Re: [WSMDiscuss] Commentary on Indian Election results, Modi cut to size and Opposition gains confidence and democratic space opens up
Sukla Sen
Dear all,________________________________________You may have been following the Indian Election results. The mandate yesterday came with a lot of relief. It is not that Narendra Modi will not become PM again but that there has been a substantial vote against him and a thumbs up for the beleaguered opposition. The Opposition Parties were not only up against the Bhartiya Janta Party but also against the superior money power, hostile media, an aggressive enforcement directorate, central investigation agencies, income tax authorities and a docile Election Commission. In a scenario, where two sitting Chief Ministers and several other leaders of opposition are in Jail and several have swords hanging over their head, the performance of the Opposition has been remarkable, which is much to cheer for. The INDIA alliance led by Indian National Congress managed to keep it together and in the process saw the emergence of Rahul Gandhi as a leader in his own right.BJP will come back to power, 32 seats short of majority, but will be dependent on two mercurial allies Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu, leaders of regional parties, who have a history of switching sides. A BJP with low majority confined by the coalition compulsions will not be able to be brazen and authoritarian as it has been. This is what the three analyses pasted below predict and say.For civil society and social movements a lot was at stake and no wonder many of them got down on the ground, chose sides and campaigned along with the Opposition. The political space will be interesting since this is not going to stay here and we may see further turmoil in the next few years as the State Assembly Elections will take place and their results will unfold.Read on....MadhureshPratap Bhanu Mehta on 2024 Lok Sabha election results: Suffocating shadow has lifted, balance restored
At the very least, the result pricks the bubble of Prime Minister Modi’s authority. He made this election about himself. But today, he is just another politician, cut to size by the people
The election portends a radical realignment of Indian politics on several dimensions. In the first instance, it restores a finer balance of power between different political parties. In the absence of this result, India would have been headed towards unchecked domination of the BJP. It was a domination that threatened to end the possibility of all politics, swallowing up all opponents, and colonising all of civil society. India now has once again a deeply competitive political system. With that comes the possibility of checks and balances and accountability. This balance was made possible in part by an INDIA alliance, especially in UP, that miraculously held together. The BJP has held onto its national vote share, but has been denied seats. If the alliance holds together, it can become a permanent political force. At the very least, it became a serious contender as an alternative. TINA (There is no alternative) is not a factor anymore.
It has to be said, this is a tribute to the dogged persistence of the Opposition that has battled the full might of being targeted by the government, a hostile media, and deep scepticism going into the election. Full marks to Rahul Gandhiand Akhilesh Yadav for proving sceptics (this columnist included) dead wrong, for crafting an alliance and being able to transfer their votes.
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The election was, in part, fought on the theme of danger to democracy, institutional degradation, and risk to the Constitution. A more balanced polity also allows the possibility of institutional regeneration. Independent institutions and civil society also feel more empowered if they live in a context of greater political competition. It makes it harder to manufacture a false social consensus that disempowers individuals. The mere prospect that power might change hands is an antidote to the servility that had set in India’s elites and independent institutions. It will make it harder to brush aside Parliament. But the fact that the BJP has lost half the seats in UP also opens up the possibility of more contestation and dissension within the party. The party itself will now have to become more of a negotiated entity. Whether Mr Modi is capable of that negotiation is an open question. This election opens up the possibility of a return to the trends that we saw between 1989 and 2014, where the polity will require coalition building and consensus.
Also Read | Ashutosh Varshney writes on Kejriwal’s arrest: How much time does Indian democracy have?The election is a reconfiguration of the social imagination of Indian politics. The BJP had upended conventional wisdom over the last decade by reconceiving the social imagination of Indian politics. The first was the consolidation of a Hindutva identity that, in part, tried to widen its social base to include OBCs and Dalits. It also used fragmented contests to make the minority vote irrelevant. But these strategies have now run its course. There is some evidence that the Dalits have moved away from the BJP and, more improbably, moving to the INDIA alliance. The minorities have finally found enough resoluteness in the Congress and the SP.
