Beyond left and right: Why Western binary fails to explain India

For over a century, political discourse in the West has been shaped by the familiar categories of “left” and “right”. Conservatives are expected to champion markets, nationalism, and tradition, while progressives defend redistribution, multiculturalism, and social welfare. In American politics, especially, the story has become formulaic: conservatives cut welfare, progressives expand it. Yet as global politics evolves, this binary is increasingly inadequate. Nowhere is this clearer than in the case of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is routinely branded by Western media as a Hindu nationalist, strongman, or even India’s version of Donald Trump. By the logic of American politics, Modi should be a predictable right-wing populist: socially conservative, culturally majoritarian, and fiscally austere. Yet the reality of his governance confounds this template.

Far from dismantling welfare programmes, Modi’s government has built one of the largest and most ambitious social safety nets in the world. His policies reveal a paradox that makes little sense through the lens of the Western left-right divide: a leader culturally coded as “right-wing” has presided over an unprecedented expansion of welfare in scale, reach, and effectiveness. This paradox illustrates a broader point: the left-right binary not only fails to travel across societies, but it also obscures the unique civilizational, cultural, and historical logics that shape governance in non-Western contexts.

Healthcare: India’s medical insurance for all

Take healthcare, which is often the centrepiece of progressive politics in the United States. For years, Medicare for All has been a rallying cry for the American left, but it remains only a slogan. By contrast, Modi’s government implemented the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY), which provides free health insurance to five hundred million Indians. To put this into perspective, that is larger than the combined populations of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It is the single largest government healthcare scheme in the world, providing millions of low-income families with access to services that were previously unaffordable.

In the American frame, such an initiative would be the pinnacle of progressive achievement. Yet in India, it has been spearheaded by a leader caricatured as a right-wing nationalist. The mismatch between Western assumptions and Indian realities highlights the limits of applying foreign binaries to domestic contexts.

Food security: Welfare at civilisational scale

Food security offers another striking example. The United States’ Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a hallmark of American welfare policy, reaches about 40 million people. By contrast, Modi’s Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana distributes free monthly grain to more than 813 million citizens — nearly 60% of India’s population. This is not merely a programme but a civilizational-scale commitment to eradicating hunger.

Here again, the Western lens falters. If a US president proposed feeding more than half the country at government expense, commentators would call it socialist or left-wing populism. In India, the initiative is led by a government routinely described abroad as authoritarian and right-wing. Such contradictions expose the inadequacy of the left-right grid as a universal analytical tool.

Disability and accessibility: A forgotten constituency empowered

The transformation under Modi extends even to communities that often remain invisible in political discourse, such as Persons with Disabilities (PwDs). Since 2014, his government has distributed 2.8 million assistive devices, issued 10.9 million disability ID cards, and overseen accessibility upgrades at 709 railway stations, 8,695 buses, and nearly every major airport. These are not token gestures but structural interventions that change lives.

Western categories would struggle to place such efforts. Disability rights and accessibility are typically framed as progressive causes. Yet in India, they have been advanced most vigorously under a leader portrayed in Western media as the face of the “Hindu right”. The disconnect underscores how political categories are embedded in specific cultural contexts and lose coherence when transplanted.

Modi’s paradox: Cultural nationalism and welfare expansion

None of this is to deny Modi’s emphasis on cultural identity, nationalism, and faith. His politics is deeply rooted in the assertion of Hindu civilizational identity, and his rhetoric often appeals to nationalist pride. But this does not preclude expansive welfare. On the contrary, his model blends strong cultural identity with large-scale redistribution.

The paradox unsettles the Western habit of mapping leaders onto a one-dimensional spectrum. In America, social conservatism and welfare expansion rarely coexist. In India, they do. Modi exemplifies a different political logic, one in which cultural nationalism and economic welfare reinforce each other rather than cancel each other out.

Limits of left-right binary

This demonstrates that the classical left-right binary is becoming obsolete in explaining global politics. Categories that emerged from European class struggles of the 18th and 19th centuries cannot simply be exported to societies shaped by very different histories. In India, the axes of politics are not solely economic redistribution versus free markets, or individual rights versus tradition. They also involve civilizational identity, the role of community, and the imperative of lifting millions out of poverty within a democratic framework.

Western media often commits category errors when analysing non-Western leaders. By calling Modi “India’s Trump”, commentators conflate two very different figures. Trump slashed welfare spending, sought to roll back the healthcare expansion, and advocated tax cuts for the wealthy. Modi, by contrast, has presided over one of the most significant welfare expansions in human history. The comparison is superficial, based more on cultural signalling than on substantive policy differences. It reveals how Western categories become ideological projections rather than analytical tools.

Towards new frameworks of analysis

If the left-right binary fails, what might replace it? In India, politics is better understood through the intersection of three dimensions: civilizational identity, economic welfare, and democratic participation. Leaders like Modi cannot be reduced to the “right” simply because they foreground cultural identity; their governance also reflects a commitment to welfare expansion and inclusive development.

This tripartite framework captures dynamics that the Western binary obscures. It recognises that in India, economic upliftment and cultural self-assertion are not contradictions, but rather twin pillars of statecraft. Welfare programmes are not merely redistributive policies but expressions of a civilizational ethos that sees the state as responsible for nurturing its people.

Beyond imported labels

The story of Narendra Modi’s governance illustrates a larger truth: the categories of “left” and “right,” so central to Western self-understanding, cannot simply be mapped onto other societies. They flatten complex realities and distort the analysis of leaders whose policies do not fit neatly into ideological boxes. Modi is both a cultural nationalist and a welfare expansionist — a combination unintelligible in American terms but coherent within India’s context.

Independence-era India inherited a colonial state that governed with detachment, elitism, and minimal concern for the welfare of the masses. Modi’s India, despite concerns from critics about nationalism and identity, has decisively broken with that model by embracing social welfare on an unprecedented scale. The Western left-right binary, with its limited imagination, is unable to explain this paradox. To understand leaders like Modi and societies like India, we must move beyond imported labels and develop analytical frameworks that reflect indigenous realities. Only then can global politics be understood on its own terms, rather than through the distorting lens of categories long past their expiry date.