Newly-elected Prime Minister Modi in November 2014. Flickr/ Owen Young. Some rights reserved.
In the history of democracy in India, the Bihar state assembly elections
will be recorded as a major turning point. The voters rebuffed the Indian Prime
Minister’s party that unleashed a divisive poll campaign to consolidate the
Hindu voters in its favour. The voters gave a stunning victory to a coalition
of secular parties with socialistic leanings and a commitment to social justice.
One public intellectual, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, sees this victory as a
“potentially regenerative moment for Indian democracy”.
The regional elections came in a season of hate-mongering and the rejection
of religious polarisation brought relief to millions of Indians across the
nation. They feel perturbed by the rise in the levels of intolerance and by the
rampaging bands of provocateurs inciting religious passions and violence.
It is inappropriate to call these Indians ‘liberals’. They are
indifferent to political ideologies and can say ‘plague on both your houses’. The
Modi-supporters are using the word “liberal” as a term of abuse. Behind these
protesting ‘liberals’ stand the Indians representing civilisational values and a
pluralistic culture. Their faith teaches them to respect all religions and
question all sacred doctrines. They do not take to the streets but watch with
concern the descent of a nation into a communal cauldron.
India’s political history shows that at times Indians get swayed by
passion and an outbreak of sectarianism follows. But when they observe
excessive intrusion of religion into politics, they punish the political force
that unleashes such passion. They thus force a course-correction, reaffirming
their faith in India’s secular Constitution. When a political party sees its sectarian
card not yielding votes, it turns moderate for some time. This process of
swinging from an extreme to moderation has not only kept democracy alive but
has given it a certain depth.
Sweeping victories for one political formation or the other are not
uncommon. But two factors turned the Bihar elections into one of the biggest
political events of the recent past.
The context
One is the context in which the elections were held. These came in the
midst of a cultural war in which intellectuals, academics, writers, creative
artists and scientists are protesting against the rising intolerance affecting
the freedom of speech and leading to incidents of violence, including murders. The
divisive anti-Muslim statements came from those associated with the Prime
Minister’s party. The BJP leaders attacked those talking of “intolerance”. None
was spared in this and eminent citizens were called names and condemned as
traitors!
Those issuing provocative statements have been emboldened in the past 18
months, thanks to their association with the ruling establishment. The Prime
Minister himself played the caste and religion cards in the Bihar poll campaign
while some of his fans urged him to restrain the “fringe elements” of his
extended political family.
Those attacking the writers and scientists shout that there is no
intolerance in the country. No agency records the levels of mental pollution
and no scientific instrument records the intolerance levels in a society but even
a casual visitor seeing the TV channels or the newspaper headlines will be
struck by the current atmosphere of hatred and incipient violence. On four
different occasions, the President of the Indian Republic found it necessary to
remind the nation of India’s traditions of tolerance and pluralism.
Democracy can be threatened not just by the State but also by violent
vigilante groups trying to ensure that the people think, write, eat, drink and
wear only what they allow. India is seeing a proliferation of such vigilante
groups acting as the thought police or the moral police. They have even
victimised some foreign tourists.
Of course, in such cases, it is not the Government that restricts freedoms.
It is merely letting such groups issue threats. When two communities clash
because of agent provocateurs the
Government can issue pious peace appeals! The imperial powers treated the
natives in the same way.
To fight terrorism a democratic Government also uses the private armies
and vigilante groups so that it is not held accountable for the illegal methods
deployed. The same happens in the domain of free speech when a ruling party’s
cadres go and threaten a writer or blacken someone’s face. The vigilante groups
forced an eminent Indian artist to go into exile or prohibited Salman Rushdie’s
participation in a literary festival.
Once at a reception in London, this reporter asked the head of an
organisation working for freedom of speech whether they were doing anything
against the media moguls and the advertisers who exercise control over free
speech. The person ignored the question and just moved away!
Modi rolls up his sleeves to
little effect
The second unusual feature of the Bihar state elections was the Prime Minister’s
frenetic and aggressive participation in the campaign. Narendra Modi addressed
a record number of election rallies, sidelining the state-level BJP leaders. He
plunged into the battle because of his immense faith in his vote-pulling
capacity. His oratory and dramatic gestures that won him the national elections
18 months ago proved to be a damp squib in Bihar. Early this year in another
regional election for the Delhi state assembly, the Prime Minister failed
to move the voters.
If the Bihar results are also seen as a referendum on Prime Minister
Narendra Modi it is because he decided to lead the election campaign. This is
not what Indian Prime Ministers normally do.
The state election results are expected to impact the national political
situation in which the Prime Minister’s image has lost its lustre. His
competence to boost economic growth and check inflation and corruption has come
under a scanner. His approach towards the unfriendly neighbour Pakistan as well
as towards the friendly neighbour Nepal has had negative consequences.
Most Indians are not impressed by his pop-star role at the light-and-sound
spectacles organised for him in the US by the overseas Indian Friends of the
BJP. London’s Wembley Stadium is set to witness a similar event during his
coming visit to the United Kingdom.
The political setback as a result of what one commentator describes as a
vote against hubris poses no immediate danger to the career of Narendra Modi. Nor
can it alter the long-term objectives of an ideologically-fired strong
cadre-based Hindu organisation called the RSS of which the BJP is a political
wing. The RSS is not vulnerable to internal factionalism or dissent, because
the leaders are not questioned.
Some introspection in the Prime Minister’s office may however lead to a
greater emphasis on the state’s role in securing social and economic justice
for the oppressed and deprived, and a little less of courting big business in
India and abroad.
The lack of mass contact by the previous Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and
his Government’s failure to curb corruption enabled Modi to come to power as a
Messiah. Modi played down the outgoing Government’s measures relating to citizen’s
rights to information and education. The Prime Minister may now fine-tune its economic
policies to send the message that he is not biased in favour of rich
businessmen. This has to be done long before the next regional elections.
It will be more difficult to rein in the rampaging ‘fringe elements’ who
felt encouraged by the ruling party’s inaction against them. Will they stop
inciting the people? The damage inflicted on the social fabric of India in recent
months will not be repaired soon.
However, the protesting writers and Bihar’s anti-BJP voters have
achieved one big thing. They have thwarted the ambition of BJP-RSS combine to
induct an element of Hindu autocracy into the Constitution in order to formally
alter the idea of India. The related agenda will go on the backburner for the
fear of further public protests and political damage.
At this point of time, many perhaps are reminded of an Urdu couplet by
poet Iqbal saying that there must be something in us that we still exist while
some other civilizations have gone into extinction!