The second was the tapping into a vernacular politics of cultural resentment in the Hindi heartland, transforming it into a cultural block. This was aligned with an ability to radicalise a greater percentage of Hindus. Radicalising a third of the Hindu society, if we want to use a shorthand, might be possible. And that was often enough for political gains with a weak and divided Opposition. But permanently radicalising a majority of Hindus is much harder. The Prime Minister, constantly tapping into the theme of resentment and hate, tried just that. It was so successful that even the BJP’s critics thought of the Hindi heartland as an impregnable block, trying to stoke North-South divisions as a substitute. The blockbuster story of this election is the puncturing of this myth. But the big lesson is that politics is not over-determined by social identity, it is now available for being reconfigured in different contexts.
There is also the vexed issue of the Indian economy. The mandate is not a full-scale repudiation of the BJP’s economic performance. The generalised anger was missing. But it does point to the fact that welfare coalitions have their limits. The Congress found out a decade ago that after it had done welfare and gains in infrastructure it got stuck. The BJP tried the same on an accelerated basis, with a greater ability to take political credit. But welfare coalitions run their course after a term or two in the absence of a fundamental structural transformation of the economy, which is still eluding the Indian political system. This will make any government vulnerable.
Finally, the election also punctures the myth of the BJP as a party with a difference. Its open structural corruption, complete disregard for institutional propriety, and the coarseness of its public discourse opened up a yawning gap between the Prime Minister’s wanting to claim the mantle of virtue for the BJP and its concrete vices. Prime Minister Modi is still popular. But what people saw in this campaign was not a leader, but an increasingly self-aggrandising figure, a prisoner of his own delusions of divinity. And as always, it is that self-love that was also the cause of his vulnerability.
In this kind of election, the results, and policy implications, are hard to interpret both for the ruling party and the Opposition. Mr Modi has been partially humbled. But the social infrastructure of communalism and vigilantism he has enabled will not disappear easily. It may acquire an autonomous life of its own. This election is proof that concentration of power is no panacea for India. But will the new political configuration allow the production of the kind of policy consensus that can create the conditions for national regeneration? This is an open question. But for now, this is a moment to savour the sweet elixir of freedom that greater political competition brings.
The writer is contributing editor, The Indian Express
Yogendra Yadav writes | From loss to recovery of faith: An election ground report
Notes from my election journey that started with despair and ended on some hope
This extraordinary election was an extraordinary personal journey for me. It has been a journey of loss and recovery of faith, a faith in democratic politics, a faith in the abstraction called The People.
In the last four decades of poll-watching, never before had I approached a national election with as much trepidation as in 2024. A few days after the announcement of elections a friend remarked: “Aap aaj kal mayoos se dikhte hain (you look despondent nowadays)”. He was right. While I wrote about how it was possible to bring the BJP below the 272 mark and planned with my Bharat Jodo Abhiyan colleagues to realise this possibility, I was not sure if it would happen. Media screens and middle class chatter was full of the pran pratishtha ceremony in Ayodhya. “400 paar” was being discussed as a prophecy with loyal channels drumming up figures up to 411. On the other side, the Opposition did not have a clear and shared narrative or a common programme, let alone a consensus leader to generate hope around an alternative.
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I began asking myself: Is this the end of the India we grew up in? Have words like democracy, secularism, socialism lost all meaning? Putin’s Russia began to look like a mirror to India’s future. Jokes about the Election Commission of Pakistan started sounding too close to home. There were operational questions too: Would this election mark the end of parliamentary oppositional politics? Is the politics of the street and underground resistance the only path open to those who wish to reclaim the republic? There were no easy answers. I spent many weeks in depression.
Something changed thereafter. I cannot put a date to it. Nor do I fully understand what brought this about. But as we started approaching the elections, something opened up, there was a distinct change in the air quality.
The election was transiting in phases. I was travelling across the country, often doing old-style fieldwork among ordinary people. And the public mood was also moving. It got better and better as this electoral marathon moved from the first to the last phase. Now the common refrain was “Chunaav palat gaya hai” or “chunaav uth gaya hai”, the election has turned. When I probed the reasons for the change, the most common answer was “partiyan nahin, ye election public lad rahi hai (this election is being fought by people, not parties)”. I had heard these phrases in the past, but never quite experienced such a journey from despair to hope.
