What’s worse than 2020 in America?

The year started with protests. Spurred on by a new law that imposes the first religious test for Indian citizenship, Muslims and secularists organized loud protests. Protesters feared the government would combine the new law, which accelerates naturalization for non-Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, with a proposal for a national registration of citizens to deprive India’s Muslim minority. The pandemic stopped the protests, but not before the clashes between Hindus and Muslims in Delhi in February killed more than 50 people, the majority Muslim.

India was slow to react to the virus threat, but in late March Modi abruptly declared a national blockade just four hours in advance, leaving many people stranded in cities without work, money or transportation. The television screens soon filled with images of thousands of newly unemployed migrant workers returning to distant villages.

Experts disagree on whether Modi’s blockade was an absolute disaster or an automatic response that nevertheless saved lives. Anyway, India is among the countries hardest hit by the pandemic. In terms of formally reported cases, it is second only to the USA. On Tuesday, 10.2 million Indians caught Covid-19 and 147,901 died. Given the incomplete reports in the poorest parts of the country, the real numbers are almost certainly higher.

In terms of officially registered cases and deaths per million people, India looks better than most Western countries, but worse than its Asian peers, including densely populated Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh. East Asian success stories like Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam are almost a different universe.

The Indian economy was slowing even before the pandemic, thanks in part to a bizarre ban on money in 2016 and the difficult nationwide implementation of a complicated tax on goods and services. The pandemic pushed him off a cliff. The International Monetary Fund estimates that India’s gross domestic product will have shrunk 10.3% at the end of the fiscal year, easily its worst performance since independence in 1947. Among the Group 20 economies, only Argentina and Italy are likely to contract more accentuated. In terms of per capita income, India lagged behind Bangladesh.

In addition to Modi’s problems, China chose India’s moment of disorder to probe for weaknesses along a disputed 2,200-mile Himalayan border. In May, hundreds of People’s Liberation Army soldiers pitched tents in territory claimed by both countries, blocking Indians’ access to traditional patrol routes and threatening access to a strategic Indian air base. In June, Chinese troops armed with clubs studded with nails and iron bars wrapped in barbed wire fought 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 more than 50 years.

India responded by banning several Chinese apps, including TikTok and WeChat,

and strengthening military cooperation with the USA, Japan and Australia. But despite diplomatic negotiations, a strong military buildup on both sides and eight rounds of military negotiations, PLA troops show no signs of vacating newly occupied territory five times the size of 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 descent.

If history offers clues, he has reason to be concerned. In 1971, Indira Gandhi comfortably won his second national election. Two years later, amid high inflation, student protests broke out in much of the country, threatening national stability. In 2009, the Congress Party was re-elected with the longest national mandate in nearly two decades. Two years later, a growing anti-corruption movement undermined Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s legitimacy.

However, predicting Modi’s downfall would be premature. To begin with, he has mastered Indian politics in a way not seen since the 1980s. Much of the domestic media acts more like a lap dog than a watchdog, broadening the government’s talking points and fiercely attacking its critics . An opaque fundraising system gives the ruling Bharatiya Janata party a fatter wallet than all its opponents combined. Many fervent supporters believe that India is in the early stages of a glorious Hindu revival. These people do not tend to change their loyalty based on IMF projections.

Meanwhile, the inept leader of the Congress Party, Rahul Gandhi, a fourth-generation dynastic politician, symbolizes a violent opposition, without ideas and charisma. Last month, the BJP and its allies retained power in Bihar, India’s third most populous state.

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