Relevance and consolidation

India needs to thank the BJP for the tectonic shift in running national political parties and campaigns. 

Muscular personalities have vanquished the influence of political dynasties. The sectarian splitting of votes on caste and communal lines is now mainly on communal lines. 

The feudal genteelness that characterised political leaders in the decades preceding this one is no longer a draw, instead an unapologetic projection of a strong macho leader calling all to battle has a large populace hankering for more.

In such conditions, the 2019 elections is a battle between those seeking to consolidate power over Indian society and those struggling to remain relevant.

The early signs of this battle were seen in the 2014 elections with BJP’s ‘Congress Mukt Bharat’ rallying cry. 

Though one recollects corruption being the reason for BJP wanting to free India from the Congress, in hindsight ridding the Congress was a step towards saffronisation of the country.

But, annihilating the Congress was just a facade for a plan blitzkrieged once the BJP came to power. The BJP began socio-political re-engineering, diluting the role of the Congress in the freedom movement and rewriting history of the likes of Savarkar to make his ideology palatable, an ideology that the BJP espouses and wishes to implement.

But, the roots of this battle between relevance and consolidation begin post-Independence. The aura that the freedom struggle bestowed on Congress began to erode with the implementation of the socio-economic path envisioned by our founding fathers. 

For example, at independence India had 20 universities and 496 colleges; as of 2016, India has 799 universities and over 39,000 colleges. 

According to the World Bank, India’s GDP has grown from approximately $36.53 billion in 1960, at current prices, to now being a trillion dollar economy.

The corollary of such progress was the rise of views counter to prevailing narratives. Thus though the Congress won 74-75 per cent of the vote share in the first two elections, it’s vote share has declined. 

In the 1967 elections, it won 283 out of 520 seats. The 1971, 1980 and 1984 elections were aberrations in the decline of the Congress vote share.

A growing economy also led to scams and private industry offshoring it’s finances. According to a report by Global Financial Integrity, a US-based organisation, the Indian economy has lost at least $213 billion through bribes, tax evasion and trade mispricing between 1948 and 2008. But can one only blame the Congress or the greed of the business class?

One can’t deny that the years of socio-economic development have given people a voice. In a way Congress has made itself redundant. Their liberal and socialist values, including affirmative action - many call it appeasement, have helped the country, but have been detrimental to the party. 

But, it is not only the success of Congress policies over the last many decades that has brought it to redundancy today; scams have also played their part. It comes as no surprise that the party is doing some soul searching to find relevance in today’s India.

Thus the party vacillates between peddling a soft Hindutva to counter the current narrative, and standing up to the Modi-fication of the country. Trying to be two things simultaneously to make itself relevant and be heard in a discourse created and led by the BJP, leaves many confused.

For many, Modi has brought back pride to India. Can one forget the ‘1,200 years of slavery’ in his maiden parliamentary speech?  Indian’s speak about the ‘respect’given to the country. The BJP has shifted from promising a Congress-free India to promising a robust nation. A strategy based on one whipping boy -aka Congress- is not sustainable nor is it scalable, what with the surge of regional parties. 

People get bored of the monochrome diatribe after a time and it can’t compete with regionalism. However, promising a vision of a glorious strong country that the world looks up to, has the potential for launching a 1000-year reign.

The contours of this strategy are manifest - Modi’s hugs, mothballing of senior BJP leaders, International Yoga Day, record breaking statues, implementation of demonetisation and GST, surgical strikes, air strikes, ASAT, co-option of media and attack on free speech, drafting and priming citizens into lynch mobs and protectors of national pride, promotion of mythology as science, support for a few business houses, saffronisation of educational curriculum, usurpation of institutions, political mainstreaming of Amit Shah; the list goes on.

The 2014 Congress-Mukt Bharat election campaign opened the door to power and laid the foundation for making real Hindutva fantasies. This election is about BJP consolidating it’s power to implement these desires.

Once upon a time, Sakhshi Maharaja’s utterance’s were laughed off as being from the loony fringe. Given where India is at, his proclamation on no elections in 2024 could for all purposes be that of India’s oracle.  

Elections are considered to be an ode to, and a victory of, democracy as it gives an equal and fair voice to all. Let this election shout out that we need a country where ‘the mind is without fear and the head is held high, where knowledge is free. Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls….’

Author has worked in the development sector