It was during his campaign speech at Banswara in Rajasthan that the prime minister, Narendra Modi, first claimed that the Opposition parties, if they won the general elections, would transfer the wealth, including mangalsutras, of Hindus to the ones who have more kids. This was a thinly-veiled insinuation against Indian Muslims. Coming from the prime minister himself, the speech had shocked most observers. The Election Commission of India did not do anything. It later explained its benevolence as a decision taken by the EC to “not touch” the “top two people in both the parties.”
The EC may have abdicated its duty, but the voters of Banswara didn’t. They defeated the BJP by a thumping margin, choosing the candidate of a tribal party, the Bharat Adivasi Party, which is a part of the INDIA bloc. In Banaskantha in Gujarat, Modi’s home state, he had threatened the voters that if they voted the Congress to power, it will take away one of their two buffaloes. Here, the Congress candidate, Geniben Thakor, had an unassailable lead and ultimately went on to win the seat. This was the first loss for the BJP in any Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat after 2009.
Modi’s campaign during these elections was neither about his record of the past 10 years nor about any promises for the next five. It was full of anti-Muslim vitriol and attempted to invoke fear among lower-caste Hindus that their constitutional benefits and wealth will be given away to Muslims by the Opposition parties if they captured power. This narrative, along with the construction of the Ram temple at the site of the Babri mosque that was destroyed by Hindutva’s foot soldiers in 1992 and the high-handed, security-centric approach towards the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir, was expected to pay rich dividends for the BJP. But that was not to be. Campaigning on a slogan of more than 400 seats for the ruling alliance and 370 for the BJP, Modi’s party has won a far reduced mandate. As I write this, the BJP still remains short of a majority on its own and is, therefore, dependent on two fickle allies — Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) and Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party —to form the government.
Since Modi became Gujarat’s chief minister for the first time in 2001, the BJP has never failed to get a brutal majority of its own in an election led by him. This Lok Sabha election is an exception. It will thus be a test of Modi’s skills to compromise with allies to run the government. It may no longer be a one-party, one-leader government that he will be heading; it will be a coalition government with its own pulls and pressures. These factors may or may not play out immediately but they are likely to surface sooner than later. That is the nature of politics.
Even though he is likely to be sworn in as the prime minister for a third term, Modi stands diminished as a political figure after yesterday’s result. He derives his legitimacy from a huge mandate, often credited to his ability to pull off miraculous poll victories against many odds. Once that sheen starts to wear off, as witnessed by the reduced margin of his victory in his own Varanasi Lok Sabha seat, questions are bound to be raised within the party and the larger sangh parivar. Tensions, which had been papered over in the last decade given the weight of decisive mandates in the past, can flare up and create unpleasant situations. It is not going to be a smooth ride for Modi in his third term as prime minister. His halo has diminished. When this happens, a halo often ends up becoming the proverbial noose.
Whether this election result is an outright rejection of his anti-Muslim campaign will be known in due course but it is a definite repudiation of the economic policies pursued by the Modi government. His economic policies were a disaster for vast masses of Indians, particularly the poor and the socially backward groups. Wealth and income inequality have risen sharply since 2014, unemployment has been at a record high, and price rise is hurting the ordinary people. These have been recorded in many surveys reported in the media but did not lead to remedial measures by the Central government, which was confident of sweeping the polls because of its ability to polarise Hindus against Muslims. But Uttar Pradesh and Bengal, among other states, have disrupted the BJP’s plan.
Modi was seen to indulge in crony capitalism and be insensitive to the pain of the poor. The five-kilogramme of free rations to 80 crore Indians has outlived its utility as a sop, with the people demanding jobs instead. Agnipath, the short-term contractual scheme for soldiers, exemplified the unemployment challenge and the government’s unwillingness to listen to grievances. The youth — particularly those belonging to the lower and the intermediate castes — in North India, which forms the traditional recruiting ground for the army, have spoken at the polling booth. Joblessness is a challenge that cannot be ignored by the next government.
The collapse of India’s mainstream media — print and television — created a vacuum that has been filled by independent platforms and YouTube influencers. Aided by cheap data, these voices have penetrated the Indian hinterland. The Opposition parties had neither the resources nor the media support to shape the narrative in their favour. But these new platforms came to the aid of the Opposition, and the BJP was found wanting for the first time in many years. Fresh from his gruelling Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul Gandhi was no longer the subject of mockery. He stuck to campaign issues and agenda points in an aggressive and sustained manner. Modi was compelled to respond to him, even making the blunder of calling Ambani and Adani corrupt.
The dry haystack was there; what lit the spark was Modi’s slogan for the NDA to capture 400 seats. It worried the lower castes that the call was to change the Constitution, which would result in the withdrawal of affirmative action policies. Their concern was not just about the material benefits of reservations. It was equally an expression of the need for political power, a quest for social respect, and a call for personal dignity. The electoral process, despite a biased EC, provided them the vehicle to express their view.
India’s democracy has been wounded and assaulted in the past decade. These election results have ensured that democracy will survive. But a lot more needs to be done to make it healthy, once again. Replacing a one-nation, one-leader rule with a coalition government will be the first step in the endeavour to heal India’s constitutional democracy.
Sushant Singh is lecturer at Yale University
