Political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot told Karan Thapar in a recent interview for The Wire that if Narendra Modi can’t handle the coalition – and in his 23 years in power he has no experience of doing so – the RSS could replace him with someone like Nitin Gadkari rather than allow the government to fall. This and various other interesting points make up a nearly hour-long interview, the full text of which is given below.
Karan Thapar: Hello and welcome to a special interview for The Wire. How should we analyse and understand the election results, and how should we look at the future of the third Narendra Modi government? Those are two key issues I shall raise today with one of the world’s most renowned authorities on Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party. He’s Christophe Jaffrelot of South Asian politics at Sciences Po in Paris and King’s College in London as well as author of Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the rise of Ethnic Democracy and Gujarat under Modi: The Blueprint for Today’s India’.
Professor Christophe Jaffrelot, let me start with a general question, how do you view the overall election result? The BJP has lost its majority and ended up with its worst performance in 10 years; it now needs allies to form a government. Is this an earthquake that’s rearranged the political landscape in India, or would that be an exaggerated conclusion?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Well, it’s not an earthquake. It has not shifted to a significant extent but the tremor is significant and there might be aftershocks – to continue with the seismic metaphor – because it may well be the beginning of the end of a cycle. And I think that since 1990 we’ve seen four cycles in India’s politics. For me things started to change in 1990 when Mr V.P. Singh initiated the Mandal cycle and caste politics prevailed for about 10 years. If you remember, in 1998 the BJP government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee opened a new cycle of what we could call moderate Hindutva coalition politics.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
In 2004, the UPA government of Manmohan Singh returned to social issues-based policies including the NREGA, and rights oriented politics, such as, right to information, right to education, right to food, and in 2014 the victory of Narendra Modi made it possible for BJP to initiate a militant Hindutva oriented politics. That set the tone and a new form of majoritarianism and authoritarianism, and today I think the setback registered by Modi’s BJP is forcing the government to return to a more moderate version of Hindutva and the performance of the opposition is making social issues and caste politics stage a return.
So, India’s politics is oscillating for 30 years between Hindutva and caste politics and I really think that the 1990 moment when L.K. Advani’s Rath Yatra appeared as a response to V.P. Singh’s decision on Mandal set the tone and we are oscillating between these two. But of course when the pendulum goes in one direction, a cycle ends and another one starts.
Karan Thapar: Let’s examine the verdict a little bit more closely before we talk about the future. The Prime Minister launched what many consider one of the most communal campaigns we’ve seen in recent times. He called Muslims infiltrators and people with more children than the rest of us. He repeatedly said Muslims would be beneficiaries of reservations snatched from OBCs, SCs, and STs. Yet in the end, compared to 2019, the BJP lost 63 seats and its vote share came down by around 1%. Is there a message there about communal rhetoric and communal campaigns?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Yeah, there is a message for sure, that the defeat of BJP in the constituency of Aayodha confirms to some extent. And the message in question is rather simple. Polarisation strategy has lost some of its appeal compared to other things in the repertoire. As I said, the social issues-oriented repertoire is more effective; this is something the exit poll too confirms.
You know, the main factors motivating the voters this time were price rise and joblessness and the government has failed on both fronts. So, there is an anti-incumbency vote to a certain extent in this election – a word I’ve not heard so much by the way in the comments so far but I think it is there and therefore communal politics could not compensate. And now whether the BJP has got the message remains to be seen, and the fact that there’s only one representative of the minorities in the government and no Muslim – for the first time in post-Independence India – in this government suggest that they have not registered the message as much as we would have anticipated.
Karan Thapar: In fact on that point, I could point out that the NDA as a whole did not elect a Muslim, it did not elect a Sikh, it did not elect a Christian. However, Mr Modi went out of his way to appoint a Sikh to the government, he appointed a Christian to the government, but he has not appointed any Muslim to the government. You think that sends out a very clear blunt message?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Well, it starts in contrast with what had been in his attitude previously. You find people in the Rajya Sabha if you need, and in the past they needed and they did. Now at a time when communal politics seems to backfire, there is an emphasis on marginalisation of the largest minority in India. This is something that is not a good sign but we’ll see whether this is reconfirmed by decisions on Uniform Civil Code and others.
