2024 results diluted power of personality. Democracy back to being a contest of ideas

If India has been an early innovator of strongman populism that gripped global democracies in this century, then India has now led the way in putting an end to it in this mega year of elections across the globe.

Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge dresses the media with the INDIA alliance leaders | Representational Image | ANI

In denying a majority to the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party, the 2024 verdict has delivered many winners and one primary loser. By seeking votes in his name, Modi aimed to make the election a plebiscite on his personality. The verdict has instead ended the singularity of his rule.

Rich in symbolic power, the loss of Ayodhya by the BJP and the victory of, Awadhesh Prasad, the Dalit candidate fielded by the Samajwadi Party will remain the standout moment of this most consequential Lok Sabha elections. The making of the Ram Temple—the central issue that first converted the BJP into a national party —now stands exhausted. Any ambitions of moulding India into a Hindu-first polity have not merely faltered but have been effectively halted.

The election verdict has demanded a coalition. It is in effect a demand for a separation of party from state, and individual from authority, and, above all, has instituted humility over pride.

As more granular data is awaited, especially on the social context, three major political trends on parties and leaders point to a new sequence in Indian democracy.

Not the sole leader

Months before the election, Modi hit his saturation point, when he personally helmed the consecration ritual of the Ram Temple.

Modi sought to capture and aggregate ideology, party, authority, welfare, society, religion, everyman and the leader, the Vishwa or the global all in his own persona. The verdict now calls for its disaggregation.

Whether Modi evoked aspiration or mobilised anger, the voters who kept their own counsel and cool have returned India to the promise of democracy. In short, democracy is not demagoguery and no single individual, however divinely ordained, is sovereign.

It will take time to readjust the eyes to see Modi now flanked by Chandrababu Naidu and Nitish Kumar. Modi’s image has loomed large over the Indian landscape for a decade. A raft of leaders from the Opposition, above all Rahul Gandhi, has effectively ended not only that visual monopoly but mounted distinct leadership styles that offer the Indian voter a wider palette of emotional and political attachments.

Like any other leader, Modi will now have to compete for attention and attachment.  In his third term as Prime Minister, he will only be first among equals, not the sole leader. But this is not all.

Bipolarity and a win for India’s federalism

For the first time in Indian democracy, there are now two national poles and two national parties. The revival of the Indian National Congress is the big story of this election. In fighting back, and hard, especially in the northern heartlands, an older political geography has been radicalised. The Congress tally of six MPs in Uttar Pradesh may be meagre but it has mammoth consequences for the party that had all but vanished from its original homeland. With an effective national footprint and an increased vote share across the country, India’s oldest party has had a reincarnation.

India has defied being a bipartisan or even bipolar polity. Until now. The pattern and cycle of one national party dominating several smaller and regional parties has been broken. There are now two national alternatives. Yet India, to its credit, will be saved from the kind of bipartisanship that has deformed other democracies, primarily UK and US. Not only have big regional parties, such as the SP and the Trinamool Congress, more than held their corner, but they have also, in the case of Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party, emerged as indispensable. By the same token, the Congress party’s new avatar has empowered the local parties, this has brought a regional diversity of outlook and leadership and has given it a distinct new identity.

This shows the resilience of India’s federalism—the national cannot absorb or flatten the power of the regional.

Party flips

The biggest question placed at the door of the BJP is what, if anything, Hindutva 3.0 might be.

As the single largest party with an increased vote share, the BJP remains in pole position. The BJP’s origins and expansion have been based primarily on ideological grounds. Committed to Hindu nationalism, and with a cadre of like-minded party members, ideological clarity and even purity have defined its missionary-like zeal.

For a decade now, however, the BJP has been remade by the enormous power it attracted and wielded. In this election, the party fielded a record number of 100 plus ideologically agnostic candidates who were attracted to it for its power. This poses a serious identity crisis for the party both internally and crucially in its relationship with its ideological parent the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

At twice the size of the Communist Party of China and as the world’s largest political party (also one of the richest), the BJP’s sprawling size is matched only by its emerging factionalised fissures. Should it continue to prosecute a zealous Hindutva? Or will it now speak the language of secularism to expand, as it has done by opening an account in Kerala? Is the Indian Constitution now its sacred principle or is it committed to changing it? These questions are not just being asked by the much-reviled liberals, they have also exploded in the heart of the Hindutva project.

By contrast, the other national pole, the Congress party, is ideologically leaner. At its lowest over the last decade, it has turned to principles to remake itself. Long associated with power, it was the loss of this power that led the party to rediscover its principles and commitments.

This flip of ideology and power has altered the political landscape by 180 degrees.

Verdict 2024 has thus delivered a party shakedown. The power of personality may not have been vanquished, but it is certainly and severely diluted. Democracy in India has been restored to its original arrangement—a contest of ideas.

If India has been an early innovator of strongman populism that gripped global democracies in this century, then India has now led the way in putting an end to it.

Shruti Kapila is Professor of History and Politics at the University of Cambridge. She tweets @shrutikapila. Views are personal.

(Edited by Theres Sudeep)