KS Muralidharan
So you think the opposition has no stick to beat Narendra Modi with? The penny drops here. The INDIA alliance has finally stumbled on a workable template that can pose an effective challenge to the Modi-led NDA. The caste census report released by Bihar chief minister, Nitish Kumar has wider ramifications for LS 2024 and the future of India, as also undoubtedly for Narendra Modi in particular, and the BJP in general.
The finding that 63% comprise OBCs & EBCs will now be packaged as a show-stopper to halt the Modi juggernaut, by dangling a king-sized carrot (reservation/concessions) before the BCs. Add a dash of extra flavour to the SC/ST, and you have under a single umbrella about 80% of the voters. This leaves the 15% forward castes who also can be incentivised to move away from the BJP, by giving them some sops. History tells us that BSP’s Mayawati, the Dalit empress of yore, also managed to get a chunk of the forward caste in previous elections in the pre-Modi era, despite having the distinction (!) of hurling the foulest abuse on them in the 90s. As for the remaining 20% of the population, over half of them comprise the minority vote, on whom the secular parties anyway enjoy eternal bragging rights. And in all probability the INDIA alliance will come up with the specifics of this game-changing agenda, like the freebies in Karnataka, in the days to come.
Like how Mandal 1.0 worked for a decade after it was unleashed by V.P. Singh in the late 80s, the latest version of Mandal can visibly and significantly splinter the Hindu vote, hook line and sinker like never before, and leave the majority community as a whole, bruised and battered. The Hindus could paradoxically see a sign of weakness, and not strength, in being counted among the 80%, and see strength, and not weakness, in being counted among a group of 5%, 10% and so on and so forth.
As a political strategy, it is no less than brilliant — and irony of ironies, most obvious and also tried, tested and trusted. But as a national vision for the country, it is shorthand for committing hara-kiri, or bloodless suicide. It’s like going back in time travel to the India of the 80s.
Entitlement politics is prominently in the DNA of Congress and other parties riding on special interest groups and identities that are part of the INDIA Alliance. That they have once again latched on to the age-old strategy of caste politics reveals on the one hand, their bankruptcy of ideas to take on Modi, and at the same time a reflection of the ground reality that the Hindu vote can indeed by fragmented by caste, even at a time when India is looking to reinvent itself as a major global power in the world in the near future.
If there is nothing new about Mandal 2.0, so too is Freebies 2.0. The earlier version of freebies in recent political history for the LS elections was in 2009 when the UPA stormed back to power on the promise of waiver of farm loans. If loan waiver is a kind of post-paid reebie where you are freed off your liability, we are now heading towards prepaid and proactive freebies like free transport (for women), free doles for women, unemployed, etc. This combo of free doles and Mandal 2.0 is now being seen by the INDIA Alliance as a silver bullet to deny Modi a third term.
Obviously, this will be disastrous for the country. The Hindus, divided at the best of times, need an incentive to unite, and not to divide! This strategy of further dividing the Hindus, and uniting the Muslims has worked for many parties, first to defeat the Congress under Indira Gandhi, and ironically, now the BJP under Narendra Modi.
What about Quality Vote?
There is a reluctance on the part of political commentators and opinion-makers to judge the quality of the electoral vote. While we have no choice but to accept the choice of the people in a democracy, this does not mean that we turn a blind eye to why people have voted in a particular way, and draw the right lessons from it, to strengthen our democratic eco-system.
For example, the 1984 elections in the aftermath of Mrs Indira Gandhi’s assassination saw an outpouring of national sympathy for her heir-apparent, Rajiv Gandhi, who at the time was almost a political novice. It was an emotional response that the Congress rode to win a record 400+ seats in the Lok Sabha.
Only a vote based on performance or non-performance, that is pro-incumbency and anti-incumbency can be said to be a qualitative mandate that adds intrinsic value to the strength of a democracy. If one is an endorsement, the other is a payback time for punishment. A sympathy vote or fragmented vote is also a mandate but one that essentially weakens the democracy.
So if people are moved to vote for the INDIA Alliance, in the current context of votebank politics and caste-politics predominantly played up by the alliance, wrapped in a package of election-oriented free doles, India will see a return to the 90s when we saw governments, whose vision was limited to protecting their fiefdom and had no vision for the future of our country and the gullible people who voted them to power.
To consider a contrarian view, even if Mandal 2.0 and freebies make for a temptation too difficult to resist, would people vote for an alliance that has half a dozen prime ministerial candidates if not more. If Modi has to be defeated, will not the people ponder to ask, but who is the alternative? Modi vs who?
This theory is not always true. Indian elections are not presidential in the sense that we do not directly elect the prime minister. We elect only political parties to power, who then come together to decide who will be the head of government.
Did the people vote for Deve Gowda to be their PM in 1996? Or Charan Singh in 1978? Or I.K. Gujral, who followed Deve Gowda?
You can make an exception in Modi’s case and say people wanted to see him as prime minister because he contested elections as a PM candidate and so they voted his party to power. But Rahul Gandhi or Nitish Kumar or anyone else from the INDIA Alliance will not be the people’s choice, even if they dethrone Modi and ride to power. And even if say, either of the two is named as PM. Because they will be the collective choice of the alliance and not an individual choice of the people per se.
Uniting the Hindus, a permanent challenge
It is unfortunate that people continue to be vulnerable to caste-based politics even 7 decades after India became free. The so-called secular satraps across the country like Akhilesh Yadav and Laloo Prasad Yadav in the North and Siddaramaiah and HD Kumaraswamy in the south feed on this weak link in the Hindus, with utter contempt for the devastating consequences of their overweening lust for power. The BJP, though does play the same caste card but only as a reaction to the overtly casteist secular agenda. It is always left with the daunting challenge of uniting the Hindus. And that is the biggest threat for the secular parties, which is why they are bent on dividing the majority community and, as an insurance top-up, uniting the minority vote.
An India where 80% of the people clamour for concessions for their own grouping will take it back to the days when we were counted as part of the Fragile Five economies of the world, if not worse, instead of being the third largest economy in the world. It would be foolhardy to harbour any expectation from the INDIA alliance whose only aim is to oust Modi and then to retain power at any cost. How can you expect even a modicum of vision or governance from them when they will be busy every day only undoing what Modi has done and to seek revenge from him, for putting many of them in threat of jail or bail, or spending most of their time running around the courts. The governance that they find time to provide will be in bits and pieces and in the form of crumbs thrown to the people to keep them satiated and at bay. You can well imagine the kind of future India, and our youth, will have under this rogue alliance.
The irony is, there is no anti-incumbency against Narendra Modi, going by all pollsters and surveys. In fact, his popularity is only rising.
But so was Vajpayee’s in 2004 before he lost. This is certainly not to say that Modi is on the way out, but the INDIA Alliance has finally found a trump card and this can only be trumped by a qualitative vote — if people vote based on how they view the BJP’s performance for the past 10 years — and not play into their vulnerability and vote for Mandal 2.0 and free doles.
The India of 2024 should look to take its pride of place as a global power, which can only happen if the competing political parties offer the people a broadly level playing field, with support for the economically poor, and cannot happen on the basis of a proven and broken governance model based on anti-meritocracy at worst, or an agnostic-meritocracy at best.
LS 2024 is hotting up and at the same time, will be a do or die for India. Needless to add, it is a do-or-die for Congress and many other parties in the INDIA Alliance whose leaders will be past their prime for the next election, and who knows, many of them may even be cooling their heels in jail.
Desperate situation, desperate measures. Indian democracy can ill-afford it.