Karan Thapar: It also means, doesn’t it Professor Jaffrelot, that the prime minister has either forgotten or worse turned his back on ‘Sab ka saath, sab ka vikas?’
Christophe Jaffrelot: Well, that was a motto that had never been really implemented.
Karan Thapar: Now according to the PMO, Mr Modi addressed 206 rallies and gave over 80 interviews. The Quint says in nearly 50% of the cases the candidates he was campaigning for lost. India Today says in Bengal out of 27 seats where he campaigned the BJP lost 20. Even in his own constituency of Varanasi the number of people who voted for the prime minister fell by over three lakhs. Does this tell us something about Mr Modi’s own personal appeal during the Elections?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Yes, and once again the CSDS exit poll is really very revealing. You know when you compare what this survey told us in 2019 at that time one-third of the BJP voters had said that they would have supported another party had Mr Modi not being the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate this time, only 1/4th of the voters said the same thing which means that there is an erosion in terms of popularity. But at the same time, the same survey shows that Mr Modi remains the most popular leader of India’s politics, and the BJP continues to depend on him. If the party had lost 1/4th of his voters, it would have been in great trouble.
Karan Thapar: Quite right. He may remain the most popular person in the country and certainly in the BJP but the level and extent of his popularity is shrinking steadily.
Christophe Jaffrelot: Exactly.
Karan Thapar: Now, Narendra Modi boasted in parliament that the BJP would win 370 seats. He said the NDA, his allies would cross 400, he ended up with just 240 and if Nitish Kumar and Chandra Babu Naidu whose past suggests that they are not reliable allies, desert him, he will lose his majority altogether. How much of a setback is this for Narendra Modi even though he refuses to accept that term?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Well, this is certainly a setback but we need to qualify it and for obvious reasons. While the BJP lost seats in UP, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Haryana, Bihar, West Bengal, Karnataka, it also made inroads in the South and the East. So, it has now become a fully national party with double digit vote shares in the South and of course it has conquered Odisha and that’s not a minor achievement. So, there is a kind of nuanced approach there that needs to be maintained. But the fact that Narendra Modi has always been able to rely on a majority as chief minister in Gujarat and then as prime minister of India cannot anymore – for the first time in his career – rely on a majority, that’s a setback, definitely a setback.
Karan Thapar: Now there are voices coming out from the Sangh Parivar that have been interpreted in India as critical of Mr Modi, of the campaign that he fought. How do you view the RSS sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat’s recent comments? First speaking of the campaign, he said the dignity and the values of our culture should have been maintained. The election campaign was devoid of dignity. He said a true savior is never arrogant, he also spoke specifically about Manipur, he said it is a duty to deal with it on priority clearly hinting at the fact that Mr Modi hasn’t even visited Manipur. He also said, everywhere there’s social disharmony and this is not good. Do you believe that these comments are an admonition of Narendra Modi?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Well, that has to be seen in the context of the very uneasy relations Narendra Modi and RSS have had for more than 20 years. We must remember that the parting of the ways in Gujarat started in the early 2000s. In 2007, for instance, the RSS cadres did not campaign in favour of Narendra Modi in Gujrat and for a clear reason. Narendra Modi had emancipated himself from the RSS, and he had built his own parallel power structure that he related to the voters directly. It did not rely on the network of the RSS and he did not report to Manmohan Vaidya, who was the pranpracharak at that time, the way any chief minister does on the BJP side. So, there was this resentment on the RSS side that was re-confirmed when Narendra Modi did not accept advice from Mohan Bhagwat when he was a candidate to the prime ministerial post in 2013-14.
But beyond that the kind of personalisation of power that Narendra Modi cultivates is at odds with the ethos of the RSS. That is an organisation where personalities must come second, they should merge with the organisation, not prevail. If there is a guru it’s the flag. There is no ‘vishwa’ guru incarnated in one personality. That said, it’s only when the Narendra Modi government is under attack that the RSS speaks, otherwise they have to admit that the implementations, their policy, their ideology are still very popular among young sevaks. So, it’s only when there are tensions, when there is a decline in Modi’s popularity, that the RSS speaks out. We’ll see whether they’ll speak even more now that the coalition politics of today will make the governance more complicated.
