India has emphatically spoken its voice. People have rejected self-appointed guardians of the ‘Idea of India’ and have their own vision of a ‘New India’
The most astounding thing about the 17th Lok Sabha election has not just been the magnitude of the Bharatiya Janata party’s (BJP) victory with Narendra Modi at the helm and party chief Amit Shah as his able general. In a way, they have become a modern-day Octavian and Agrippa combination. But more than the 300 seats, it was the scale of the vote-share that was truly amazing. The BJP and its allies got close to half of the total votes polled. Just think about it for a few minutes — one in every two Indians voted for Narendra Modi. This can only mean that the vote for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was an all-inclusive one, something that those who are screaming from the rooftops about this being a majoritarian Government, should take note of.
It is almost a 10 per cent climb in the vote share for the alliance since the 2014 polls. And this despite some economic pressures on the country, the aftermath of demonetisation, a lack of jobs, agrarian crisis and what not. In the modern democratic era of India following the Emergency, only the vote garnered by Rajiv Gandhi in 1984 in the aftermath of his mother’s assassination exceeds this. Indeed, when one looks at other major democracies, only Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom in 1983 in the aftermath of the Falklands war and Ronald Reagan in 1984, thanks to the early 1980s economic boom, have seen sharp rises in popularity among voters. This election has changed so many perceptions of Indian politics — in the so-called ‘cow belt’ of northern Indian States, Narendra Modi’s popularity has smashed caste-based politics for good. Of course, many, many tomes, theories and thesis will be written about the 2019 elections that will slice and dice the data to show how India has changed and many of them will be fun to read.
But when Narendra Modi swept into power in 2014, a whole host of professional agitators came out of the woodwork vowing to resist. These professional malcontents — from Bollywood celebrities to some journalists — swelled the ranks. They went around with begging bowls claiming to be bulwarks against the BJP’s ‘Hindu nationalism’ and stood firmly against Modi and Shah. Some invented stories of how they were attacked for carrying leather bags and, shamefully, some national newspapers pandered to those myths. And these are the very people, who in their arrogance and immense elitism, blame the voters for the victory of the BJP and its perceived nationalism.
In the last few days, some journalists and failed comedians alike have completely lost the plot on social media, even claiming that they don’t recognise India “anymore.”
One can argue that they never realised that India was changing right around them — they wanted welfare programmes for the poor blind to the fact that those very welfare programmes were changing the dynamics of the country. They saw themselves as the arbiters of Indian culture without realising how India was changing, they made fun of Narendra Modi supporters calling them ‘bhakts’, they demeaned and laughed at the ‘chowkidar’ epithet and it all seemed so funny on social media memes.
They claimed they wanted to wrest back India from the so-called ‘Hindutva’ brigade and went out of their way to demean the nation in the foreign media. Of course, one cannot ignore that some elements of the BJP’s core support base have done several reprehensible things and Modi himself was often too slow to condemn such incidents. There is also little doubt that the BJP and Narendra Modi have been almost blatantly anti-intellectual at a level and have listened to bad advice, demonetisation being the single biggest example of this. But the hypocrisy of these malcontents was remarkable, their selective blindness and amnesia was comical and what one is flabbergasted that these people did not realise that this double-standard chipped away at their credibility every passing day among the public at large, but definitely pleased the literature festival crowd.
These people have lost the culture wars, they have to accept that India has changed. The idea that there has to be a resistance like ‘AntiFA’ in the US is almost laughable. And the constant and unending use of the term ‘fascists’ is getting tiresome and only harming the need for an opposition. This loud minority must not again be allowed to derail India, their relevance comes from this, their pockets are lined, thanks to this.
Sure, there needs to be an eye kept over the bad and stupid things that the Government will want to do. The media and the citizens of the country must always be ready to protest, but being professionally and perpetually outraged just because the BJP is in power will not cut it anymore. Those people will find that even their echo chamber is now in interstellar space. They have lost the culture wars, they painted this election as a battle for India’s soul but India’s soul has clearly moved on.
That said, the BJP and the Prime Minister should be acutely aware of the fact that even if they might have won the battle for India’s soul, a battle which can easily be framed as a cultural victory, they must not only be inclusive but also try to integrate some of those who have found it difficult to believe in them. Not everybody viscerally opposed to the BJP can be persuaded to change; but others should give Modi a chance.
Narendra Modi did squander a lot of his political capital after his 2014 victory. That plainly ridiculous suit which he wore when former US President Barack Obama came to town was the cherry on top. He should use this political capital wisely to unite even some of those who have not been on his side. Winning this war does not mean finishing off the enemy as some on his corner believe he should do. It means integrating them.
(The writer is Managing Editor, The Pioneer)
