What the ‘Modi Tsunami’ says about modern India

Hasan Suroor

Narendra Modi (Would be Prime Minister of India)
showing victory symbol

First, full marks to the BJP for an extraordinary performance (and, no, I am not choking on my cornflakes as I write this) which clearly surpassed the exit poll results -- and, I suspect, must have left many even in the party somewhat surprised. Call it a landslide or a tsunami (one TV anchor referred to it as a “tsuNamo’) it is a massive triumph for a party which, around this time last year, seemed be tearing itself apart in the face of a suicidal internal power struggle. Until the RSS — the ultimate puppet-master -- stepped in and ordered the boys to fall in line behind Narendra Modi. 

I doubt if they "do" champagne at RSS headquarters , once the RSS is done with their well- earned laddoos or Modi's preferred "ghee shakkar" they might like to ponder over the real nature of the outcome, and how it was achieved. 

Worryingly, the BJP’s victory represents a further accentuation of sectarian tensions always bubbling under the surface. The triumph was achieved by dangerously playing with –indeed often stoking—the country’s cultural faultlines in a relentless pursuit of consolidating the Hindu vote starting with the decision to field Modi as the prime ministerial candidate. This is the first time in the history of Indian elections that a party has won almost exclusively on the strength of the majority community’s support. Something that did not happen even in BJP’s glory days, post the demolition of Babri Masjid.

If nothing else, it sounds extremely odd—an antithesis of secular democracy—that such a culturally diverse country is going to be governed by a party which, despite winning by such a massive margin, doesn’t enjoy cross-community support. I am not suggesting for a moment that all those who voted for the BJP share its inherently divisive ideology or that the Modi government will work only for the Hindus. 

In fact, I firmly believe that Hindus will be the first to oppose any attempts to push an aggressively nationalist agenda. In a debate at University of LondonI argued that Muslims were not spending sleepless nights thinking that they would become second class citizens or that India would become a Hindu state under Modi because they know there are enough Hindus who would not allow this to happen. A point I emphasised again in a BBC interview after the results. 

Yet, the fact remains that India’s 170 million Muslims feel excluded. For all the talk of inclusion, neither Modi nor his party have made any effort to allay their fears (real or imaginary)—or to reach out to them. On the other hand, their concerns were heightened by the party’s campaign rhetoric. Some of Modi’s own comments and actions fed into his reputation as a Hindu hardliner who is slightly uncomfortable with all that multicultural and pluralistic stuff. 

Forget Muslims, millions of Hindus remain queasy about Modi’s leadership and there are genuine fears around issues like academic freedom, free speech and minority rights. During the campaign a virtual lynch mob took over the social media sites ready to pounce upon anyone who dared not share their fawning admiration for him. 

That apart, BJP has form on tinkering with textbooks and packing key academic and research institutions with pro-Hindutva elements.We saw this happen under previous BJP / NDA governments—and under a relatively benign Atal Behari Vajpayee. Under the arguably more hardline helmsmanship of Modi such tendencies are likely to become more pronounced. The BJP’s landslidevictory on the back of his personal appeal could make him more arrogant-- and bolder in pushing ideas that moderates in the party don’t share; or which he might have been forced to hold back if he were dependant on outside allies. 

Meanwhile, the collapse of the “secular’’ political establishment is a frightening comment on modern India, as much as it is an indictment of the way secular politics has been practised in India. 

The big story, of course, is the decimation of the Congress. This is its worst-ever performance in living memory –not foreseen even by most pessimistic of observers. The only saving grace for the party is that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi managed to retain their own seats, but given the rate at which the magic of the Congress’s ‘’first family’’ is wearing off they had better watch out. After all, for how long can Rae Bareli and Amethi remain immune to the political changes happening around them? 

For the first time, there is a question mark over the Congress’s own future in its current shape and form. Losing an election in a democracy is nothing to be ashamed of, but losing in the fashion that the Congress has (reduced to less than 50 seats) points to a deeper malaise. It is not good enough to say that ‘’we have been here before’’ and will bounce back as happened after previous electoral disasters. Times have changed with the arrival of a new generation which has no time for old sentiments, and is absolutely brutal in pursuing its immediate material goals. It doesn’t care about the colour of the cat or the means it employsso long as it catches the mice. In Modi, India’s Hindu youth thinks it has found a cat which for all its baggage can deliver the mice to them. 

The Congress has its work cut out in order to recover from this humiliation. The first thing it needs to do it is to get rid of the “family’’, and finally free itself from dynastic rule. They are well past their ‘’sell by’’ date and are increasingly becoming a liability. The mother and son have been forthright in taking moral responsibility for the debacle. Now they should do the next honourable thing, and quit for the greater good of the party. 

But that will not be enough. The rot which has set in the Congress is so deep that it will need nothing short of re-invention for it to come back. The younggeneration of Congressmen and women will need to show greater guts in standing up to and challenging the discredited old guard, even if it means a split in the party. To be brutally honest, what it needs is a good old-fashioned Indira Gandhi-style coup which will hopefully unleash a new and more energetic leadership capable of injecting fresh ideas more in tune with the demands of a rapidly changing society. 

There is still a lot of goodwill for the party, and in terms of its physical presenceit remains the only truly national left-of-centre national organisation. Its collapse will create a vacuum which does not bode well for liberal India. 

No tears, however, need be shed for parties such as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party both of whom have been deservedly hammered for their regressive and crude politics. The proliferation of regional parties with myopic vision and single-point agenda has been a bane of modern Indian politics and nobody will miss them. 

As for the Aam Admi Party (AAP) it has shown tenacity and has done well in Punjab while putting up a spirited fight elsewhere. But tenacity, not backed by coherent policies and a clear strategy, can descend into sheer bull-headedness. And AAP is in danger of going in that direction. 

Over to “Prime Minister” Modi, then, with the hope that he will prove his critics wrong.

Courtesy : First Post