Karan Thapar: But they’ve chosen a moment when Mr Modi’s political fortunes are at their lowest that they’ve been for almost 23 years to speak out critically of him. They may not have named him but there’s no doubt that he’s the target of their comments and they’ve chosen his weakest moment to do so.
Christophe Jaffrelot: Yeah, and the question now will be is he sufficiently good at keeping the coalition together or not, and if not, who could be the alternative. The RSS organisation is waiting to come back for a long time and may pick up the person who could help this process, if need be, if the coalition falls apart.
Karan Thapar: So you think that the RSS at the back of its mind is already considering the possibility of an alternative of replacing Modi and finding someone else who can hold the coalition better together?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Well, you can’t deny that they always have a long-term view. They know how to anticipate and this is in the thought process of today.
Karan Thapar: Let me raise another feature of this campaign. The opposition made the sanctity of the constitution a major issue in this election. They claimed the BJP wanted to amend it to end reservations and that clearly embarrassed the BJP. But why wasn’t the BJP able to effectively counter this? Is it because they actually do intend to end reservations, or is it because they have other plans for the constitution which they want to keep hidden. Which of the two?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Well, you know, again, let’s look at the larger picture. The BJP and the Sangh Parivar at large have always related uneasily to caste-based reservations even before Mandal, and for two reasons. First of all this is a school of thought that has been traditionally dominated by the upper caste and when you look at the voters of BJP again this year, you see that the upper caste are dominating, and these groups have never been comfortable with the promotion of lower caste, obviously via positive discrimination. They believe in hierarchy more than inequality and secondly, of course, quota policy divides the Hindu community along caste lines.
So, to make the Hindus a vote bank is more difficult when you have what, if you remember well, The Organiser called the Sudra revolution – that was what they said during the Mandal moment in the 1990s. So, if there is a Bahujan samaj, if there is an OBC vote bank, if there is a Dalit vote bank, how can there be a Hindu vote bank, you know?
So, these are the two reasons why they have constantly resented caste-based reservations without saying it. How can you say it, how can you alienate more than 50% of the voters? So they’ve not said anything but they have started to dilute positive discrimination and they have reduced scholarship for Dalit students, they have diminished the number of posts offered via quotas by privatising PSUs to a large extent. So the number of seats are smaller and smaller and they have introduced the 10% quota for economically weaker sections which are upper caste. This government is already attacking positive discrimination policies.
Now the moment you say I’m going to do big things if I’m re-elected, the idea that they will be attacked comes first. In this constitution there are provisions for lower caste reservations. Yeah, I’m not surprised that they have had this reaction and in fact BJP has lost the Dalit vote to a large extent in Northern India on that basis, and when you look at the sociology of the MPs of India this year it’s fascinating. I’ve been doing it for 30 years and the percentage of upper cast MPs on the BJP side has remained very high. The percentage of upper caste MPs on the opposition side, Congress especially, is half. The gap has never been so big and it’s largely because caste played a big role in this election, partly because of the reservation issue.
Karan Thapar: So, when the Congress came up with this attack, that if you give Modi 400 seats, he will change the constitution and in particular he will cancel and end reservations, they actually touched upon something that, for the BJP, is like a raw nerve?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Exactly, and that’s why I say we see caste politics back at the expense of Hindutva and this is the antidote, it is the solvent, and it’s something BJP doesn’t like at all.
Karan Thapar: Let’s look, Professor Jaffrelot, briefly, at some of the key election results. I’ll go through the principal states one by one. The BJP was hoping to increase its seats in UP from 62 to somewhere over 70. Instead it lost 29 and it ended up with just 33. It also lost 11 seats in Rajasthan, five in Haryana, three in Jharkhand, and all of these, as you know, are critical Hindi heartland states which it considers its stronghold so what went wrong for the BJP in the Hindi heartland?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Well, I think there are three factors that need to be combined. Haryana, West Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan were part of the farmers movement and the BJP has lost the Jat vote this time for this reason, and the Jats in these parts of North India play a big role, so that’s one, Farmers movements, and I would say ‘movements’ because after the big movement against the farmers laws, there were other movements completely under reported in the mainstream media, but of course very much there. Secondly, you have, as I’ve said already, across India a kind of anti-incumbency feeling, vis a vis, state governments. I say state governments because as Yogendra Yadav said recently, you have to look at the situation at the state level. Sometimes the resentment goes against the state government and it’s not necessarily a BJP government. So, you have the anti-establishment reflex, the anti-incumbency reflex that works against BJP, at the centre, in the BJP ruled states, but also in Odisha for instance, and sometimes in other states. And last but not least, this discusses variables we need to return to in North India especially in UP. It was one of the reasons why the BJP lost Dalit votes as we just said.
