Are In­di­a’s elec­tion re­sults that dif­fi­cult to pre­dict as many poll­sters say? Af­ter the 2014 gen­eral elec­tions, many pun­dits have be­come cau­tious of de­clar­ing out­comes one way or the other. How­ever, In­di­ans, like peo­ple any­where in democ­ra­cies, do not vote just for roti, kapra, makaan -food, clothes and shel­ter. 

Politi­cians have cycli­cally tried to lure the voter with a ‘supra­na­tion­al’ iden­tity, not re­al­is­ing that the most en­dur­ing char­ac­ter of In­dian civil­i­sa­tion is its di­ver­sity. Other fac­tors such as vi­sion, iden­tity, be­long­ing and peer pres­sures also in­flu­ence their choice. In In­dia, it is the pen­du­lum os­cil­lat­ing be­tween a ‘supra­na­tion­al’ iden­tity and a re­gional ‘na­tion­al’ iden­tity that seems to be a con­sid­er­able fac­tor other than eco­nom­ics.

In­dia is a coun­try of many na­tions, many re­li­gions, many ‘Peo­ples’ and even many cul­tures and re­gions. The first iden­tity and be­long­ing of the av­er­age In­dian, apart from the met­ro­pol­i­tan Eng­lish speak­ing class, is their com­mu­nity or re­gion.

Every cou­ple of decades, the ‘root­ed’ voter is se­duced and drawn out by a big­ger vi­sion, a ‘supra­na­tional idea’, a col­lec­tive dream or ‘na­tion­al’ and even a col­lec­tive threat. It is pro­moted or ex­ploited by a mav­er­ick leader or slick party ma­chine.

Every cou­ple of decades, the ‘root­ed’ voter is se­duced and drawn out by a big­ger vi­sion, a ‘supra­na­tional idea’, a col­lec­tive dream or ‘na­tion­al’ and even a col­lec­tive threat.

Wars were the one fac­tor that brought peo­ple in a hud­dle and start think­ing ‘na­tion­al­ly’. It was a na­tion­al­ism of neg­a­tiv­ity, of fear of be­ing taken over again and los­ing ‘in­de­pen­dence’. Wars were not nec­es­sar­ily of In­di­a’s choos­ing un­til Mrs Gandhi came along.

Mrs Gandhi un­der­stood that in the sim­ple ma­jori­tar­ian West­min­ster type democ­racy, fis­si­parous votes could not be re­lied on to de­liver work­ing ma­jori­ties sim­ply on a plat­form of eco­nom­ics, par­tic­u­larly as re­gional par­ties could de­liver eco­nomic im­prove­ment com­pet­i­tively. There had to be a ‘na­tion­al’ is­sue or a crises to rally In­di­ans around.

She pre­cip­i­tated a crises within Con­gress and found an in­ter­nal ‘en­e­my’ to rally the troops. Then came the 1971 war which she started. A vic­tory cre­ated a ‘na­tion­al’ up­surge. But soon it waned.

She then tar­geted the Sikhs and played com­mu­nal pol­i­tics. The Sikhs fell into a trap. They were por­trayed as the new threat to ‘Hin­dus­tan’ as a coun­try al­though no real move­ment for Khal­is­tan ex­isted be­fore 1984. The Sikhs were ask­ing for greater re­gional eco­nomic and po­lit­i­cal au­ton­omy for all In­dian states. 1984 changed that and Con­gress had a few more years of play­ing the ‘na­tional in­tegrity un­der threat’. Votes were al­most guar­an­teed.  A para­noia of na­tion un­der siege over­rode re­gional iden­tity.

The Sikh fac­tor could not be played for long. In­dira Gandhi paid with her life. Al­though Ra­jiv Gandhi gained from that af­ter his moth­er’s as­sas­si­na­tion wear­ing saf­fron clothes among other props to cre­ate a na­tional ‘uni­fy­ing’ vi­sion, he had no ‘na­tional crises’ to speak of af­ter that. Fis­si­parous pol­i­tics came back and a coali­tion of re­gional par­ties got into power at the cen­tre as a coali­tion only to break un­der their own cen­trifu­gal­ity or lack of any ide­ol­ogy keep­ing them to­gether.

