24 May 2019
Only a fool would still await to see some sliver of wisdom from the nitty gritty of numbers, even as results are still officially not cast in stone for this Lok Sabha. From the dogwhistles, taunts, memes and the macabre innuendo this 2019 campaign was devoid of any ‘pretence’ from the BJP, and the candidacy of Pragya Thakur was to me a clear signal of the party confidence and clarity of identity consolidation of Hindutva. As an observer I have personally seen how ‘Silent Majority’ of civilised rational people is a Wish Horse that never arrives when the riding is needed. This stellar wisdom dawned when I was mooting for a pragmatic approach to the Housing Society to which I had subscribed. Today when a look back a decade later, I realise that I would have played the same narrative of rules, fair bargain and pragmatism, which saw me at the receiving end of my fellow apartment owners. It is also today a matter of record, that those very proposals of sanity were heeded to finally, though no recognition for the wasted time and misdirected efforts came by my way. Only a hint of grudging respect amongst the people who now manage the society exists, or may be it is also more likely a mistaken perception of mine, as I clutch straws in the wind for succour!
Much of the India that Monika Halan talked about, https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/opinion-new-middle-india-s-pushback-and-the-big-indian-dream-1553798359871.html seeking its own place under the sun, is like those folks, decent in person, scumbags in anonymity, their veneer of civility hiding a loathsome inner being suffused with vested interests and extreme prejudice. Whatever happened in 2014, it was seen as a pro Modi wave, topping up a Anti Incumbency tsunami, which was also packaged as an aspirational narrative with Acche Din and Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas. What has happened now in 2019, is simply a Modi Tsunami topped by a Hindutva wave which saw even seasoned politicians from their home turfs lose tamely, like Scindia from Guna or Gandhi from Amethi. When Pandharpur was lost in 2014, and now Guna in 2019, the historical shift is still lost to majority of India’s urban bred analysts and thinkers. India is now more at home with tinkerers, it has no love for ideals and ideas, it needs fixers, it needs to look at it leadership as modern day Avatar of Power and Prestige. So when Mr Modi positions himself with his elaborate and chic dress sense, his camera angles and his ‘acceptance on world stage’, he is shrewdly acknowledging the demand from his constituents.https://scroll.in/article/924134/five-reasons-why-indians-voted-for-modis-bjp
Who all lost in 2019? Gandhian values, Nehruvian socialism, Netaji’s advocacy for planned socioeconomic roadmap, Shastri’s embrace of agrarian issues and even the Sardar’s iron Constitutional Framework. Maulana’s syncretism, Humayun Kabir’s inclusivity and even Rajiv Gandhi’s soft majoritarianism. Who won? Every ideology that was an anathema to the above, diametrically opposite to it or the extreme of it, was left standing after the flattening of all these in the aftermath of this Modi Mandate 2.0.
As an analyst and a private citizen now, I see these as a tectonic shift in India’s core DNA, to subscribe to an American term- Mid Course Correction. I can even go out on a limb and accept what ‘tweeple’ of RW Hindutva ideology are now openly gloating about, that India never had a mass verdict on how it wanted to be for seven decades of our existence as an Independent nation. We were shackled by Gandhian values into secularism and RSS which wanted a Hindu Rashtra has steadfastly chipped away at this Gandhian edifice and as poetic justice the coup de grace has been delivered on his 150th Birth Anniversary!
Politically, I find that where the INC or the Opposition was pitted directly against the BJP, as this 2019 elections were in most of India, the BJP emerged the giant killer, in contrast to when the contests were multi-cornered. The collapse of Left and INC in West Bengal and Odisha has allowed BJP to storm the Trinamool and Biju Janata Dal citadel, whereas when forces like Pawan Kalyan or Kamal Hassan or Left ( AAP in Punjab) were at play, they allowed the vote magnet to converge on INC or its variant (YSRC). So rather than vacate the space, the INC, Left and any other aspirant crowding the space made for a better chance against the BJP. NCR Delhi is a clear example of how the AAP vote share going down shored up the Congress vote share, but winning was still impossible. May be the Tribal Party in Rajasthan had a role in decimating the INC there, but straight contests between soft Hindutva and hard core Hindutva was no brainer as seen from the cow-belt results! So unlike what Mr Yogendra Yadav claims, Mr Rahul Gandhi was not the problem for the Congress, he improved the Congress vote share across India by 6% points, the exact percentage by which people all over India accepted his leadership vis-à-vis 2014.
So Mr Modi represents a mesmerising mix of personality and piety. The Indian has decidedly reached a religious inflection point. If 2024 will turn out any better for the opposition space in India, it will be only by weakening Mr Modi as an individual and by strengthening the party organisation and base of not just the INC but also the regional parties and the Left that mushroomed in response to Anti-Congress sentiments.
Remember this bottom line, the ModiMagic Glue has stuck together an almost pan Indian coalition in the face of a tepid economic record, a mixed administrative record, an ideology that appears left of centre in monetary policy and right of centre in State and Foreign policies!
indiarubberman.com 