From Change in Dalit Politics to Resurgence of the Coalition Era: Ten Takeaways from 2024 LS Polls

If 1977 was a watershed in Indian politics, so is the 2024 election, although they hugely differ in scale.  While the Indian voters prodigiously rejected the theory that India is Indira and Indira is India in 1977, in 2024 the Indian voters have levelheadedly overruled the theory that (Narendra) ‘Modi magic’ can result in a landslide victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Prior to the election, nobody in the BJP talked much about the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), all talk was of the BJP. Post-2024, the BJP is being synonymised with the NDA. The King is dead; long live the King.  

Here are our ten takeaways from the election:

One, Rahul Gandhi is the Man of the Match. With every passing he would be more relevant as the Leader of Opposition (LoP).  He can no more be tossed around as it happened earlier. His tenacity to challenge such monoliths as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), crony capital, and the ‘godi’ (lapdog) media, have ensured that he will play a longer innings. His Rae Bareli victory is not the point, the point is that he has created an anti-Modi wave by demonstrating that communal hatred, the mascot of Modi politics, can be held by the horns.  His slogan, “open the shop of love in the bazaar of hatred,” have indeed worked.

Two, the electrifying effect of the Rahul sensation has not only charged the poorer Hindus, it also energised the Muslims to stand up against their own communally minded leaders.  The massive victory of the Congress leader Rabikul Hussain in Dhubri (Assam) over the most visible face of Assam’s Muslim politics, Badruddin Ajmal, by a record margin of 10.12 lakh votes is a huge political statement. Hussain alleged that Ajmal, who had won the seat in 2009, 2014 and 2019 was actually a proxy of the Assam chief minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, a fire-eating Hindutva rabble rouser

Three, the Dalit politics will see a churn. A new leadership is poised to replace Mayawati, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) matriarch.  There were widespread rumours that she was hobnobbing with the BJP and spoiled the chances of the INDIA bloc in several seats by participating in them to split the anti-BJP votes.  The emerging Dalit face is that of Chandrasekhar Azad ‘Ravan’. In a four-cornered contest in Nagina (Uttar Pradesh), an SC-reserved constituency, he trounced the BJP, Samajwadi Party (SP), and the BSP.  His 5,12,552 votes surpassed the combined total votes of BJP (3,61,079), SP (1,02,374), and BSP (13,272).

Also read: Interview | People, Not Opposition, Fought Election Against BJP: Chandra Shekhar Aazad

Four, the Modi credo of ‘one nation, one election’ sounds anachronistic post 2024. All coalition governments underwrite the inevitability of divergent electoral messaging from the constituent units. To survive as the leader of the NDA coalition Modi will have to now depend on several smaller parties, particularly the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) of Andhra Pradesh and the Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)) of Bihar. These parties will prevent the BJP from fiddling with the notion of federalism, ‘cooperative federalism’ included.  The Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan will seldom be audible now. 

Five, the secular thrust of the INDIA bloc has been so massive that even in the Faizabad constituency, which included the temple town of Ayodhya, the BJP was defeated by the Samajwadi Party candidate, Awadhesh Prasad. Prasad belongs to the Pasi community, a Scheduled Caste, though his constituency is a general category seat.  His victory made a far-reaching political statement for one would recall that one of the slogans that his supporters chanted was: “Na Mathura na Kashi, abki bar Awadesh Pasi (neither Mathura nor Kashi, this time it is Awadhesh Pasi)”. Challenging Hindutva in the name of a Dalit is no joke, that too in Uttar Pradesh.

Six, the reputation of exit polls will be ever suspect hereafter. This would reestablish the efficacy of old style electoral forecasting, the type which Yogendra Yadav took to every home through his polite yet authoritative analysis. Yadav did not rely upon his psephological training, but rather on discussions and informal chats with ordinary people whether in the teashops or while taking bus rides with them. Theoretically speaking, one may find in this the effectiveness of participant observation, an established methodology in the field of social anthropology.

Seven, it is the political economy, stupid. As Professor Arun Kumar and other economists have argued, India’s growth story, particularly during the Modi years, is grossly misleading for it only takes into account the organised sector while neglecting the unorganised sector which accounts for about 95% of the jobs.  This contradiction — between a crony capital infused growth and the devastation of the unorganised sector — will be in full play during the Modi 3.0.

Eight, in the demolition of the Modi magic the role played by the social media cannot be overstated. In the teeth of an orchestrated challenge thrown up by the godi media, which specialised in creating fake pro-Modi content, and by the state machinery, which consistently put up technical and legal hurdles to free and fair reporting, it is the YouTube media that stood up like a rock to supply the public with the truth.  Even the fact-check and explanatory video-maker Dhruv Rathee’s dogged determination to reach 100 crore Indians through WhatsApp forwards so as to sensitise them about what was democratically at stake and make them vow to oust Modi’s ‘dictatorship’ was a game changer.

Also read: From Underdog to Unstoppable: Time for Rahul Gandhi to Become the Opposition Leader of All Indians

Nine, during the campaign, particularly through his scores of blitzkrieg interviews given to select media channels, Modi’s hubris was dramatically exposed.  According to Modi’s biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, his hubris was writ large in his beliefs. In a recent Karan Thapar interview, Mukhopadhyay clarified that Modi’s non-biological/divinity claim was a long-held faith. Even in the nineties, psychologist Ashis Nandy through his interview of Modi, who was yet to become the Gujarat chief minister, had diagnosed him as a ‘textbook fascist’.  If one goes through Modi’s incendiary anti-Muslim statements during the campaign one would reconfirm his hubris had Islamophobic roots. 

Ten, the uneasy relationship between Modi and the RSS may surface now with more regularity. The first shot was fired by the BJP president, J.P. Nadda when he said on May 22, 2024 that the BJP was no longer dependent on the RSS to which Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS supremo, retaliated on June 10, 2024 by advising Modi to behave himself though without mentioning his name. His particular reference to the unending civil war in Manipur was a clear indictment of the Modi government. But, given our long experience of the RSS-BJP bonhomie we should not take this disagreement seriously. Is it not surprising that Bhagwat did not find time to shed his tears over Manipur all these fourteen months when the state was bleeding?

To conclude, the 2024 election may not have overturned Indian politics, but it has nonetheless provided a welcome jolt.  It was unprecedented that 146 MPs were expelled from the parliament on flimsy grounds during the Modi 2.0. This may not happen anymore but the Opposition would have to be on the vigil.  The spectre of the use of big money is ever present and it may be put to all kinds of dirty use.  The way the Indian stock market took a roller coaster ride on the eve of the election results is too fresh in our memory to make us relax in a fool’s paradise.

Partha S. Ghosh is a retired professor of JNU.