by AMIT CHAUDHURI
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (left) with Amit Shah, president of the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party PHOTO/Janta ka Reporter
In November I had to cancel the teaching I was doing in Norwich to return to Calcutta to visit my mother, who is elderly and ailing. On the 8th, I didn’t pay much attention to the fact that this was the morning on which the results of the Bihar assembly elections were being declared. Maybe I took for granted that the BJP – which had made it clear that these elections were to be an endorsement of its record during its 18-month rule – would win as expected. But two things had happened to shake that certainty: the turnout, more than 56 per cent, was the highest in Bihar in 15 years; and a major news channel, CNN IBN, had released an exit poll predicting that the BJP would lose. The poll was discussed twice on air, but then – mysteriously – not mentioned again. There was a rumour that Mukesh Ambani, the Bombay industrialist who acquired CNN IBN three years ago, and is a major funder of the BJP, had personally made sure that it was quietly dropped. The company that produced the poll was a newcomer. Its principal achievement so far had been to predict, early this year, the outcome of the Delhi assembly elections, which the BJP unaccountably lost. All the other channels announced exit polls that either had the BJP winning outright, or suggested a close result.
Late in the morning the vegetable-seller who comes to our flat with his basket every day said: ‘BJP haar raha hain’ (‘The BJP is losing’). He is Bihari and Muslim, and had a reason for keeping track. But I didn’t rush to turn on the TV so it wasn’t until five o’clock, when a tabla player arrived to help my daughter with her vocal practice, that I heard it confirmed: ‘BJP heré gechhe’ (‘The BJP has lost’). Although the tabla player, like the vegetable-seller, is a Muslim, I don’t think that either of them is a staunch opponent of the BJP. Besides, the BJP has a few vociferous Muslim members, and intermittently makes half-hearted gestures of inclusiveness towards the Muslim vote-bank. But after Narendra Modi and his terrifying henchman Amit Shah’s divisive campaign, it perhaps wasn’t really surprising that all of us (none of us loyal to any particular political party) found ourselves celebrating the result along with countless others. In the event, the BJP and its allies won only 58 seats in the assembly, 37 fewer than in the last election. The ‘great alliance’ or mahagathbandhan – between the buffoonishly eloquent low-caste leader Lalu Yadav and the dynamic former chief minister Nitish Kumar – had won 178.
Nobody seemed able fully to explain this unexpected reversal. Some TV commentators attributed the BJP’s defeat to its neglect of economic realities. ‘Har har Modi’ had been the celebratory chant in Bihar, echoing, perhaps, the battle cry of the Maratha warriors who’d fought Muslim kings while invoking Shiva: ‘Har har Mahadev.’ Lately, however, it had become ‘Arhar Modi.’ ‘Arhar’ is a pulse used to make daal and its price has risen sharply. Others blamed Modi for abandoning development in favour of religion. Others decided that caste politics had, as they usually do in Bihar, decided the outcome. The result probably owed something to all of these factors. But the real euphoria felt by various, often apolitical people at the news originated, I think, in the sense that there is an urgent need for the BJP to be contained. India always had, and still has, a huge amount going for it; the reason I live here has to do with more than my mother’s health. For me, in many ways, India is the most exciting and stimulating country to be in. But the BJP, despite its plans for and adjustments to the economy, its avowed ambitions for its future, seems to be bad for whatever it is that makes this country so attractive. I don’t mean some cosy idea of multiculturalism and human togetherness. Opportunistic secularism may have run out of steam, but if the BJP thinks it knows what to replace it with, it’s mistaken. For the first time since Independence, India feels unliveable in, not just for minorities under assault but for large swathes of the population.
The BJP is a deeply polarising party. Since the 1970s Indian politics have been cynically conciliatory. The successful mahagathbandhan of the Bihar elections was a good example of this: a literal embrace between two politicians, Yadav and Kumar, who until recently couldn’t abide each other. In the 1980s political allegiances were so driven by opportunism that rules had to be introduced to curb mass party defections. The BJP itself has benefited from strategic and cynical alliances in its journey from minor player to ruling party. But political discussions in India today are far less smugly performative – disagreement being a sort of performance between rivals who might at any moment become friends – than they have been in the past, and more tense, because the BJP thrives (as does any right-wing group) on division. The BJP polarises not only Hindus and Muslims (and Christians, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists): it polarises Hindus.
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(Thanks to Mukul Dube)