Democracies survive as long as those who lose elections do not question the fairness of the process. When the losers think, rightly or wrongly, that they have been short-changed by the process, democracy is undermined. India appears to be at a crossroads precisely for this reason. The central question about 2024 is no longer about victory and defeat, but about whether the process of election itself is free and fair.
What casts a cloud on the integrity of the process on the eve of the election is the selective law enforcement by state agencies under the control of the incumbent BJP that target Opposition parties and leaders. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo and Delhi Chief Minister is in the custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), accused in a corruption case. Principal opposition party Congress finds its funds frozen by the Income Tax Department that is purportedly investigating discrepancies in filings by the party from several years ago. The Election Commission of India (EC) is facing questions regarding its independence, after one of its members resigned abruptly and without explanation, which was followed by the hurried appointment of two new members by the BJP government. Earlier, the government had given itself the authority to appoint the members of the EC, overlooking suggestions by the Supreme Court of India, and the Opposition, for a more consultative mechanism. The political executive has complete power to appoint the Election Commissioners. Questions about electronic voting machines, and the paper trail of voting, have lingered. The EVMs are tamper-proof, but that is not enough for public trust. Trust has to be based on the ability to verify. The EC has refused to engage with the Opposition on this issue.
The I-T department restrictions on the accounts of the Congress closely followed the Supreme Court’s directive on the electoral bonds scheme. As it turns out, the opaque scheme had worked to the advantage of the BJP. For these reasons, the Opposition says that the playing field is rigged in favour of the ruling BJP. Incumbent parties may have tried to tilt the scale in their favour occasionally in the past too; and the ECI has failed to be non-partisan and effective often enough. Occasionally, Opposition leaders have questioned the integrity of the elections. But no time in the history of Indian democracy has all Opposition parties and leaders shared a common feeling that the election process does not give them a fair chance. This alone makes the 2024 election remarkable in the evolution of Indian democracy.
Fear of the known past; seductive appeal of the unknown future
When a regime seeks re-election, it ends up accountable to the voters. The BJP has managed to change this classic dynamic of incumbency by the sheer audacity of hype. The hype is less about its performance of the last 10 years, but the coming future - not merely the next five-year term, but of decades and centuries to come.
All politics is based on some understanding of time periods. The BJP campaign focuses on the past follies of the Opposition; the party has rescued the country, but the best is yet to come. The entire Opposition can be cornered through this framework. All of them have skeletons in their cupboards, and nearly all of them are run by families. The old social coalitions that controlled power before 2014 lost out partly because of their loss of legitimacy, misgovernance and corruption. The BJP thrives on the fear among sufficient number of voters about the return of the old regime. In other words, anti-incumbency, in BJP’s telling, should be against the Opposition. The BJP combines this with a promise of the future of abstract glory and achievements. This combination of fear and seduction works only to the extent of the trust that the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have, and the trust deficiency for the Opposition and its leaders. As long as the current leaders of the Opposition who were part of the power structure earlier are the challengers to Mr. Modi, the incumbent has an advantage.
But this perception itself is considerably a construct. There is a genuine opinion that each actor has; and then each actor has an idea of what the average opinion is on the issue, which is different from the average of the genuine opinions of all actors. This thought experiment by J.M. Keynes could work well for the political field as well as the stock market. The public opinion about the reality is more consequential than the reality itself. That is where hype works.
Two prongs of the Opposition: Authoritarianism and corruption
The Opposition campaign against the Modi government hinges on the related themes of authoritarianism and corruption. The Opposition points out the erosion of institutional governance, the rule of law, and instance of favouritism bestowed upon the friends of the ruling establishment. The revelations around the electoral bonds scheme have provided the Opposition campaign enough arsenal on both counts. But whether these issues are striking a chord with the public remains to be seen. Only a decade ago, Indian public was outraged by the theory of notional loss to the exchequer but today anything even remotely comparable as public responses to governance or political issues is missing. What could be the reasons?
People possibly think authoritarianism is the cure for corruption. Arvind Kejriwal, who is today facing the wrath of the BJP government, rose to prominence by promising exactly that. In a Pew study last year, 85% of respondents in India said that military rule or rule by an authoritarian leader would be good for the country - the highest share among the 24 countries surveyed. Not only that, India had the third-lowest share of respondents who thought it was important for Opposition parties to operate freely. What socio-cultural anthropologist Arjun Appadurai terms “democracy fatigue” is pronounced in India, with a discredited old elite still holding ground, shrunken as it is.
So assuming that people do care about corruption, what follows? They might have to consider whether rule by a strongman is better. They would have to consider whose charges are more credible - of the BJP and Mr. Modi that the Opposition is a cabal of corrupt leaders serving only the interests of their families or that of the Opposition against the regime that it is using the mascot of nationalism for endless power and perfidy. This battle of nerves is also fought on an uneven field. The Supreme Court recently stalled the Centre’s move to fact-check and label information published on public platforms, but the ruling party’s capacity to control the narrative remains strong.
On the question of authoritarianism, the Opposition is in a fix - accusing Mr. Modi of being authoritarian could actually work in his favour. Therein lies a fundamental shift in the framework in which democratic politics operates in India. A decade ago, being seen as anti-minority, authoritarian or promoting crony capitalism would be electorally costly for a politician in most parts of the country. Today, all these attributes are self-promoted by politicians who want to quickly climb the popularity ladder. In some instances, leaders have dramatically turned themselves into projecting such personas. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is a case in point. When he was a Congress leader, Mr. Sarma was accused of being a Muslim appeaser. Today he leaves no opportunity to be at the other extreme of the spectrum.
Congress parivar verus Sangh Parivar
The Congress has been caught between the masses that have moved right and its own installed intellectual capacity that is revolted by the new unfamiliar grammar of politics. The party had thrived on ideological ambiguity but the brazen clarity of the BJP on Hindutva has unsettled it.
The Congress today is also the only available, viable option for those opposing the BJP from the right and the left, but the party is struggling to fit into this role of expanding as a parivar (family), like the Sangh Parivar. There are more people thronging to the Congress - including parties and thinkers who were once fiercely opposed to it. They assess the inevitability of the Congress as an opposing pole to the BJP. A case in point is activist and scholar Yogendra Yadav who was a staunch critic of the party and subscribed to the slogan of “Congress-mukt Bharat.” But most parties are also not comfortable with the idea of the Congress returning as hegemon - that is yet another fear of the known past. That partly explains the troubles within the anti-BJP camp.
An unintended consequence of this role of the Congress as the antithesis of the BJP is an expectation of ideological clarity and stridency on the question of Hindutva. A recent incident of the selection, and subsequent withdrawal of a party candidate, for his right-wing leanings is a case in point. The Congress party has been home for holders of various opinions including those who pander to religious sentiments, historically. Its veteran Pranab Mukherjee concluded his political career by attending a landmark event of the RSS; Meenakshi Natarajan, a key functionary in the party today, and self-identified Gandhian, had in the early 2000s coined a slogan against the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee - Gau Hamari Mata Hei, Vajpayee Usko Khata Hei, i.e., Cow is our mother, Vajpayee eats it! Such has been the Congress - for all its good and bad.
The BJP has chosen to be ideologically rigid as a platform; the Congress is unsure of its own role in the light of the expectations that various shades of the Opposition to the BJP has projected on it. 2024 could bring a lot of clarity, including and most importantly, on the question of the integrity of election itself. And the course of Indian democracy.
