Loads of column inches and airtime are being expended in predicting the final outcome of the elections. Of particular interest is whether the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies are going to cross the much-vaunted figure of 400 plus. By conservative estimates too, Narendra Modi is being billed for a second comeback even if by a lower margin of victory. There is, of course, another school of thought which believes the BJP's National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will fall short of the majority mark and a Congress-led opposition may come to power.
Undoubtedly much of it is psy-ops, posturing or plain bravado, but it makes for good copy and prime-time programming to catch eyeballs in a hyper competitive world of media in the digital age. Once the season of speculation and infotainment ends and the final seat tally hits TV screens and websites, commentators and analysts may go on building new narratives. But for the common citizen, it will be back to business as usual. Talk about the Constitution or caste census is fine, but ultimately it all boils down to the "economy".
There are apprehensions in left-liberal circles that an absolute majority for the BJP will accelerate right-wing capitalism leading to greater concentration of economic power in the hands of a few large corporations and industrial houses.
At the other end of the spectrum, the free economy cheerleaders are afraid that the populist "Khat-a-Khat" pronouncements of the Congress will take the country down on a slippery "Luddite" path back to the 60s and 70s. And then there are those in the middle who opine that a BJP government with a truncated majority is what the doctor has ordered for the country on the cusp of a breakout.
Here lies the beauty of our democracy despite all its defects. There is nothing like a 'done deal'. Unlike in Western democracies, election of a new President or Chancellor does not ensure continuity of policy till her or his term ends. We are a dynamic democracy that is on a continuous churn.
Irrespective of which way the results go, it will be the beginning of a new round of electioneering because after a gap of just a few months a slew of assembly elections will follow in some major states -- Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal and Assam. So there is no rest for the politician.
As for the public, we shall continue to hear the same spiel of income, jobs, doles and development on a loop. In short, it will be the ad-nauseam playback of the same jibes about about "Adani-Ambani'' (which has become the short-hand for "rich") versus "guarantees" for the poor and backward classes. Therefore, what will change if anything at all?
At a macro-level all parties know that a country of 1.4 billion people cannot be governed with a uni-dimensional strategy. Even the BJP understands that, it cannot follow a top-down approach of economic development by ignoring the 1 billion who reside at the bottom of the pyramid . So, while denouncing "revdis" and doles, it has unrolled the largest free-ration distribution programme in the world.
The Congress may be packaging the same differently by talking of direct cash distribution to its target constituents. At a conceptual level the end-point is the same, only the mechanics differ. One can argue about the efficacy of both the approaches but that is more a matter of management rather than policy.
Similarly, it would be a fallacy to think the BJP can push through mega reforms simply with a brute majority in parliament. As was seen in the case of the Land and Farm Reforms Bills, the best laid legislations can be derailed in implementation if there is no national consensus.
It has been demonstrated more than once that lack of numbers in the legislature does not mean an inability to disrupt the field. Otherwise, parties like the CPI and CPI(M) would have long ceased to exist and an AAP would not have been born. So, there is nothing like absolute power. In a vast country like India it is impossible to run a bulldozer on economic policy.
Equally, the Congress and other parties in the I.N.D.I Alliance are acutely aware of the indispensability of the private sector -- not just for their own survival -- but as an engine of economic growth. Also, to compete in a globalised world against economic superpowers like China , one needs scale. The pygmies of the "Licence - Raj regime" will either die or get gobbled up in an open world economic order. Crony capitalism is not new to the world or unique to India.
Names change or old favourites develop new sponsors. That is the name of the game and India is no different. There is little point in creating public-sector jobs, if those organisations cannot survive against international competition. There are better and easier ways for a nation to go bankrupt than creating dinosaurs for the next generation. And, the nation has seen the consequences of bankruptcy in the 1990s when it was forced to open the doors for liberalisation. The Congress has run the country for long enough to realise that it does not need another economic crisis to make a course correction. Thus, in short, there is a limit to competitive populism, which has a self-timer attached.
There is a school of thought emerging that India's economic progress was better under coalition governments. This is both counterfactual and specious. The importance of political stability at a national level for economic development cannot be denied. However, alignment between the Centre and the states is a critical condition for progress. The BJP believes this can be achieved by having "double engine" sarkars in most states. The Congress has willy-nilly come to terms with "coalition dharma" given its own existential dilemmas. There lies the importance of the 2024 mandate and not any U-turns or sharp right-turns that some fear is round the corner.
(Sandip Ghose is an author and current affairs commentator. He tweets @SandipGhose.)