But I would not explain the situation in North India the way you’ve done, by looking at the vote again. There, the opposition did a great job, they set up the agenda for the first time, I would say, in 10 years. By promoting the Constitution, by asking for a caste census, they have taken initiatives which have destabilised the BJP to some extent. Secondly, they chose their candidates in a very sophisticated manner, you know. In fact they have beaten the BJP at its own game especially in Uttar Pradesh.
In Uttar Pradesh, dominant OBCs, including Yadavs have provoked the resentment of other OBCs for a long time and BJP could tap this source of vote, promoting smaller OBC jatis. This time the Samajwadi Party was clever enough not to give too many tickets to Yadavs but to smaller OBC groups and get their votes as well. That’s what I would consider as beating the BJP as its own game. And last but not the least, in the states you’ve just mentioned, where the opposition did so well, you’ve had a kind of counter polarisation. You know the coalition of India benefited from a massive Muslim support, 92% of Muslims supported Samajwadi Party and Congress in Uttar Pradesh. 92% of about 1/5 of the voters and the turnout was the same in other places including West Bengal. So, you have counter-polarisation that helps. So yes, it’s a vote partly against what BJP-ruled states and the BJP government had done over the last five years, but it’s also a vote for an alternative that has now crystallised with an agenda.
Karan Thapar: Let me pick up on this intriguing thought that there was also a vote for the opposition. I ask you if that explains the outcome in a state like West Bengal, the BJP was hoping, claiming in fact, that it would do much better but it crashed and did extremely poorly. Instead of increasing its tally the BJP lost six seats. Mamata on the other hand increased hers by seven. Is this a clear sign that when there was this sharp divide between the Trinamool Congress and the BJP, this was a vote for Trinamool, it was a vote for Mamata, not just a vote that was not interested in BJP?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Certainly. I’m not an expert in West Bengal politics, but I would just add a couple of factors there because I think that in addition to what you say, there is certainly a difficulty on Modi’s BJP side to understand the strength of sub-nationalism, and in that particular case, Bengali sub-nationalism. This is where Modi’s BJP misses the adaptability, the flexibility of Vajpayee’s BJP. The craze for centralisation, for uniformity at the expense of federalism, at the expense of the original diversity of India, that was reflected in the motto ‘one nation, one election’, ‘one nation, one language’, and so on, and so forth. I think that played a role also, especially in places like West Bengal where you have a sense of identity that is very strong. But in the case of West Bengal again, a state where you have such a large number of Muslim voters, 73% of the Muslims voted for the Trinamool. It’s a huge support base. So counter polarisation in states where Muslims are more than 1/4th has also benefited the non-BJP parties.
Karan Thapar: Now one more state, Professor Jaffrelot, where the BJP suffered badly is Maharashtra. It had 23 seats but it’s left with just nine. If you include its allies, it’s got 18. The INDIA bloc, 129. Is this a message from Maharashtra that Modi’s treatment of Shiv Sena and the NCP was unacceptable and could he now face a second problem when the assembly elections are held in a couple of months’ time?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Yeah, well again a little bit like West Bengal, Maharashtra has a strong personality and a strong sub-nationalism and this identity was embodied by the Shiv Sena. I mean the Shiv Sena could claim that it embodied this identity since the 60s at least. So in Mumbai for sure, where the Uddhav faction could win a substantial number of seats, the Uddhav faction of Shiv Sena has appeared as the embodiment of the true Shiv Sena. The Shinde faction could be seen more as traitors by many voters, at least in Mumbai. But in addition to that, again, the larger picture is the unity of the opposition in a first-past-the-post electoral system. The moment you have four substantially important groups having a seat adjustment, the BJP has a problem, even with this Shinde faction with it. This is the main lesson of these elections. You know, across the globe, you have opposition parties gradually joining hands, closing ranks vis-à-vis the strongman. It happened in Poland, it happened in Turkey, it happened in Hungary, and when they join hands, they make a big difference. I think Maharashtra is a reconfirmation of that as well.
