By Rashmi Guha Ray*
In 2024 Narendra Modi completed 10 years as the Prime Minister of India. It was also the year he returned for a historic third term, albeit with much humbler margins. Scholars and analysts regard the results of the general elections in India, declared on 4 June, as both hopeful and concerning depending on which end of the ideological spectrum they situate themselves on. The outcome has been hailed by many as a brake to the steadily backsliding democracy, a sign of hope that a functional opposition would now bring back healthy parliamentary politics. What made the BJP so heavily dependent on its allies in their third term? Has the enchantment with right wing populist discourses started to wane or was it a singular phenomenon aided by incumbent factors? The consequent state-level elections and their mixed results tell us that the political reality is much more complex than that.
Pre-poll analysis and opinion polls had predicted Narendra Modi would win a historic third term with record number of votes, while the Prime Minister himself claimed that his party-led alliance would cross the 400 mark out of the 543 seats in the lower house or Lok Sabha of the Parliament. In a hard-fought election campaign fraught with hate speech and disinformation, Modi and his supporters launched a scathing attack on the minorities, especially the Muslims, making it apparent that the party and the new government were ready to take a giant step towards Hindu Rashtra, confident that the politics of polarisation would propel them to unprecedented electoral majority.
Did the Ram Mandir backfire?
That Modi-led BJP returned to power was no surprise, but what appears as a political upset is the BJP’s failure to cross the majority mark of 272, having secured 240 seats and depending on alliance partners for the first time since 2014 to form the government. A country that has been raising attention for its democratic backsliding, with the VDem 2024 report calling it one of the worst autocratising states, this reversal of trend has been interpreted by many as a halt to this backslide and another chance to save the democratic infrastructure. BJP’s biggest defeat and the most personally significant for Modi was in Uttar Pradesh, a state regarded as the Hindutva Heartland, which relegated the party to the second position.
Modi’s biggest election trump card was the inauguration of the controversial and much-debated/awaited Ram Mandir (Temple) in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, on the site of the erstwhile Babri Masjid (mosque). Since the demolition of this 16th century mosque in 1992 and the violence that took place at its wake, the issue has been a hotbed of political contention in the country, with Hindutva activists clamouring for the return of Lord Ram to his rightful place of birth. Modi wanted to emerge as the messiah of the Hindus who finally fulfilled their hearts’ one desire. He inaugurated the temple earlier this year on 22 January in the hope of leveraging widespread support. However, the tables turned when the BJP candidate lost in the Faizabad constituency that Ayodhya is part of. The temple was the dream of local residents who hoped for development and economic boom surrounding the new site of pilgrimage, but they were in for a rude shock as the construction accompanied widespread land acquisition and bulldozing of shops and houses, robbing them of their roof and livelihood. Those affected are still struggling to make ends meet and negligible compensation by the state has further augmented their woes.
The BJP had perhaps been overconfident that, in the last decade, they had managed to create a unified idea of the Hindu by pitting them against the constructed idea of an ‘infiltrator’ minority that constantly burst at the seams to eventually claim majority status. However, the party not only sacrificed development issues, but also did not take into consideration, factors such as the ire of the local priests who felt they were being overlooked in favour of outsiders, or the various Hindu religious heads who were irked because they felt that this rushed inauguration had more to do with politics than faith. Faizabad’s sizeable Muslim population, wary of the incessant verbal attacks during campaigns, voted unanimously against the ruling party, further deepening the electoral divide.
Is caste the missing piece of the puzzle?