The hope that I experienced is only partially about my expectation of a better outcome than anyone expected in the beginning. I have repeatedly spoken about my estimates for the final outcome and need not get into the details here. In sum: The BJP is unlikely to repeat or better its tally of 303 and is likely to fall well short of the majority mark of 272. I expect it to be around 250, but it could fall even further, around or below 230. But there is no point in speculating on this very much. The numbers should be out soon, hopefully without any further controversy or shadow of suspicion.
For me, the most important issue is not Kaun Banega Pradhan Mantri. The real issue is the message of the mandate. In the context of the hype of 400-paar, the BJP’s stranglehold over money and media and the spinelessness of institutions like the Election Commission, any number below 300 would be a moral defeat for the regime. They will not be able to claim the janaadesh (mandate) any more. If the BJP falls short of 272, it will be a political defeat. It may cobble up the government but the government will lose its iqbal, or its legitimacy to govern. And should the numbers fall below 250, it will be a personal defeat for the PM, that might trigger a contestation. If the undercurrent I detected is stronger, the numbers could go down further and may well open up the possibility of a non-NDA government. Any of these scenarios would open up democratic possibilities, strengthen voices of dissent and hopefully give some strength to the media and judiciary as well.
The real basis for my hope is what I saw and heard from the people, irrespective of who they might vote for. The first thing that struck me when I started travelling was the return of normal politics. Unlike 2014 and 2019, every day issues and livelihood concerns could no longer be bottled up. Everyone was talking about price rise, unemployment, the state of public services, the flight of farmers, the struggles of labour. Yes, many of them still believe that Mr Modi has raised the country’s standing in the world, they support the scrapping of Article 370 and credit the government for the Ram Mandir, but these considerations do not trump everyday local issues. Voters demand accountability from their representatives and note the caste, community and locality of candidates. These considerations did not always work against the BJP. But I realised that these quotidian routines of democratic politics are a better defence of democracy than high-minded liberal democratic ideology.
People do not speak the language of liberal democracy, but after a long time, I heard direct references to tanashahi (dictatorship). An RSS worker took me aside and implored me to work for a stronger Opposition. Many of those who voted for the BJP did not approve of the arrest of Hemant Soren and Arvind Kejriwal. They had not heard of electoral bonds, but they knew about washing machine politics and misuse of agencies like ED, I-T and police. I heard the choicest of abuses for the media that they were still consuming, expressions of distrust in the Election Commission and the voting machine. No matter who they vote for, people do not like to be taken for a ride. Having tasted democracy for three generations, Indians are not willing to give it up, not knowingly.
I did not expect to hear a ringing endorsement of secularism in these times. Indeed, most citizens do not see any problem in the prime minister, the government and a political party being involved in the building and consecration of the temple. There is undoubtedly a lot of prejudice and hatred directed against the Muslims. Yet most people want bhaichara (fraternity), they do not want their lives disrupted due to communal clashes. Above all, they are not willing to foreground religious conflict over all other considerations all the time. Muslim bashing is not a permanently rewarding political game.
For the first time, I heard the Constitution being discussed in any election. Dalit voters viewed it through the prism of reservation, which matters as much to them as land matters to the farmers. Muslims and other minorities saw it from the lens of equal citizenship. This is not constitutionalism, as there is little respect for the rule of law. Most voters saw no problem with bulldozer justice. Yet the BJP ‘s panicked defence of the Constitution convinced me that no government would be able to mutilate it.
(The writer is member, Swaraj India)After Lok Sabha election verdict 2024: INDIA’s challenge has just begun
With a truncated strength of the BJP, the politics of isolating it may gain momentum but the critical question is whether the non-BJP parties — in Opposition or in power — have the energy and will to attack the BJP on a front where it is far too strong
First, its strength in the Lok Sabha will be reduced compared to the past five years — unless it opens moneybags and adds to its seat tally. Two, in contrast, its vote share will remain robust. With a nearly 38 per cent vote share, it would be an ostrich-like response to celebrate the outcome as the defeat of the BJP. Third, in order to form the government and remain in power for five years, the party will have to strike many compromises — internally and among its so-called allies — something its leadership is utterly incapable of. This scenario will bring more intrigue, repression and revenge into our politics. While cutting the dominant party to size, the outcome may have posed a challenge before the country’s bruised institutions and blinkered politicians.
