The numbers are quite simply numbing. Especially if your vantage point is Karnataka to view the results across India, the numbness can have a different intensity and meaning. A lot is already being said, much more commentary will flow as days pass by on what caused the decimation of the Congress and the rest of the Opposition. To understand the preference of over 40 per cent of India for a certain brand of politics will take a lot more study and patience.
It is not merely numbers speaking now; it is not just political strategy that’s doing the trick; not only organization and communication skills that are pronounced, and it is not solely money and muscle. There are cultural and social seismic shifts taking place beneath the surface in India, and that requires closer examination. It can no longer be brushed aside with staid, staccato political terminology that has become commonplace in the past four decades. Neither will a smart counter on social media resolve it. What it demands is a serious pursuit, and dedication.
From a very early reckoning of BJP’s victory, what is unravelling is the diminishing of the caste vote. Narendra Modi seems to have created a narrative that overrides the impediment of caste. Caste identity and coalitions based on these were the trick of politicians for a long time. We could say that since the 1970s, there was a very vocal movement towards caste engineering. If you saw how people like Devaraj Urs, in Karnataka, consolidated caste numbers, it was abundantly clear. By the late 1980s, this parlance got formalized, and formulaic within political parties. In the 1990s, when mobilization of the Hindu vote through the Hindutva idea gathered steam (Ram Mandir at Ayodhya, etc.), caste put the most effective arrows in the quiver of regional parties. As this happened, the Congress started shedding its numbers, its organizational structure grew weak, defections increased, and the party spawned variants and clones. Yet, it did not much alter the way it looked at the world. It did not renew its purpose. Gradually, for the voter, a once-strong brand started to go missing from the display windows. As a result, it ended with 44 in 2014, and in 2019, is struggling to go past 50.
It is not just ‘post-truth’ that arrived with Modi’s first election, we also saw the arrival of post-Mandal in some form. The results of 2019 have only confirmed and deepened it. You have to see the onslaught in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka, the three big states that had experimented with caste and quasi-Socialist rhetoric, to understand this. Everything changes the way a Mulayam or a Lalu or Mayawati or Siddaramaiah will imagine caste henceforth. That is, if they stick around till 2024. Modi’s narrative to beat caste engineering and the Mandal lords looks chiefly anchored in religion and nationalism, with a befuddled mix of economic progress thrown in. This is one possible argument for the overwhelming results, though it may not be as simple.
Let us be sure, Rahul Gandhi did spot this, and tried to grasp the tectonic shift in the mind of the Indian voter. He tried to do two things during his campaign: Distinguish between the Hindu and Hindutva narrative using ‘love’ versus ‘hate’ as a metaphorical supplant. He pulled out the classic distinction between the spiritual and ritual, and wore it on his sleeve. He also tried to create a strong development argument as a counter: he spoke of jobs, of economic collapse, crony capitalism, universal basic income etc. But, he didn’t begin early enough. By the time he firmed up his plans and settled down in his articulation, it was almost end-2018. Plus, he did not have the infrastructure to effectively reach it to the people. There is little doubt that this is the alternative path, and he cannot abandon it. But the question is, how does he effectively mainstream it, how does he take it to people with greater conviction?
In the meantime, a lot of ideas and people will assume they have been completely legitimized: Nathuram Godse, Sadhvi Pragya, Yogi Adityanath, lynching, ghettoisation of Muslims, demonetisation, citizenship bill in Assam, fudging of economic data and many more.