Silence and surround sound

Will Modi seize the reality check that a majority of Indians, including his 2014 voters, do not approve of a majoritarian agenda?

PM Narendra Modi at an election campaign rally in Dwarka, Delhi | PTI file photo

There is a consistent pattern lately in how political leaderships, in spite of experience and old, hard-nosed wisdom, make fatal blunders in misreading electoral victories. The Congress, post-2009, is a good example. It read the repeat victory, with an even larger margin, as a mandate for the Gandhi family’s handouts, not for what it actually was, five years of brilliant growth under Manmohan Singh. Before that, in 2003-04, the L.K. Advani-led BJP brass (Vajpayee was in disagreement with them) misread their sweeping wins in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in November 2003 as a result of a “feel-good” breeze blowing in a Shining India, and not simple anti-incumbency in three Congress-ruled states. Both paid for the misjudgement.

The other blunder clear winners of a decisive election make is in presuming that they have won the next election as well. So they start talking of 10-year, even 15-year, plans as if their Opposition will never revive. One essential characteristic of political cycles is that they turn: the BJP, from 2 seats in 1984, went up to nearly a 100 by 1989 and then up and up, to now. Our voters detest arrogance.

This case is now built on the latest India Today Group-Cicero Mood of the Nation (MOTN) opinion poll, results of which are published in this issue. It shows a significant fall in Modi’s popularity (though the loss of only 27 seats yet) despite the hype of foreign visits and absence of corruption scandals. It also shows that many more people now think the Congress can revive, in spite of grave doubts over Rahul Gandhi’s commitment and credibility. Quite dramatically, the Aam Aadmi Party, which had suffered a humiliating destruction last summer, is back, not just in power in Delhi but with its leader Arvind Kejriwal emerging as the main competition for the incumbent PM with a popularity rating of 15 per cent. The most important finding, however, is the change in popular perception of Modi as a leader. Six months back, an overwhelming majority believed he was a development-oriented leader. Now about the same number see him as a Hindutva leader. The Vikas Purush people had elected so warmly is now becoming a Hindu Hriday Samrat, just as his decimated opponents had predicted.

 

Some of the BJP’s misreading of the May 2014 verdict followed the pattern common to all democracies – belief that it was in for much longer than five years and that the Opposition was not just dead, but buried. But another one was of a piece with the Congress Party’s 2009 blunder in persuading itself that the verdict was for povertarian interventionism in the economy rather than growth and reform. The BJP, and even more definitely the RSS, concluded last year that the victory was a vote for Hindutva, against what they see as minority appeasement and for a majoritarian state that ensures freedom from riots to all, thereby finding a minimalistic redefinition of secularism. In the past nine months, Giriraj Singh, the voluble, Bhumihar spokesman of the Hindu Right (now Union Minister of State for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises), has hit national headlines for two statements. The second came last week, suggesting that if Sonia had been Nigerian (thereby dark-skinned) and if she wasn’t a fair-skinned European, the Congress would not have made her its president. On the scale of idiocy, this statement ranked higher than the first. But politically, that earlier one was more significant.

During the Lok Sabha campaign, Giriraj gave in Bihar that infamous call to those voting against Modi to go to Pakistan instead. It evoked mainstream outrage but the BJP generally glossed over it, believing that Bihar now needed sharper polarisation. Rather than show public disapproval, the BJP subsequently rewarded Giriraj with a ministry. It was more significant because in a first-past-the-post (FPTP) system even brute parliamentary majorities rarely get a majority of the votes cast. Even Rajiv Gandhi, with 413 seats, did not manage 50 per cent. Modi’s majority resulted from a mere 31. To govern smoothly you have to convince the majority who didn’t vote for you of your intentions, not send them to Pakistan. India’s diversity and FPTP, combined with its institutions and public opinion, render majoritarianism an impossibility.

The reason we consider that first statement politically more significant than the second is simple: unlike the “if Sonia were Nigerian” nonsense, which was racist and politically incorrect, and which no party leader of his would defend in public, the first one was a purely political statement. It reflected the view of many party leaders and ideological supporters who saw in Modi the rise of a new nationalism of the Right, rather than merely a post-socialist, economic worldview of the Right. Once you internalised that, Giriraj’s statement was simply Bihar-speak for George Bush’s familiar old “if you are not with us, you are against us”, so make your choice now. The problem now seems to be that the BJP rank and file, and particularly the RSS, did exactly that. Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti’s Ramzada versus Haramzada rant was just a cruder way of restating what Giriraj had said in Bihar. She was subsequently rewarded with a place on the BJP’s national executive, as some of the more urbane and modern women members were sent packing.

 

Even if you choose to overlook these signals, the people won’t. Which is the most stunning message of this opinion poll: that a large majority now think that Hindutva and polarisation brought Modi to power, not “sabka saath, sabka vikas” (partnership and growth for all). Read this with the other key findings. A large number of respondents believe the BJP government is targeting the minorities, and they don’t approve of it. Note again that this is not a minority-heavy sample but reflects India’s demographics. Even more important, many more people feel more insecure now than they did six months back. The short message is that in the rising, resurgent India of 2015 there is no vote for beating up anybody. The very essence of a society moving from grievance to aspiration-from lamenting the past to looking forward to the future, from shedding anger over injustices our parents and ancestors suffered to how much better we believe our children should and can do-is that it rejects any appeals to negativities of the past. Modi the campaigner read this brilliantly. But the ideological rabble his party patronised and gave tickets to on the sole consideration of winnability is taking his government back to the old RSS normal. Why is the voter faulted now for asking that if this had been indeed the intention, why did the BJP not make it a part of the disclosures before the polls? Or for raising that simple question: aap toh aise na thhe (you were not supposed to be like this)?

The RSS has a strong, puritanical position on beef, spiritual education and against evangelical Christians. Modi is a true believer of the RSS. But because of the strength of his personality, his track record of keeping the RSS and VHP in check in Gujarat and his campaign pitch, it was believed that his commitment as prime minister would be to the Constitution, and while the ideological Parivar would be patronised for some spoils and legitimisation of ideas, it would be kept out of governance. But two of his new state governments with his hand-picked chief ministers are working full-time on saving the cow and preaching the Gita, playing to the gallery in Nagpur. His party’s argument that most of the attacks on churches are in the nature of routine crimes and do not fit into a deliberate sectarian pattern (as exemplified by the reprehensible West Bengal nun rape and Navi Mumbai vandalism) and that some of the Christian leaderships’ protests are hasty and exaggerated deserves some sympathy. But it is lost in their own noise.

Interestingly, even Mahatma Gandhi was opposed to Christian conversions. But his logic was simple. He believed in freedom of choice, but objected to what was widely seen as state patronage of missionaries under colonial rule. Similarly, now evangelists of different faiths can compete in the world of faith and beliefs, but when the BJP and the RSS get involved, that same question of state patronage comes in. No elected leader can maintain popularity at the election-time peak. But he must keep a close eye on what is causing that loss of support and why. The message to Modi is, he is losing it for nothing. In fact, it is subsuming much good work done by him, coal and mining reform, the alliance in Kashmir, and a really brave move on reforming the land acquisition law.