Karan Thapar: There are, of course, areas where the BJP did remarkably well. The first is Odisha. Not only has it denied Naveen Patnaik even one seat in the Lok Sabha, it’s also ended his 24-year-long tenure as Chief Minister. In fact, he even lost one of the two seats he was contesting himself at the state level. What do you think worked for the BJP? Was it just anti-incumbency and the desire for change? Was it the attack on Patnaik’s age and health, or was it the focus on stirring the roots of Odisha glory, Odisha asmita, Odisha pride?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Yeah, well, again, I’m not an expert in Odisha politics, but I think that it fits well in the reading of these elections that relies on the anti-incumbency factor that works at the state level in that particular case. That works at the national level in some other cases. So, these elections are better understood if we look at it at the state level. Because we, in contrast to what we saw in 2019, when the Pulwama-Balakot moment created a national agenda, this time we saw as many elections as there are states, almost. And in the case of Odisha, yes, most probably, after almost one quarter of a century of Naveen at the helm, there was a desire for change. So, in the context of Odisha, I would say anti-incumbency worked in favour of the BJP.
Karan Thapar: The other area where the BJP has done far better than most people thought it would is South India. Not only has it won seats in Kerala, Telangana, Andhra, and Karnataka, but perhaps more importantly, its vote share has gone up significantly in Tamil Nadu, in Kerala, and Telangana. Is this a sign that the doors of South India are beginning to open for the BJP, or perhaps have already opened?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Well, the doors of the South had already opened, but certainly, they have opened more. And this is something we need to emphasise, BJP has become a truly national party this time with these inroads in the South and in the East. We can’t say any more that it’s a meta-regional party, it’s clearly a national party for that reason. But again, this achievement has something to do with the anti-incumbency and anti-establishment approach of voters because they voted for BJP against the state governments to some extent, none of them being ruled by BJP. None of these states had been ruled by BJP when elections took place. Now, to do more in the South, BJP will have to dilute its North Indian, ‘upper’ caste, Hindi-oriented identity, and that will be quite challenging. You know, this is where the vernacularisation of Hindutva is not so easy, and religion cannot be enough. This is the problem.
Karan Thapar: Are you suggesting that steps and measures the BJP takes to spread further in the South will end up diluting the identity that has won it support and so many votes in the North? In other words, is it a real Faustian choice that they face?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Exactly, a dilemma. If you dilute more, you lose your appeal to the North Indian voters, and you create space for more radical Hindutva people. If you do not dilute enough, you’re not understood, you’re not heard in the South. There is one more factor: the South is tired of paying for the North. There is a tax issue there, and this issue is even much more significant when federalism is not observed. You know, the fact that chief ministers had not been consulted before demonetisation, before the lockdown…for Southern states, which are already taken for granted and which are already seen as subsidising the North, this is even more unacceptable. So, yes, the South is now more, I would say BJP-oriented, but for it to go one step further will be very difficult, except in Karnataka probably.
Karan Thapar: So could you put it like this: the doors of the South may have opened further than they ever have before, but the BJP will be very concerned about what would happen to the BJP if it walks deep into the room? The BJP itself could become a different party inside the South, and that may not be welcome to the party.
Christophe Jaffrelot: You know, this is a dilemma that Jan Sangh had to face from day one. Either you are true to your identity, and therefore your cadres are happy, RSS is happy, or you expand. But to expand, you need friends, you need partners, you need to be more multicultural, you need to be less centralising in your attitude. And for some time, this dilemma was surmounted because of this Hindutva wave, because of Narendra Modi. Now we may be back to the situation that was there before, and BJP will probably have to reinvent itself if it wants to really take root in places where it had so few supporters, especially in the South.