Ra­jiv was as­sas­si­nated. Con­gress cashed on the in­se­cu­rity and sym­pa­thy.  Again the para­noia of ‘threat’ pre­cip­i­tated a na­tional surge.

She then tar­geted the Sikhs and played com­mu­nal pol­i­tics. The Sikhs fell into a trap. They were por­trayed as the new threat to ‘Hin­dus­tan’ as a coun­try al­though no real move­ment for Khal­is­tan ex­isted be­fore 1984. The Sikhs were ask­ing for greater re­gional eco­nomic and po­lit­i­cal au­ton­omy for all In­dian states. 1984 changed that and Con­gress had a few more years of play­ing the ‘na­tional in­tegrity un­der threat’. Votes were al­most guar­an­teed.  A para­noia of na­tion un­der siege over­rode re­gional iden­tity.

Con­gress has re­lied on the met­ro­pol­i­tan class sold on the idea that In­dia needs to be non-re­li­gious, hence sec­u­lar like Eu­rope. It suc­cess­fully por­trayed Hindu Ma­hasabha par­ties as threat to na­tional unity neu­tral­ity and mi­nori­ties. Its sec­ond large vote bank was the Sched­ule Castes and the third the Mus­lims. Sched­ule Castes hate up­per caste Hin­dus and Mus­lims fear Hin­dus of the Ma­hasabha. Con­gress played this deftly. How­ever, Con­gress also sub­tly played the Hindu iden­tity card.

Play­ing the ‘Hin­du’ card af­ter Mrs Gand­hi’s death and af­ter Ra­jiv’s death, Con­gress un­leashed a new uni­fy­ing force, a re­vival­ist Hindu na­tion­al­ism. The Ma­hasabha cashed in on this. Its mes­sage was that the Hindu was treated as sec­ond class cit­i­zen in his own coun­try and was be­ing be­trayed by Con­gress to ap­pease mi­nori­ties and ‘lower castes’.

This grad­u­ally forged a new na­tional iden­tity, ‘Hindu In­dia’ cre­ated on con­spir­acy the­o­ries of Hindu ne­glect and vic­tim­hood. Hin­dus sense of mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion was clev­erly played by BJP on the na­tional field with the Ba­nia as its most ar­dent sup­porter. This is In­di­a’s Brexit wave.

The first BJP Gov­ern­ment came to power with­out any co­her­ent vi­sion. Sim­ply hat­ing fel­low coun­try­men, blam­ing them for in­va­sions that took place 1,000 years ago and a pol­icy of re­vers­ing his­toric con­quests of the past is not a sus­tain­able po­lit­i­cal the­ory.  The Ram Mandir is­sue in Ay­o­d­hya may have trans­lated some sense of his­toric griev­ance into a vote bank but it does not give peo­ple a pos­i­tive iden­tity or fill their stom­achs.

Fis­si­parous trends pulled back the vote in favour of Con­gress as the re­gional par­ties were too frag­mented to come to­gether. Con­gress has had a clever way of forg­ing fed­eral ten­den­cies and mi­nor­ity in­se­cu­rity into a na­tional sec­u­lar cam­paign fight­ing off what it deems ‘re­gional com­mu­nal­ism’ and Hindu com­mu­nal­ism. But its game plan is crack­ing up and it is in­creas­ingly hav­ing to forge coali­tions with the real re­gional par­ties to form a ‘na­tional gov­ern­ment’ still un­der the plank of the ‘sec­u­lar’ as anti-Hindu com­mu­nal slo­gan. It is not thriv­ing.

The re­gional par­ties of In­dia lack a na­tional po­lit­i­cal idea that holds their fed­er­al­ist na­ture in a na­tional coali­tion for long. Peo­ple feel com­fort­able to vote for them only if there is a larger ‘na­tion­al’ party in the coali­tion that can lead.

Af­ter the first BJP gov­ern­ment, pol­i­tics nev­er­the­less got back to its de­fault mode of be­ing fis­si­parous and threw up coali­tions led by Con­gress the largest party.