The friction to India’s smooth wheels of the authoritarian oneness has always been caste and diverse linguistic/cultural identities. Despite incessant attempts to appropriate the Dalit and tribal identities and bring them into the fold of a unified Greater Hindu identity, locality and caste, as Arjun Appadurai says, are eternal in the larger scheme of electoral politics, with caste operating everywhere in microecosystems independent of the central apparatus. The Hindutva project of obliteration of caste and ethnic identity and imposition of a blanket religious façade fell short, as the marginalised castes began to feel uncomfortable about the BJP claiming that they would reassess and modify the Constitution. Since its adoption in 1950, this very Constitution has been the sole source of ‘scheduled caste’ (the official term for underprivileged castes in the Constitution) empowerment through the quota system in higher education institutions and government services in a bid to ensure equity and end generational caste-based discrimination. This made it easy for the opposition to convince them that their rights were indeed in peril and they brought back caste into the forefront of identity politics especially in northern states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Rajasthan. In fact, the chosen candidate from Faizabad Awadhesh Prasad is a Dalit leader, working at the grassroots with the underprivileged people of his community. After a decade of unhindered rise of Modi on the back of Hindutva splattered with neoliberal development, the 2024 elections have made it clear that caste still dominates politics and popular imagination.
Legislative Elections and the mixed messages
- Haryana and Kashmir
Within four months of local elections, the state of Haryana that has been making its dissent against the BJP known since the Farmers Protests of 2020-21 and Jammu & Kashmir whose statehood was snatched away in 2019 in a bid to end more than 70 years of conflict, went into polls. Interestingly, in Haryana the opinion polls were heavily in favour of the Congress but the BJP pulled a surprising victory, retaining its power in the state. Analysts argue that the Congress’ reliance on Jat voters, a predominantly farming caste who wield a lot of power in Haryana, ended up backfiring as it alienated the other castes, who shifted allegiance to the BJP, yet again proving that caste goes a long way in kingmaking in India. A survey pointed out that while 53% of the Jats were in favour of the Congress, other castes be it Brahmins or OBCs (designated ‘Other Backward Castes’ in the Indian Constitution) were strategically targeted by the BJP and it was successful. While caste may have caused a hindrance for the ruling party in the General Elections, in Haryana it aided their victory amidst burgeoning opposition.
Jammu and Kashmir, on the contrary, gave a decisive majority to the Congress-National Conference alliance and the BJP’s strategy to consolidate Scheduled Tribes’ votes failed to materialise. The Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir remains under constant military surveillance because of Pakistan claiming its authority over the region, but since 2019 repression has increased manifolds in the valley with internet being banned, travelling restricted, curfews imposed, leaders incarcerated, and activists and journalists arrested under sedition laws like the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. By breaking up the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir into the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and another of Ladakh, the Modi government had aimed to crack down on the separatist movement in the Muslim-majority state as well as isolate the Muslims from the predominantly Hindu regions of Jammu and Ladakh. Under the new legislative delimitation, Jammu has 43 seats and Kashmir (the Muslim majority region) 47. However, despite popular beliefs, there is a sizable Muslim presence in Jammu as well, a demographic group that would never be BJP’s voter base. The National Conference and the Congress’ promise to restore statehood also seemed to have touched a chord with the voters of the region.
2. Maharashtra and Jharkhand
The sweeping victory of the BJP-led alliance in the state elections of Maharashtra came as a huge surprise, less than six months after the general elections when the Congress-led alliance won the state fair and square. Of the many factors leading to this tectonic shift was the introduction of several welfare schemes, especially those targeting female voters, or as they say ‘ladki bahin’ (daughter, sister), a tactic that has been working brilliantly so far for Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal. Decisive to their victory was the gain over Marathwada region, where an effective message campaign in favour of a united Maharashtra while at the same time supporting a Maratha reservation to stir ethnic sentiments and consolidate groups from ‘Other Backwards Castes’ category. Many experts feel that this election has shown that Brand Modi still works its magic even at the state level and the Congress’s attempts to garner community and caste based support through mobilisation of Muslims and Dalits have lost out to the hegemonic domination of the Hindutva ideology. This might come as a rather generalising statement, one that undermines the role of welfare politics in right wing discourses, especially in India where both the left-of-centre and the far-right have rampantly made use of welfare populism to capture public imagination.