Karan Thapar: Let’s look to the future, and let’s look at the future in terms, firstly, if not primarily, in terms of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, because he still is by far the most important person in government and in the BJP. For 10 years as Prime Minister and 12 as chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi has had an absolute majority. He could do what he wanted, and he usually did. Now he has to run a coalition government, which means he has to keep his allies happy and content, and that means he has to accept their conditions and often give in to their demands. Temperamentally and psychologically, is he capable of becoming the head of a coalition? And when you answer that, tell me what sort of a start do you think he’s made with the cabinet he’s appointed?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Well, as I said, the loss of its majority by BJP is a setback for Narendra Modi, precisely because he will have to make concessions now, something he has almost never met. You know, the only few concessions we can see over the last 20 years have been regarding the farmers’ laws. I can’t see any other significant concessions. So, he’s not used to making compromises, and coalition politics implies compromises, implies give and take. Nitish Kumar and Naidu will ask things for their states, at least a special status, for instance. And if they shift to the India coalition along with other state bodies, they may make the Modi government fall, and a new PM would have to be appointed. So, the stakes are very high. Narendra Modi will not let go easily; there is so much at stake.
So, this is really the question. Will he be able to learn quickly how to adjust to coalition politics when he has never? You know, not only has he never had to deal with partners, but within the BJP itself, he has never accommodated dissenters. You know, remember what happened in Gujarat with Keshubhai Patel, with Sanjay Joshi, with Vaghela, who finally left. Remember what happened with L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Arun Shourie, and many others. It’s not only a question of dealing with partners; it’s a question of dealing with dissent, with diversity, with a theological brand of politics. So, this is the acid test. If he cannot keep a coalition together, should another BJP leader take over from him and do the job? This is the terms of the debate for me.
Karan Thapar: And I take it this is something that is in the minds of the RSS. We mentioned the RSS and the possibility that they will be at the back of their minds thinking about alternatives. This is one good reason why they will be doing that?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Yeah, in the past, they had, for instance, promoted Gadkari as an alternative to the Modi-Shah duo. As you may remember, in 2014, Nagpur was not in favour of Amit Shah becoming BJP president, but they had to accept this. So yes, they have names, they have alternatives to promote.
Karan Thapar: Now, for 20 years or more, Narendra Modi has littered his speeches with anti-Muslim rhetoric. From “baby-producing factories” in 2002 through to calling Muslims infiltrators in April this year and claiming that they will snatch reservations meant for Hindus. Clearly, this sort of language will not be acceptable to TDP and JDU. Nara Lokesh, who is now the Human Resource Development minister in Andhra, has made it clear that TDP has no intention of scrapping reservations for Muslims in Andhra Pradesh. But today, can Modi change his anti-Muslim language and rhetoric, or has it become second nature to him?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Yeah, this is the same question from a different angle, but from an angle that is an interesting one. The question is, can Modi be pragmatic in terms of ideology? He may, because he is a politician and he needs to stay in office for many reasons. But he may find dilution of the ideology of Hindutva risky because if he becomes more moderate, he may open some space on his right for leaders who may claim that he’s betraying the Hindutva agenda and that they are the true proponents of this agenda. Now, Yogi Adityanath may well seize this opportunity, and in a way, he would do what Modi did vis-à-vis Advani. Advani being seen as too moderate, in 2013-2014, Modi made a promise: I will continue with the original Hindutva motto. In the case of Yogi Adityanath, this is all the more likely as he doesn’t belong to the Sangh Parivar. He belongs to another school of thought. Swami Avedyanath, his mentor, came from the Hindu Mahasabha, and that’s giving him more autonomy vis-à-vis the Sangh Parivar. So yes, dilution of the Hindutva ideology by Modi is necessary because of the compulsions of coalition politics, but to some extent, only to a small extent, probably. Not only because of his personal inclinations but because he may be careful not to open some space on his right.
Karan Thapar: Let me ask you that same question a third, different way. Do you think there will be a change in Modi’s attitude to institutions like Parliament, the judiciary, the media? As you know, he’s often ignored Parliament. He’s held up judicial appointments. He’s been dismissive of the media. But now that he’s a weaker Prime Minister, or now that he needs to be a different sort of leader who needs a more consensual approach, do you think his attitude to these institutions will change? And at the same time, maybe I should ask, will his tolerance of criticism and dissent from the media, from the opposition, increase? Will his use or misuse of the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate diminish? I’m putting it all as a package to you. Will we see changes here as well?
