The
Outcome of General Elections 2024 in India
We had begun our previous
note on the General Elections in India with a discussion on the
Prime Minister Narendra Modi assuming the role of a Head Priest of
the newly built temple to Ram in Ayodhya to coalesce a Hindu
majoritarian community that will stand by his aggressive pushing
of a neo-liberal economic agenda. We also discussed the all-out
efforts by the Modi government to decimate all opposition by naked
use of state power. The election results as predicted by the crony
media’s ‘exit polls’ confirmed the total success of this policy.
Only to be proved totally wrong by the actual election results!
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party despite all the drama around the
temple of Ayodhya, was squarely defeated in Ayodhya itself. It
remained the single largest party in the Parliament, but was far
short of the majority needed to form a government. It needed the
support of two regional allies (with whom it had entered into an
electoral alliance just before the elections) to form the
government for the third time in a row. The opposition parties
which had been written off by the crony press, came back with a
stronger mandate. The cult of the person of Narendra Modi lost
much of its shine. Modi himself, in his Varanasi constituency,
could only garner 54% of the votes polled as against 64% he had
got in the previous election. In his own constituency his
popularity instead of surging had dipped substantially.
The people of India had made use of whatever little space
available to them in the ‘democratic governance’ judiciously. In
fact, virtually all actors in the electoral politics, the ruling
party and opposition parties and the people at large could claim
success in the election. Modi’s BJP could form the government and
the opposition had successfully diminished the image and presence
of the BJP in the parliament. The people could rejoice that the
Juggernaut unleashed by Modi had lost a few of its many wheels and
could no longer roll freely, crushing the people under it.
Several factors contributed to what is effectively being seen as a
defeat for Narendra Modi’s politics of hatred and polarisation on
religious lines. We can identify four most important factors.
Firstly, the anger of the farmers (effectively the middle and rich
peasants but also the small peasants) not only with the
neo-liberal farm product marketing policy of the government but
also the way it sought to crush the farmer’s movement. This meant
that the farmers of the five major states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar,
Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan voted against the BJP. The second
major factor was the widespread belief that if the BJP won with a
resounding majority it would dismantle the secular, democratic and
egalitarian guarantees of the Constitution of India, especially
the guaranty of minority rights and the provision of positive
discrimination in favour of the historically oppressed castes and
tribes. In essence it was feared that the Hindu Upper Caste Male
domination will be constitutionally reinforced. This turned the
oppressed castes (Dalits) and the minority communities against the
BJP. The third factor operated mainly in the southern states of
Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka where the overt Hindu posturing
was seen as a return to Brahmanic caste dominance, something which
the people of these states had fought resolutely and successfully.
The fourth element related to the perception that the Modi led BJP
was seeking to demolish the very basis of the possibility of
democratic dissent by decimating the opposition, especially those
regionally rooted. The people of Bengal and Maharashtra were
especially angered by the way the regional political parties were
treated by the Modi government, which sought to break them up by
buying off the weak leaders and foisting false charges against the
others.
Despite these signs of optimism in the struggle against the
emergent fascist like dictatorship there are several disconcerting
elements. The resounding victory of the BJP in Orissa, Gujarat,
Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and its continued strong presence in
the North East. The BJP still retains a large vote share of about
37% without any substantial change from the previous election. It
is quite clear that what has been won is a respite from the
relentless growth of the fascist elements and it is quite possible
that this gain can be reversed by adroit management. At the same
time we may be a little hopeful that the aggressive majoritarian
and anit-minority stance which Modi personally promoted during the
election campaign may weaken a bit, as it doesn’t seem to have
paid off as expected. Given the fact that the BJP no longer has
the strength to push through controversial bills in the
parliament, the anxiety about it changing the constitution to
dilute provisions relating to secularism, democracy and social
justice in the Constitution. We may also expect a little weakening
of the personality cult of Modi, given the discomfort felt by the
‘holding company’ of the BJP, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS). It is widely believed that this electoral setback for the
BJP was caused by the withdrawal of the RSS from active election
work, which was unhappy about the demise of internal dialogue and
the rise of Modi-Shah as semi-divine saviour figures. But then
little long-term shift is possible given the closeness of the two
outfits.
The Indian and international corporate houses continue to support
the BJP wholeheartedly and see it as the spearhead of neo-liberal
conquest of the Indian economy, which will at the same time bail
out the recession bound world capital. In the cabinet formation,
the BJP retains the key portfolios and the same ministers have
returned to the helm of affairs. Its main ally, the Telugu Desam
Party is a well-known champion of neo-liberalism which in fact
lost elections previously in Andhra Pradesh because of this blind
faith. It is unlikely that the aggressive policy changes will be
halted.
The political discomfiture faced by the BJP and the fact that
several states have appeared as safe havens, social movements have
the opportunity to strengthen themselves and assert their
interests. The left and liberal forces have to identify the
specific issues faced different sections of the population and
built active movements around them.
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2024 index.