed to turn national elections into presidential-style contests. After taking office, critics say,  he has demonstrated an authoritarian streak, sidelining his own  cabinet and undermining the independence of institutions such as  India’s equivalent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Most obser vers simply refer to ‘Modi sarkar [government],’ underlining its personalization of power,” wrote Sanjay Ruparelia, a political scientist. Modi took office before this recent wave of nationalistic  populists started winning elections around the world, but he  fits into the mold. Like President Trump, he has capitalized on majoritarian resentment. Also like Trump, Modi is a social media  master who prefers to communicate directly with voters, including  via his eponymous smartphone application. Modi has not held a single news conference while in office, and journalists considered to be  critical of the government have faced increasing pressure. Reports  of violence by extremist Hindu groups have spiked during his tenure. Just a few months ago, it appeared the election campaign would  be fought on terrain less favorable to Modi, with issues such as rising unemployment and distress among farmers at the forefront. Then came the Feb. 14 suicide bombing in Indian-controlled Kashmir, which killed 40 paramilitary officers. A Pakistan-based terrorist group asserted responsibility for the attack and India launched a retaliatory airstrike on what it said was a militant training camp inside Pakistan  near the town of Balakot. India has released no evidence to back its claims that it hit its target  and killed scores of militants (Pakistan says India’s bombs dropped  on an open hillside, and locals say no one was injured). Nevertheless, Modi has made the strikes a centerpiece of his campaign — proof not  only of his hard-line stance on national security, but of the perfidy of anyone who questions the official line. “The new India will kill terrorists in their homes,” Modi said at a recent  rally in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state. Meanwhile, he said, his opponents ask for evidence of the strike’s impact, a sign they do  not trust the armed forces or respect the sacrifices of soldiers.  At another rally on Tuesday, he urged first-time voters to cast their  ballots in honor of the Balakot airstrike. Modi’s strategy is to “whip up a politics of anxiety, by presenting  India as being under relentless attack and in moral peril from  external and internal enemies,” Pratap Bhanu Mehta, a political  scientist and vice chancellor of Ashoka University, wrote in the  Indian Express. “It creates a culture where elementary questions of fact and accountability are immobilized.” Modi reserves most of his scorn for his main opponent: Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Indian National Congress  whose father, grandmother and great-grandfather all served  as prime minister. Modi calls him a “prince” and a “dynast” and  has attacked him in frankly communal terms, accusing Gandhi of  “running away” from areas where Hindus are the majority. While Modi is doing his best to present his victory as inevitable,  the outcome is uncertain. Compared with five years ago,  the opposition  is more unified, and Modi must contend with an anti-incumbency  streak among Indian voters. Farmers have accumulated grievances,  and their preferences remain an X-factor. Still, opinion polls suggest  Modi will win reelection when the results of India’s multiphase  general elections are announced May 23. With six weeks and almost  a billion votes to go, anything is possible.

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• Here’s a bit more about Modi from a dispatch written by Slater  on the campaign trail in northern India: “The jingoistic tone of Modi’s campaign marks a departure from   five years ago, when he won over voters with promises to create millions of jobs and root out corruption. He emphasized his humble roots as the son of a tea seller and his 13-year track record as  chief minister of Gujarat, a state in western India, where he  oversaw rapid economic growth and the implementation of  business-friendly policies. “He also presided over the deadliest outbreak of communal   violence in recent Indian history, when more than 1,000 people,  mostly Muslims, were killed in three days of riots in 2002.  A special investigating team cleared Modi of involvement in the  riots. The violence remains a blot on his reputation and previously led the United States to deny him a visa. “When Modi became prime minister in 2014, India’s business community was jubilant. They saw him as a politician who had the  will — and the majority in Parliament — to accelerate economic  growth by reforming land and labor laws and privatizing state-owned businesses. … But Modi did not deliver on that kind of sweeping legislation. ‘They have tinkered a bit here and a bit there,  but they haven’t really moved forward strongly on the reforms  front,’ said Yashwant Sinha, a former finance minister who quit  Modi’s party last year. ‘He’s no economic reformer.’ “Sinha credited the government with introducing a much-needed bankruptcy code. But he slammed its move to invalidate most of  India’s bank notes in 2016, a radical step known as ‘demonetization.’ The policy aimed to curb corruption but depressed economic activity and dented employment.” • The main opposition to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conceded defeat on Wednesday, paving the way for Netanyahu to forge a new ruling coalition that The Post reports  could be the most religious and far-right government in the country’s history: “Leaders of the Blue and White party, headed by former military  chief Benny Gantz, made the concession announcement as it appeared there was no way it could secure the 61-seat majority it needs in Israel’s 120-seat Knesset to form a government. “Netanyahu went all out to hold onto power. He forged a deal to  ensure right-wing votes were not wasted by pressuring small  right-wing parties to run jointly with the extremist Jewish Power party, considered toxic even for many on the right wing of Israeli politics. …  To woo right-wing voters to his own Likud party, he made a last minute pledge to extend Israeli sovereignty to Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal by much of the international community. “The two main ultra-Orthodox slates appear to have won a total of  16 seats, up from 13 seats in the outgoing Knesset, while an  extreme right-wing alliance that includes the Jewish Power party, followers of the outlawed Rabbi Meir Kahane, won five. Analysts  said Netanyahu will be trading ministerial positions for support regardless of whether or not he’s indicted. “The Central Elections Committee, which oversees the count,   said the final tally would not be available until Thursday evening.” • They endured hideous rape and violence at the hands of the  Islamic State. But even though they are now free of their captors,  Yazidi refugees in Canada are still haunted by the horrors they experienced. The Post’s Emily Rauhala and Amanda Coletta report: “They relive their trauma through menacing messages from men  who claim to be Islamic State militants, or from videos of their  time in captivity, or through social media posts from the front lines. … Their pain is compounded by the fact that most have family  members still held by ISIS, or missing, or languishing in refugee  camps with no way out. “Yazidi refugees display symptoms that most care providers are scarcely prepared to treat, including seizure-like episodes  that leave women writhing on the floor, as if reliving rape. …  Merely witnessing these episodes can be so troubling that care  workers need support of their own. ‘The squealing — ‘ said Bindu Narula, a settlement and immigration manager at Calgary Catholic Immigration Society, pausing. ‘No matter who you are, it’s traumatic.’ “Mohamad Elfakhani, a psychiatrist at the London Health Sciences Center hospital and professor at Western University in London,   Ontario, treats Yazidis with symptoms of complex post-traumatic  stress disorder, including dissociation and extreme sleeplessness. … He said their symptoms exceed what he’s seen, even compared  with recent Syrian arrivals, because the concentration of  extreme trauma is higher and they have less support."