The monumental mandate that produced the Modi wave is a story premised on sharp contrasts: the prince versus the pauper, the shehzada versus the chaiwallah, the Ivy League student versus one with no formal education beyond Matric from a government school, dynasty versus doormat, the provincial town Vadnagar-born outsider versus the metropolitan-born with a silver spoon insider, Congress’s Rahul Gandhi versus BJP’s Narendra Modi.
In a country marked by tremendous inequalities of wealth and privilege, the story sold, it spread like wildfire, it got exaggerated, new stories got added on to the old ones, sharper contrasts with moral overtones were added on. Finally the story that reached the people and won sympathies became one of perennial failure versus brilliant performer.
Reformist versus socialist
If we probe beneath the surface into their ideological orientations, ironically, the roles get reversed: the chaiwallah believes in economic reforms whereas the shehzada in socialism. The pauper believes in hard work, thrift and upward social mobility, the prince relies on etatisme, state socialism that suppresses class mobility and generates profits for the establishment. In terms of the two future economic visions of India sold to the electorate during the campaign, Rahul Gandhi relied on a social welfarist model based on populism, social and economic subsidies, social security programmes such as food security, women’s empowerment, rozgar yojanas and other giveaways. This was a throwback to Indira Gandhi’s Garibi Hatao and Pandit Nehru’s social Fabianism. In contrast, Modi, a more pro-market, pro-business reformist, developed an economic reforms package with greater openness to foreign capital except in the retail sector. Modi promised a war to create jobs and opportunities for new entrepreneurs.
The Guj model versus the UPA model
While Modi sold the successful Gujarat model, which he has overseen for a dozen years, Rahul Gandhi relied on defending the achievements of the 10-year old Manmohan Singh government. While Rahul promised to create a more inclusive India for the minorities and the marginalised, Modi promised a new Bharat with 100 new cities, an IIT in each city and the blueprint of an industrial and manufacturing revolution. While for the Congress, the economic ideologue was the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, for the BJP, it was the Columbia-MIT professor the free-trade advocate Jagdish Bhagwati.
Idea of India versus Akhand Bharat
Similar contrasts exist between the ideological social positions between the two parties. The Congress’s ideal is the Idea of India premised on secularism, socialism and social liberalism. The BJP firmly believes in an Akhand Bharat, an undivided India, based on nationalism, patriotism and social conservatism. While Congress’s ideals are a socialist Nehru (Rahul’s great grandfather) and Mahatma Gandhi, the Modi campaigned idealized a conservative Sardar Patel and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya.
Future versus past: Hope versus despair
By the time the campaigns connected with the voters, the two stories underwent additions, deletions and interpolations. The campaigners sell their stories one way, the voters receive the story another way. The intentions of the political players have one direction, the ground realities point towards another direction. The two contrasting stories of Rahul Gandhi and of Narendra Modi were perceived by the voters across the country in terms of the contrast between the past and their future.
All across the country voters were writhing in agony, despair, pessimism and frustration with corruption, policy paralysis, indecision and governmental ineptitude of the Manmohan Singh-led UPA II government. Narendra Modi offered them dreams full of hope, happiness, optimism and expectations of a better future. Rahul’s defensive exhortations appeared as more of the past, Modi’s promises as more of the future.
Desperate angry voters, cutting across all identities of caste, class, community, gender, age and all other barriers latched on to the Modi bandwagon. They all voted, individually as well as collectively, venting their vitriolic angst through the vote. They all voted for change, for a better future. The Modi mandate turned out to be a miracle in terms of its unprecedented outcome: In two words, Namo’s Tsunamo. The Modi mantra became Congress’s choo mantra, Modi’s aandhi slayed Dynasty Gandhi.
Consider the contrasts in terms of the result: In 2009, the BJP had 19 per cent votes, today they have nearly 32 per cent, which is 13 per cent positive swing, a record change for a national party. Even if one considers the previous best of the BJP vote share of 1999, almost 26 per cent votes, it is an increase of 6 per cent, no mean achievement by its own benchmark for the saffron party.
Contrast that with the Congress’s performance: it is a reverse picture. Congress had nearly 26 per cent vote share in 2009, today they have sunk to 19 per cent, a negative swing of 7 per cent. For a party which had enjoyed almost 48 per cent votes in 1984, its own best performance, today’s 19 per cent is surely its worst failure.
In terms of seats, it is a well-known story by now: BJP has shot up from 116 seats in 2009 to 285 on its own. Mission 272+ fulfilled with an added bonus of 13 seats. The Congress, which had 216 seats in 2009, today stares at a humiliating figure of 46 seats.
The Congress used to be described as a dominant party system by generations of political scientists who studied it under a unique category termed as the one-party political system. Today that historic Leviathan has been reduced to a marginal double digit player (that too under the half way mark of 50), which does not exist in over ten states and 17 provinces if we include Union territories. The BJP, has emerged from its obscure anonymity of 1984 when it had merely two MPs in the Lok Sabha to reach the comfortable-on-its-own figure of 285 with 337 MPS in the NDA.