Junko Ito

Jun 16, 2024 | eastasiaforum.org | Rojan Joshi |Soyoung Kim |Junko Ito |Amitav Acharya

Heading into India’s recent national election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made his ambitions clear — a third successive term, but this time with a commanding 370 seat supermajority for his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Having almost maxed out the BJP’s presence in the Hindi heartland of northern India in the 2019 elections, winning 67 more seats in 2024 could only have come from broadening the BJP’s national appeal and making inroads into the southern states.

Jun 16, 2024 | eastasiaforum.org | Rojan Joshi |Soyoung Kim |Junko Ito |Amitav Acharya

Narendra Modi’s disappointing electoral showing could be the catalyst that India needs for a shift away from divisive Hindu nationalism back towards the imperative of economic development. Having set his sights on a supermajority of 370 seats, not even a historic third consecutive term could shake the feeling of disappointment for Modi.

Jun 13, 2024 | eastasiaforum.org | Soyoung Kim |Junko Ito |Amitav Acharya |Darmawan Prasetya

Social discord seems to be the zeitgeist in South Korea, with the rise of ideological conflict over issues of gender equality and anti-feminist backlash often purported to be increasingly central to the country’s politics. But we must scrutinise the emerging cultural and ideological conflicts to distinguish substance from story. A 2021 Ipsos poll found that 41 per cent of respondents in South Korea recognised cultural conflict, compared to the global average of 35 per cent.

Jun 13, 2024 | eastasiaforum.org | Junko Ito |Amitav Acharya |Takashi Kozu |Chris Burgess

In accordance with the United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Japanese Diet passed a law banning hate speech in 2016. But despite years of advocacy calling for stricter regulation, the Hate Speech Act still lacks specific penalties for those who commit hateful acts or speech. There are several reasons for this.