Christophe Jaffrelot: This is the key question. Will Modi treat the institutions of the Indian Republic and the media differently? So far, we’ve not seen any change, but it’s very early days to make an assessment here. But I’d like to reverse the question: will these institutions and the media change their attitude? No, the ball is in their court. They fell in line when the PM was strong, and they’ve made him stronger by behaving that way. Now they can regain some room for maneuver; they may regain some spine. But will they? What about the future conduct of the bureaucracy, including the Election Commission? What about the future conduct of the judiciary, including the Supreme Court? What about the conduct of the media, including… Well, the list of the godi media is too long; I will not start that. But you see, during the Emergency, the media were asked to bend, and they crawled. You know, if self-censorship is going to continue in the new context just to be on the right side, or will the godi media change? Well, for another reason probably, simply not to lose the customers to the online media and to the YouTube channels. Something that I find really interesting today is, well, you go by the wind, you follow the opinion, the public opinion, and the public opinion has voted not only at the time of the election but at the time of watching the media. So, it’s not because the government is weaker; it’s because the people are stronger that things may change, which is, by the way, something we saw in Pakistan as well.
Karan Thapar: But you’re also saying, aren’t you, that the hope for change depends not just on how Modi behaves? It depends equally, if not more, on how people in the institutions behave. And in particular, if you take the media as an example, it depends upon the capacity of the media to stand up for itself. You said the ball is in their court. It now depends upon whether they hit it over the net and back, or whether they hit it into the net.
Christophe Jaffrelot: Yeah, and they may do it because of their own values, but they may also do it because if they want to remain relevant, if they want to retain viewers, they will have also to admit that people are not interested in what they say and what they show if they don’t change.
Karan Thapar: What about the enormous personality cult that surrounds Narendra Modi, and which he enhanced very considerably by claiming that he’s of non-biological birth and that he was sent by God to do God’s work? One aspect of this is the very centralized Prime Minister’s Office that he’s created. Can all of that – the personality cult, the centralised control of the government – continue under a coalition government, or will the allies here at least stand up and say, “No, this is not acceptable because you’re trespassing upon our power”?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Well, it’s very early days to make an assessment here, but at least we can define the terms of the debate. If the Modi government needs only two to three state parties, they can keep them happy by making concessions. You know, you give a special status to Andhra to bear, and you have a transactional kind of federalism at work. That may keep these people happy, but the moment the centre is further weakened, the moment BJP is further weakened, the balance of power shifts, and the partners ask for more and more because the Centre needs them more and more. In this scenario, the state elections will play a very important role. The two state elections which are coming in September – Maharashtra in the first place and Haryana also – will play a big role. What if the BJP loses? What if the BJP and the Shinde faction lose Maharashtra? What if the BJP loses Haryana? Then, inevitably, the terms of the debate will change.
More generally speaking, the assessment of the government’s performance on the economic front and on the social front, will matter more and more. The popularity of the Modi regime will inevitably be affected by joblessness, inflation, and the weaker and weaker currency that is the rupee. You can’t continue to rule in an authoritarian way. You need to give more, at least to your partners.
Karan Thapar: And I take it that if the BJP were to lose Bihar next year, the process you’re talking about would be enhanced and expedited both.
Christophe Jaffrelot: Now, state politics is back, caste politics and state politics are back. They were never out completely for sure, but they are back in a big way and they go together.
Karan Thapar: In which case, can Narendra Modi depend upon his allies to push through controversial issues like the Uniform Civil Code, One Nation One Election, and perhaps most importantly, the delimitation exercise due in 2026? Can he push these through, or is he going to have to slowly but steadily back away from things he’s been saying about them?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Well, the UCC has been one of the three core issues, one of the three core objectives of the BJP in the 1980s. Remember, along with Article 370 and the building of the Ram Mandir, already in the 1990s, these three issues had been put on the back burner by Vajpayee because of the coalition partners. But they had been identified as the three things this party should achieve one day. Now only the UCC is left as one of the key objectives that has not been reached. It’s a complicated enterprise, but it can be presented as a key instrument to make India more homogeneous and united, to consolidate the Hindu vote bank against the minorities. Beyond that, the BJP may well try to kill two birds with one stone there. If you look at Uttarakhand’s UCC, you see that the idea there is to promote Hindu traditions regarding gender relations and the patriarchal ethos as well. It’s not only against minorities, it’s also against liberals because from this point of view, from their point of view, liberals are too permissive and are destroying traditions. So I would not be surprised if the UCC remained on the agenda, on the list of priorities.