War as a uni­fy­ing no­tion is no longer pos­si­ble. With a nu­clear Pak­istan, war is a high risk strat­egy. The neigh­bours know In­di­a’s British tem­plated ad­ver­sar­ial po­lit­i­cal sys­tem means the party in Gov­ern­ment is tempted to wage a to­ken war to look ‘tough’ and har­vest the vote. As in­sur­ance they have en­tered into se­cu­rity arrange­ments with China or USA.

Along came Modi. He cast him­self as the sav­iour to re­store Hindu glory and re­cover from a thou­sand years bruise of hav­ing been con­quered and ruled. He was go­ing to put the Hindu on the world map. Above all he was go­ing to show all In­di­ans that in In­dia it is Hindu first, Hindu most and Hindu top. Hin­dutva re­placed sec­u­lar. Even Rahul Gandhi has meta­mor­phosed into a Hin­dutva clone, vis­it­ing tem­ples in ven­er­a­tion dhoti.

Many Hin­dus in In­dia be­gan to wear their iden­tity on their sleeves and ex­press prej­u­dices in the open. Hin­dus out­side In­dia be­came the new Khal­is­ta­nis, ex­cept in this case Hin­dus­ta­nis, an­noy­ing NRIs who don’t chant Bharat Mata ki Jai. They are Mod­i’s great­est sup­port­ers, imag­in­ing a re­vival of the Ma­hab­harat, the Bharat of the leg­ends.

The prob­lem with this grand vi­sion is that it mil­i­tates against the most en­dur­ing char­ac­ter of In­dian civil­i­sa­tion, a deep re­spect and be­lief in di­ver­sity of life, cul­tures and lifestyles. Hin­dutva on the other hand is an out­dated 1920s the­ory of eth­nic na­tion­al­ism built on a then com­mon tem­plate of anti-west­ern hege­mony but co­cooned from within west­ern mod­ernism. It veers to­wards counter lib­eral ten­den­cies.

Many Hin­dus in In­dia be­gan to wear their iden­tity on their sleeves and ex­press prej­u­dices in the open. Hin­dus out­side In­dia be­came the new Khal­is­ta­nis, ex­cept in this case Hin­dus­ta­nis, an­noy­ing NRIs who don’t chant Bharat Mata ki Jai. They are Mod­i’s great­est sup­port­ers, imag­in­ing a re­vival of the Ma­hab­harat, the Bharat of the leg­ends.

Hin­dutva in the pub­lic space has not been a glo­ri­ous spec­ta­cle with lynch­ing of poor Mus­lims go­ing about their tra­di­tional busi­ness of deal­ing with cow car­casses etc. In the new par­a­digm of In­di­a’s na­tional iden­tity, the cow has be­come more sa­cred than hu­man life. In­dia is in­creas­ingly be­com­ing the land of Hindu and bovine rights.

Anti-Mus­lim sen­ti­ment, a fun­da­men­tal­ist type Hindu re­vival­ism putsch against other Hin­dus, and the fail­ure to make ‘low­er’ castes in­clu­sive have not en­deared the Hindu voter whose un­der­stand­ing of a re­silient In­dian dharma is an ide­ol­ogy of plu­ral­ism rather than hate and in­tim­i­da­tion. BJP’s re­con­structed ‘Hindu iden­ti­ty’ has not only mar­gin­alised some mi­nori­ties with sense of not be­long­ing but chal­lenges the very pow­er­ful essence of an en­dur­ing civil­i­sa­tion that has sur­vived nu­mer­ous ef­forts in his­tory to force a mono­lithic out­look. It is highly un­likely that RSS-BJP will suc­ceed where Moghuls and British failed.

Con­se­quently, BJP’s at­trac­tion has waned as a post-Con­gress vi­sion­ary party. Its eco­nomic record does not over­come its ide­o­log­i­cal hand­i­cap. Large num­ber of In­di­ans are re­vert­ing back to fis­si­parous pol­i­tics. The ‘na­tion­al’ idea is not ap­peal­ing enough to hold it­self.