Similar tactics, however, failed in Jharkhand, the state with the highest Adivasi (tribal) population. The Chief Minister of the state Hemant Soren was arrested at the beginning of 2024 on corruption charges that are yet to be proved. The BJP, infamous for using the central government agencies to frame, arrest, and confine the opposition, allegedly tried to do the same with Soren, whose Adivasi identity found huge acceptance in the state. Instead, the BJP campaign focused on polarising strategies, claiming illegal Bangladeshi infiltration in the Santhal Parganas (Adivasi Belt) to dip into the Adivasi votebank. This attempt to unify voters irrespective of identities against a constructed national enemy has yielded results in several instances but backfired in this instance. Grassroot level schemes, particularly those targeting women, bore fruit as women voted in large numbers. Kalpana Soren, the wife of the Chief Minister became the face of the women-centric welfare schemes and was instrumental in consolidating the female vote. Hemant Soren’s arrest was seen by the Adivasis as a clear message that an Adivasi CM was not acceptable to the BJP and the party failed to make inroads in the Adivasi dominated areas. The party was also unsuccessful in placing a local leader from the rungs of its members and instead depended heavily on famous faces from out of the state, which further affected their vote share.
3. Delhi
2025 began with the biggest of BJP successes as in February the party returned to power in Delhi after 27 years. Delhi, being the national capital region, enjoys a unique administrative composition wherein the police is directly controlled by the Union Home Ministry and not by the State Government like in other states. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which was in power in the state, was born out of the anti-corruption movement in India in 2011 and was the face of the middle class. Over the subsequent years, the middle class had begun to feel that the party’s welfare policies were too focused on the poor and not so much on their aspirations. The middle class was further alienated with Kejriwal’s arrest over a liquor scam , especially after his failure to comply with court summons. While Hemant Soren’s arrest had united the Adivasi vote bank against the BJP, Kejriwal had no such ties to any particular community who would be offended by the excesses of the central government agencies. While governing Delhi as an opposition party to the Centre has always been complicated with the lieutenant governor’s interference and the Home Ministry mobilising the police force against the state government, Kejriwal displaying ‘Soft Hindutva’ ideology in recent years and failing to stand up for minority rights did not help AAP either. The BJP’s consistent persecution of Bengali Muslims in the slums of Delhi as outsiders or Rohingyas, and the AAP’s failure to protect them cost them the minority trust, while their pro Hindutva stance was interpreted as weak by the Hindutva hardliners. The BJP, while wooing the middle class, also promised the poor that all of AAP’s welfare schemes would continue to operate. This strategy cut across class and unified the BJP votes while the minority was left reeling from the AAP’s increasing negligence towards them.
Religion vs welfare populism
The 2024 general election remains historic not only because of facts and numbers but also for being the harbinger of an almost lost faith in the democratic structure. For the first time in 10 years, the opposition has garnered enough seats to be able to appoint a Leader of the Opposition on the floors of the Parliament. For those despairing over the increasing authoritarian tendencies, the results breathed in some hope for a reversal, something that is increasingly being challenged by the consequent state level elections. It is becoming apparent that Modi still remains a brand, an aspirational imagery of a unified strong nation, with the Hindutva ideology at its helm. But these elections have also made it clear that caste and ethnic identities run concurrent to religious unification, often aiding, often opposing each other. As evinced by both the general elections and the legislative polls, more than 75 years after independence, caste still remains the backbone of both the policies and politics of the country. The polarising majoritarianism is here to stay, perhaps even more vigorously, but we may take comfort in the fact that the ‘national’ in this country is still not a saffron blanket but a patchwork quilt of many ‘locals’ sewn together with complex identities and aspirations for development.
* Rashmi Guha Ray is an ERC doctoral researcher at the UCD School of Geography and member of DeepLab. She holds an MA degree in Conflict, Governance and Development from the University of York, UK, and an MA in History from Jadavpur University, India.
Image source: kremlin.ru, via Wikimedia Commons