Now, re-delimitation is a different story because that would make the South very uneasy. If you want to make inroads in the South, to alienate the South would be certainly counterproductive because that would really give so many more seats to the North compared to the South. The South would be almost redundant in the Lok Sabha. So that one may be more difficult to implement. Let’s see.
Karan Thapar: And what about One Nation One Vote?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Well, that’s gone, to my mind. As I said, state politics have staged a comeback in such a big way. It was already very unrealistic in practical terms. Now it may be not so realistic in the era of coalitions when states want to have their own autonomy. What is the idea of One Nation One Vote? The leader over determines the results of the state elections. State leaders don’t want the results of state elections overdetermined by a man in Delhi. So why should they support a reform of that kind?
Well, as Rahul Gandhi says, India is a union of states. But this is not what Modi says; it’s what the Constitution says, and this is a reality that is resurfacing more the moment Narendra Modi’s popularity gets eroded.
Karan Thapar: We’re coming right to the end of this interview, Christophe Jaffrelot. Let me put to you a question that in many multiple ways you have addressed in all your answers running through, but now I’ll put it to you directly. So much of the future of the third Modi government hinges on Mr. Modi’s capacity to change from old Mr. Modi to new Mr. Modi, or to put it differently, to modify himself. What will be the future of the government that was sworn in on Sunday if he can’t make that change effectively?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Yes, well, first of all, we must remember that in the past, when partners of the BJP withdrew their support, the government fell. It happened to the first Vajpayee government in 1998, and it may happen again. This is not science fiction; it’s really something that even the strongest Prime Minister of India cannot rule out. But before letting the opposition take over power, the BJP and the RSS may try to invest in another PM again if Narendra Modi is not able to keep a coalition together. That’s something that remains to be seen. If this is the case, BJP leaders and RSS leaders will probably look for someone with Mr. Vajpayee’s qualities who has developed diplomatic skills to relate to others in a non-vertical manner, with peers on a par. This is key to a coalition: respect, mutual respect. There are people, in spite of the fact that the second line of leadership has been badly affected by the dominant style of governance on the BJP side, there are people. There are state leaders; there are ministers. I’ve mentioned Gadkari before because he certainly is one of those who have the qualities, probably, and who has the support of Nagpur in particular. So, it means that these elections over the coming years will not necessarily result in one party government only and will not necessarily result in any shift from one side to the other. There might be another BJP member prime minister in the coming five years.
Karan Thapar: So far, and I’m coming to my last question, so far, Christophe Jaffrelot, we’ve talked about how circumstances will impact upon Narendra Modi. Let me ask you a question about how he might himself personally respond. Do you see him serving or wanting to serve the full five years of his third term? Is it at all possible that if the challenge goes against the grain of his character and his style, he might choose to opt out and become President when President Murmu’s term ends in two and a half, three years’ time?
Christophe Jaffrelot: Well, we are speculating here, but it’s an interesting speculation. Narendra Modi wanted to beat Nehru’s record as PM. But is it in terms of the number of elections won or in terms of the number of years in office that he wanted to beat Nehru’s record? If it is the latter, Nehru governed for 17 years, so a fourth term might have to be won. But according to these circumstances, he may choose one interpretation over the other and play it safe if need be. In that case, the scenario you mention of Narendra Modi becoming President of India is certainly a realistic one. But it will depend on the state election results, the public opinion’s views, and that’s why the coming months and years will be so interesting. The cycle will end; a new chapter will be opened, most probably. But along what lines, under which conditions, this is the kind of work we are going to do.
Karan Thapar: Christophe Jaffrelot, I thank you for an engrossing explanation of the campaign, the outcome of the results, and how you see the future, particularly in terms of the behaviour of the Prime Minister. Thank you very much for the time you made available to me. Take care, stay safe.
Christophe Jaffrelot: Thank you, stay safe too.
