Asia-PacificAnalysis

India election: Policy of ignoring grassroots problems dampens Modi performance at polls

Unemployment, cost of living and inflation along with talk of going to war with Pakistan leave fewer voters in support of BJP

Indian National Congress Party supporters celebrate as they watch election results on a television screen at Congress headquarters in New Delhi. Photograph: Harish Tyagi/EPA
Indian National Congress Party supporters celebrate as they watch election results on a television screen at Congress headquarters in New Delhi. Photograph: Harish Tyagi/EPA
Rahul Bedi's picture
Rahul Bedi in New Delhi
Tue Jun 04 2024 - 18:39

The surprise electoral setback to Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was precipitated largely by the hubris of its top leadership and their myopia in addressing dire economic issues affecting millions of citizens.

In extensive campaigning lasting nearly seven weeks, the prime minister and federal home minister Amit Shah, his close colleague and adviser, projected themselves as the sole arbiters of the BJP’s future, eclipsing other party leaders which, in turn, spawned internal party resentments. It also alienated the leadership of the ultra-right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) or National Volunteer Corps, which founded the BJP in 1980 as its political wing, providing it with activists during the elections to gaslvanise voters.

[ Modi’s BJP party retains power in Indian state bordering China as exit polls predict emphatic win ]

The RSS imparts spiritual guidance to the BJP, and for decades its unvoiced writ has dominated the party’s top leadership; anyone who defies it does so at their own cost, as Modi has now realised, with voter turnout falling.

In seven weeks of intense campaigning, Modi and Shah purposefully declined to either acknowledge or address voter concerns such as spiralling unemployment, especially among young people, the high cost of living and mounting inflation.

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Instead, they focused on perpetuating the BJP’s agenda of Hindutva or Hindu hegemony across India through numerous Islamophobic speeches. They targeted India’s 200-odd million Muslims, comprising about 15 per cent of the country’s population of 1.4 billion, referring pejoratively to them as infiltrators – or terrorists – which found limited resonation among the electorate.

The two leaders also spooked voters by pledging, if elected, to take India to war with neighbouring nuclear-rival Pakistan to recover a third of the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir. The BJP, Shah said last week, was not intimidated by Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

Modi also underestimated the 26-party opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), which fought a cohesive campaign.

Political commentators, meanwhile, say the implications of a politically weakened BJP as part of a coalition would have a positive effect on India’s domestic politics as well as its social and religious dynamics. They also say a coalition would resurrect the effectiveness of parliamentary debate and scrutiny.

They anticipate that, to some extent, it could stem the march of the BJP’s Hindu majoritarianism and the demolition of more mosques to build temples in their stead. It may well restrain Modi from exercising control over all aspects of governance and from imposing restrictions on press freedom, civil liberties and human rights activists.

A weakened BJP could also slow the implementation of contentious measures such as the Citizenship Amendment Act which had previously triggered riots in which scores of people had died. Muslims were excluded from the Act which offered an amnesty to illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries.

[ India election: Modi deploys anti-Muslim rhetoric ahead of latest round of voting ]

BJP plans to introduce a Uniform Civil Code to replace India’s religion-specific civil laws, which citizens claimed was aimed at curbing their religious practices, could also be deferred. The code dictates who a person can wed, how to end marriages and how to manage inheritances.

Although BJP leaders were confident that Modi would emerge as India’s prime minister for a record third term as head of a multiparty National Democratic Alliance, some party insiders hinted at the possibility of him being replaced, as he is widely considered too uncompromising to manage an alliance.