As this writer has said repeatedly, Narendra Modi is the main driver of the BJP’s successes since 2014 and by implication, the under achievements too need to be laid squarely at his door. Of course, the BJP has built a gigantic electoral machine, but the energy of that machine comes from Modi. If the BJP’s successful expansion in south India (not so much in terms of seats but vote shares) and east India is to Modi’s credit, the setbacks elsewhere indicate the limitation of his appeal. It is necessary that “Brand Modi” is appropriately deciphered. Comprehending the meaning of Modi — the brand, the representation of something beyond Modi the person — can help us unravel three things: Even in its near-defeat, what the BJP has achieved so far, how and what this means for the India of tomorrow and yonder.
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First, we must recognise that the BJP has fundamentally changed the terms of political discourse. It has also managed to ensure that economic hardship will be condoned in lieu of distant dreams and most importantly, that multiple fault lines, including economic ones, will be overwhelmed by a narrative of religio-cultural assertion. These elements were present in its 2014 victory but became more explicit in subsequent victories and have brought the BJP and its now-less-needed mother organisation, the RSS, to an important milestone in the achievement of their century-long objective of making Hindutva the lingua franca of culture and politics in India.
Once we realise this core aspect of the BJP’s contribution to politics, the explanations of the current electoral outcome can be fitted into the larger and historical shifts since the 1990s. Probably more than in any of the BJP’s previous campaigns, this election saw harsh dog-whistles and direct appeals to an aggressive religious identity. The Opposition made efforts to move the focus of the campaign to issues of distribution and social justice. That seems to have yielded limited results. The BJP responded to the Opposition campaign with shriller minority-phobia. That is where the relevance of Brand Modi needs attention. It articulated a package: A response to the social need to have a larger-than-life figure as saviour, a strong personality to ward off global challenges, a devout Hindu figure to satisfy the century old aspiration to Hinduise the power structure of society, a demagoguery to excite voters against the “other” and also a discourse directed at abstract ideas of becoming an economic powerhouse.
Also Read | Pratap Bhanu Mehta on 2024 Lok Sabha election results: Suffocating shadow has lifted, balance restoredIn a sense, the Modi regime brought to the centre stage the twin factors of Hindutva and the personality cult. All other political moves and policy initiatives were subsumed by these two. The BJP has been cut to size in this election. This also means that elections have put a brake on both these factors. But Modi is unlikely to give up on the personality cult and both he and the BJP are unlikely to give up on Hindutva. This poses an interesting moment of tension. We shall now witness the co-existence of a leader convinced of his divine role and a politics of more routine transactions and concessions. We shall also witness the co-existence of a political project of Hindutva that has tasted popular approval and what I have recently described as Hindutva fatigue. Evidently, a possible third term for the BJP signifies a deeper possibility for the future. It would be tough but tempting for the BJP to continue its assault on institutions and the project of undermining the Constitution.
At the same time, the Opposition will need to understand this outcome with caution. Silent disappointment about economic hardships may have put the BJP on the back foot, but the Opposition would be wrong to declare that the voters have rejected BJP: Neither its arrogance and destruction of institutions nor its politics of cultural assertion have been explicitly rejected.
For the Opposition, this outcome poses a difficult challenge. The outward political expressions of hegemony may have been pushed back but the hegemony itself is not undone and the Opposition does not have the ideological wherewithal to counter it. With a truncated strength of the BJP, the politics of isolating it may gain momentum but the critical question is whether the non-BJP parties — in Opposition or in power — have the energy and will to attack the BJP on a front where it is far too strong.
Ten years of the Modi regime have shown that irrespective of how the government handles the economy and the livelihood crises, irrespective of how the government walks roughshod over voices of dissent, a substantial segment of the citizenry continues to endorse the regime’s foundational agenda. That agenda is not merely about the personality cult nor about trampling formal democratic norms. These are instruments of the core agenda of changing the character of the Indian mindset, homogenising it and bringing in a frightening religious and cultural transformation that India has not witnessed in many centuries. A setback in terms of reduced strength may not deter the BJP and may not win large segments away from that exclusionary agenda.
The outcome only opens up the possibility of staging a counter. Following its defeat, the BJP will resume its core politics from the next day. Will the non-BJP parties realise that this is not a victory for them but only an opportunity to define their politics sooner than later?
The writer, based at Pune, taught political science--==================
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