We are back to that time of the year when we look back. Everything politically momentous that happened through the year – good, bad, and the ugly.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi won his third term, although with deep cuts that has now forced him to depend on his allies. A year ago, who would have thought that he wouldn’t scale new highs, especially when he and his party had already proclaimed a predetermined victory with over 400 seats.
The Ram Mandir at Ayodhya was inaugurated amidst a manufactured hysteria and a fanfare that saw a great number of influential Indian people marking their attendance at the event. Very few had the gumption to even remember that the temple stood at the site of a demolished mosque. Even fewer – those in bureaucracy, politics, judiciary, and civil society – had the courage to remember that the Hindu appropriation of a mosque marked a watershed moment in the history of Indian communalism and sectarianism.
Then, we saw the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bouncing back with an unprecedented majority in Maharashtra, although not without facing accusations of manipulation and rigging. It lost Jharkhand again, as adivasi leaders Hemant Soren and his partner Kalpana Soren emerged as new faces of resistance in politics.
Arvind Kejriwal turned the table on the BJP by surprisingly resigning from his chief minister’s position immediately after securing bail. He alleged that there was no point retaining a position where he wasn’t free enough to take important decisions, advancing the perception that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government was prevented from doing good work by the Modi-led BJP government at the Centre. Rather, the wily Kejriwal decided to begin his campaign for 2025 elections, even as he appointed Atishi, a Rhodes scholar and his loyal aide, as the chief minister in his absence.
But as political scenarios changed like a fast moving hurricane, three events – or one may call moments – caught my special attention. They may not seem important in the overall dynamics of electoral politics, but were surely political in the way it impacted our lives and perceptions.
Electoral bonds quashed
Having been criticised for a number of judgements that favoured the Modi government, sometimes curiously so, the Supreme Court was under public scrutiny for its independence. It had to stand up, and it did – by quashing the electoral bond scheme of the Modi government. It agreed that electoral bonds were nothing but a formalisation of corruption and cronyism. It lampooned the provision in it of keeping the names of donors a secret. It pointedly raised all the important questions around the opacity in the scheme, and hit back at the government by asking about the need for such a scheme when there were already more transparent ways for donors to fund political parties.
The Supreme Court saved its reputation by a bit by ending the electoral bonds scheme, and then doubling down on its judgement by asking the Election Commission of India (ECI) to give detailed information about the bonds like dates, donors, amounts in every small detail.
The data that came after the court’s decision showed how mainstream parties had nearly become slaves of big corporations. The big wigs in the Indian corporate world had secured massive projects by governments soon after the ruling parties received donations from them. There were multiple known, little known, unknown, and even some shell companies whose names came up as donors in the electoral scheme. It became well known and documented that there exists a relationship of quid pro quo between big industrialists and governments. Many of these companies were either raided or were under scanner.
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To no one’s surprise, the BJP emerged as the biggest beneficiary of the scheme, having received nearly 48% of the total donations. It received over Rs 6000 crore. The second biggest beneficiary was a distant second but, surprisingly, it turned out to be Trinamool Congress (TMC), which received over Rs 1600 crore. The Congress was third in the list and received over Rs 1400 crore. The other two in the top five were K.Chandrasekhar Rao’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD).
The Ambani wedding
The second-most important event of the year for me was the Ambani wedding. It wasn’t a wedding but a series of events, spread across months, all carefully planned to grab widespread attention. It was projected as an employment-generator and one that gave a boost to the Indian economy. The groom Anant Ambani was shown as a conservationist, an ecologist, an animal rescuer, a philanthropist, and also an occasional dancer. The bride Radhika Merchant hailed from another business family. She, too, was a Bharatnatyam dancer and a philanthropist and won hearts by her petite and polite demeanor.
It was as much a matrimonial alliance between two business houses as much the most-watched social event of the year. Everyone talked about it and watched it – on reels, shorts, news, gossip circles, and tabloids. From top influencers to a farmer in the field, such was the event’s reach. It was a traditional Indian marriage but also an international concert. Expensive gifts were being given. Guests were handed over wrist bands to be permitted in the wedding venues. Documentaries detailing personalities of the soon-to-be-wedded couple were aired on national television. The press, including international media, constantly covered each and every move and received a warm welcome at Antilla, the Ambani household in Mumbai.
Trust Mukesh Ambani to lead the pack. The wedding changed the PR game entirely. It showed the world what a private event can achieve as a business enterprise. It was the grandest event of the year.
Top of the line international artists like Rihanna, Justin Beiber, Rema, Lusi Fonsi, Katy Perry performed at various functions of the event. The government even went ahead to open a defence airport in Jamnagar for commercial flights during the time. Elephants were transported from Assam to Jamnagar to showcase Anant Ambani’s animal rescue work.
The who’s who of the Indian film industry, too, performed. Big and small film stars, bureaucrats, industrialists and ministers, including prime minister Narendra Modi, attended the event to bless the couple. The only exception was Congress leader Rahul Gandhi who put up a small show of resistance. As Modi blessed the couple at the Ambani house, he posted a picture eating a pie at a new delhi pizzeria.
Unofficial estimates indicate that the whole wedding would have cost the Ambanis a whopping Rs 5000 crore.
It mirrored the growing inequality in India like nothing else. As common people feel deeply squeezed and penny pinching at every day to even access basic facilities, the Ambani wedding showed how the rich were doing in Modi’s regime.
But what may have been unintentional, the Ambani wedding took all steam out of the Ram Mandir campaign of the BJP. For over five months, the Ambani wedding dominated every single social media platform, at a time when the BJP was hoping to make Ram Mandir an election issue. The Ambani wedding did not only deflect attention from the manufactured mass hysteria around Ram Temple, but also didn’t let the audience become clued in to the BJP’s campaign. If not the biggest, the Ambani wedding could also be one of the reasons for Modi failing to attract all attention ahead of elections – a trend he had gotten used to over the last decade.
BJP’s shocking loss in Ayodhya
Last but not the least, the third important event of the year for me was BJP’s surprising loss in Ayodhya. Did anyone imagine the BJP losing from a constituency which became the crux of its election campaign. Its formidable candidate and two-time MP Lallu Singh from Ayodhya lost to a Dalit leader Awadhesh Prasad of the Samajwadi Party (SP). The BJP, which had pinned all hopes on Ram Mandir in Ayodhya and its Ram Janmabhoomi movement, could not have faced a worse dejection and shame in the Lok Sabha polls.
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But what Ayodhya’s outcome foregrounded was also the fact that the Mandal-Kamandal political binary that dictated the decade of the nineties has come back in a new form and shape. The OBCs, minorities, and Dalits consolidated behind the SP candidate in Ayodhya and sent a strong signal to the BJP and its perceived highhandedness.
If the BJP reflects Hindutva today, the Opposition has come to firmly occupy the Mandal-Bahujan space. Naturally, the demand for a caste census and slogans like “save the constitution” has resonated in the Opposition space, while the BJP seems to be veering decidedly towards its brand of “cultural nationalism” and showing India as a civilisational state.
The recent debate on the constitution in the parliament should also be seen in that continuum. As we move on, again, to another year, these three developments and the trends it has ushered in will also continue to impact India and Indians.
The Mandal-Kamandal binary will most likely acquire new and more intense colours in 2025. But right now, I wish you a happy new year on behalf of The Wire’s team. Stay well, stay happy.