The BJP will win but not the big ma­jor­ity it gained in 2014. Its as­set is a ‘na­tional cadre’ that can still re­vive some po­lit­i­cal ‘Hindu na­tion­al­ism’. But its greater as­set now is the ide­o­log­i­cal vacu­ity of a dis­parate op­po­si­tion who the voter thinks will en­gage in palace coups as soon as they get into power. As Modi has pointed out sev­eral times, the only glue hold­ing the loose coali­tion is ‘vote Modi out’, hardly ba­sis of a na­tional or eco­nomic man­i­festo.

In­di­a’s po­lit­i­cal is­sues are com­plex. Three di­men­sions stand out and con­tinue to in­flu­ence the os­cil­la­tion be­tween a ‘na­tion­al’ surge and then falling back to­wards a de­fault fis­si­parous pol­i­tics.

Pol­i­tics is for­ever en­gaged be­tween an at­tempt to cre­ate an In­dia wide and even world­wide Hindu iden­tity in re­la­tions to oth­ers. The prob­lem with this is that it is based on a neg­a­tive con­cept. Both the words Hindu and Hin­duism are terms of ex­clu­sion coined by in­vaders. Hindu was cre­ated as a gen­eral term for non-Mus­lims by Is­lamic in­vaders while ‘Hin­duism’ as a broad tent term to in­clude all In­dian be­lief sys­tems that lacked a clear in­dige­nous name such as Sikhi or Bud­dhism, was in­tro­duced by British in­vaders. There is no real in­dige­nous po­lit­i­cal the­ory that can merge from these po­lit­i­cal terms, hence re­liance on west­ern po­lit­i­cal par­a­digms.

The sec­ond is that In­dian po­lit­i­cal thinkers con­tinue to con­fuse civil­i­sa­tion with na­tion. The ‘na­tion’ as a con­cept is a Eu­ro­pean de­vel­op­ment based on meta eth­nic com­mu­nity dom­i­nant in a State and based on ex­clu­sion. The ‘na­tion’ as a con­cept is in crises as the Eu­ro­pean State is be­com­ing mul­ti­cul­tural and multi eth­nic and there is no mech­a­nism within the­ory of na­tion to cope with this. By em­u­lat­ing the Eu­ro­pean idea of na­tion, In­dian pol­i­tics falls into sim­i­lar crises.

The real Bharat is es­sen­tially a State of sev­eral na­tions, com­mu­ni­ties and im­mense plu­ral­ity that has re­siliently sur­vived a few thou­sand years. But In­dian po­lit­i­cal thinkers and par­ties re­main in de­nial of this.

Since 1947, In­dian po­lit­i­cal thinkers have been at­tempt­ing to ‘con­struct’ the ‘na­tion’ even though it has no rel­e­vance in the In­dian State. Pol­i­tics sees a surge for one party or per­son every cou­ple of decades as a ‘new na­tion­al’ iden­tity is at­tempted ei­ther from the ba­sis of ex­ter­nal threat (war) or in­ter­nal threat (fear of dis­in­te­gra­tion or mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion). Nei­ther is sus­tain­able, hence falls apart.

The Third is that the real Bharat is es­sen­tially a State of sev­eral na­tions, com­mu­ni­ties and im­mense plu­ral­ity that has re­siliently sur­vived a few thou­sand years. But In­dian po­lit­i­cal thinkers and par­ties re­main in de­nial of this. Once the se­duc­tion of the ‘supra na­tion’ vi­sion de­flates from its own con­tra­dic­tion, the de­fault fis­si­parous pol­i­tics takes over. But no one has come up with a grand idea for a   fed­eral and fis­si­parous pol­i­tics as a sus­tain­able and con­struc­tive force.

The BJP-RSS idea of the myth­i­cal ‘na­tion’ has not found much uni­fy­ing ap­peal be­yond the cadre, the In­dian Brex­iter and the Hindu Khal­is­tani abroad. Peo­ple nev­er­the­less are not en­thu­si­as­tic about the op­po­si­tion coali­tions ei­ther. There is no con­vinc­ing grand myth­i­cal ‘na­tion­al’ idea dom­i­nat­ing the elec­tion that can over­ride the eco­nomic woes of peo­ple this time. Hence Modi is likely to win but not with the mar­gin he got last time.

Cour­tesy: www.lok­marg.com