The Bihar blowback

The landslide victory in the state elections in Bihar of the Maha Gathbandhan (Grand Alliance), combining Muslims and lower castes, against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led upper-caste-Dalit-non-Yadav Backward classes combination has put the Hindutva (Hindu communalism) hate-wave on the back foot.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal standing and his reform agenda of ‘vikas’ (development) and ‘naukri’ (jobs) have come under a cloud due to this massive defeat in the so-called cow-belt. How far and in what manner will the Bihar blowback affect the prospects of the Modi government? And the irony of the inverse progressive logic with which it is being perceived in Pakistan needs to be reflected on.
Prime Minister Modi had put his person at stake by leading the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) do or die kind of electioneering, a hallmark of a typical personalised style of his campaign. He met a most humiliating defeat after the Delhi Assembly elections that were swept by the Aam Aadmi Party, provoking the elderly stalwarts of the ruling party, including L K Advani and Joshi, to heavily come down on Modi and his handful of aides against organisational failure and their deviation from a ‘consensual agenda’.
As opposed to a clean sweep in Bihar in the general elections in 2014 – when the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Janata Dal United (JD-U) and the Congress party contested separately – the NDA could hardly win 58 seats with 34.1 percent of votes (down from 38.8 percent) as opposed to the three-party Grand Alliance’s 178 seats with 41.9 percent of votes in a house of 243 members. By winning only half the constituencies that he visited, Modi has exposed the invincibility of his appeal that he had woven around the softer agenda of ‘vikas and naukri.
Given a rising wave of hate speech, communalisation of politics and persecutions and marginalisation of minorities and the lower castes, Indian intelligentsia, larger sections of the media, writers, academics and secular sections of society have risen to the threat being posed by the various facets and formations of the saffron brigade to the pluralist and secular nature of the Indian republic.
The divide between the inclusive secularists and Hindu majoritarian nationalism had become so vociferous that it forced a large number of writers and academics to return their prestigious awards.
This liberal-secular reaction against communalisation dominated the discourse on mainstream media during the ongoing election campaign. The murder of writers, blackening of a peace activist’s face, killing of a Muslim falsely accused of eating beef, accusing top Bollywood heroes of being agents of Pakistan, equating the brutal killing of Dalits with that of dogs and those not supporting the BJP being asked to migrate to Pakistan created such a charged environment that the BJP’s electoral prospects in Bihar were adversely affected.
Against this backdrop, the BJP’s election campaign, most prominently led by BJP President Amit Shah and Prime Minister Modi, strayed away from the national development agenda and degenerated into most divisive, communal politics that was also anti-Other Scheduled/Backward Castes and Dalits. The issue of beef-eating and safety of the cow, advantage of reservations and quotas for backward castes going to Muslims if the pro-minorities Grand Alliance won – whose possible victory was to be rejoiced by fireworks in Pakistan – exposed the BJP’s true saffron colours before a suspecting electorate.
The support base that the BJP exploited to its advantage consisted of upper-caste Hindu landowners in a state that has a long history of class wars between the armies of the upper-castes and the lower castes landless rural poor who were motivated by communist outfits and Naxalites.
The open reaction of the BJP stalwarts against the Modi-Amit leadership is going to create bigger ripples. This was not expected so soon against the most effective control that Modi had established over both party and government due to the massive mandate he had managed.
It is yet to be seen how the Rashtriya Swayemsewak Sangh, the mother party of Sangh Parivar, reacts, though the rift within the BJP may help it again emerge as an arbiter. The downslide in Modi’s acceptability as the leader is going to reduce the BJP’s prospects in six state elections, including Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Assam in 2016 and in UP in 2017.
Most importantly, due to the ongoing confrontation between the divided opposition parties and the NDA in parliament, 65 bills have been pending. Now, as the opposition has tasted the fruits of the effectiveness of forging unity in Bihar’s elections, the Congress, RJD and JD(U) would like to expand the grand alliance to other parties on some kind of a secular and peoples’ friendly agenda.
This sort of combined opposition is going to give the Modi government a much tougher time on the six bills, including GST, the Land Acquisition Act, the coal and mines legislations, that are quite crucial to push ahead Modi’s neo-liberal economic agenda of development (vikas). As opposed to Modi’s model of development centred around laissez faire and big corporations, the Nitish Kumar model of governance and development is woven around improving social services and people-centric development agenda has a greater appeal for other opposition parties.
The BJP’s aggressive campaign against its opponents, dubbing them as Pakistan’s agents, showed how it mixes its domestic communal agenda with its anti-Pakistan chauvinism. But, it seems, that didn’t work and in fact backfired. Modi’s intention to improve relations with the member countries of Saarc has not worked as well, including with Nepal and Sri Lanka, and improved relations with Bangladesh may also nosedive when state elections are held in West Bengal – with 27 percent Muslim population – next year where the issue of Bangladeshi immigrants is on BJP’s agenda.
With Pakistan the Modi government’s relations are expected to remain quite bumpy, even though he may at some point of time find it tempting to go for a quid pro quo over terrorism by state and non-state actors that the two sides accuse each other of committing. Moreover, the Indian big business that Modi represents is very keen to improve relations with Pakistan.
Lastly, it is quite amusing to find Pakistanis overwhelmingly sympathising with the secular forces of India as opposed to Hindu fundamentalists seeking an exclusivist majoritarian Hindu polity, as if they (these Pakistanis) also desire secularism in a majoritarian Muslim Pakistan. There could not be a better development than this in the last 66 years of a divided Subcontinent if there is a convergence of minds among the people of India and Pakistan over secularism. The defeat of religious extremism in both countries could provide a solid basis for peace and harmony in the Subcontinent.
However, a quote from the great Indian historian, Irfan Habib, calls for critical introspection. Sharing his deep concerns with other historians over a variety of intolerance in India he says: “Religious and caste minorities are being persecuted and India is turning into a mirror image of Pakistan under RSS rule”, which he rightly equated with the Isis. Therefore, we say no RSS or Isis on either side of the border.
The writer is a political analyst.
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