FOR the past five years, politics in India has been woven around one person – Narendra Modi. This is as much the doing of his opponents as his own skilful navigating of ‘Brand Modi’. The brand sold in the political market represents – fuzzily – many things, particularly merchandize that often gives a different message to different users. At one point his spokespersons began claiming that he would be in control even in 2024 and Modi gave credence to this bloated claim when he began talking of a ‘new India’ that would shape up around 2022, when India celebrates 75 years of its independence.

By mid-2018, however, the narrative took a small turn. Defeat in the Uttar Pradesh by-elections due to the SP-BSP alliance and an inability to wrest Karnataka made the Modi regime appear somewhat vulnerable and Modi’s opponents rediscovered the magic of mahagatbandhans. It was around this time too that the first signs of voter fatigue with the present regime began to show. A Lokniti-ABP Mood of the Nation (MOTN) survey suggested that the charm of the leader may be wearing out.¹ These two developments changed the language of current politics – from Modi’s inevitable return to power in 2019 (or for that matter the boastful targets of Mission 350) to the hot topic of alliances. The defeat in three assemblies in December 2018 has further exposed the BJP to possible electoral challenges. This should give an opportunity to his opponents and critics to decipher what the shape of politics is likely to be, and the spaces requiring patient interventions not just today and tomorrow, but the day after too.

As the Lok Sabha elections approach, today’s politics focuses only on three related questions: will non-BJP parties form an alliance? Will that alliance successfully challenge Modi? Will Modi be at the helm or will there be rumblings within the BJP should it fall short of a majority? It is, however, true that these are not the real questions – about the character of India’s politics – but are the questions likely occupy political attention in the months to come. And unless there is some clarity about the constraints and possibilities in the politics of today, can we think of politics beyond?

While the observer may find it easy to show (on paper) the feasibility of a non-BJP coalition, in reality, the project of coalition politics is too complex for any strong and viable anti-BJP coalition to emerge overnight or have a smooth life. Three reasons can be attributed for this. The less important among these is the future contestation over leadership. We shall return to it later. Another reason is the possibility that some of the non-BJP players may find it more prudent to join the BJP-led coalition or at least keep away from directly confronting the BJP (the TRS is already doing the latter). The Biju Janata Dal in Odisha has so far carefully avoided any talk of joining an anti-BJP coalition. As it is, many of today’s vociferous anti-BJP voices such as Mamata’s TMC or Chandrababu’s TDP have been close allies of the BJP at one point or the other. The prospect of some non-BJP parties joining hands with the BJP even before the elections would pour cold water on the dreams of any grand non-BJP coalition.

 

A more pertinent reason why a non-BJP coalition might be a distant dream is the independent political calculations of many parties about their survival and expansion. While the dominance of the BJP is an obvious fact, there is still some uncertainty about its ability to ensure a clear victory in the coming election. In these times of relative political uncertainty, each party has an opportunity to expand its base and it would be unrealistic to expect parties to sacrifice that opportunity just because our paperwork shows that their coming together would probably defeat the BJP. Every party, including the Congress, has to necessarily protect its own political interests by balancing two factors: the need to grab a reasonable chance of expansion and the need to contain the BJP in order to be able to expand.

Coalitions have a paradoxical effect of opening up some little recesses of power for their constituents, but coalitions are also bound to dictate limits on the ambitions of parties. It is against the natural instinct of parties to surrender themselves to coalition logic merely because of the fight against a common rival – unless there are real and additional gains.

Of course, even if an anti-BJP coalition were to actually take place, its ability to take on the BJP would be limited because most partners of such a coalition will only have a limited ability of wining votes or seats beyond their core areas of strength. This would lead to internal bickering over seat sharing. The examples of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are instructive in this respect. While the Congress would be willing to be dictated by the Bahujan Samaj Party or the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, it would be (as indeed it was) more than unwilling to accommodate what it sees as unreasonable claims by these parties in MP (or Chhattisgarh in case of BSP). On the other hand, if in the current situation BSP finds an opportunity to become a truly multi-state player with an all-India relevance by making its presence felt in the states of MP, Chhattisgarh or Rajasthan, it is bound to make ‘unreasonable’ demands or simply avoid entering into an alliance with the Congress.

 

Thus, while state level coalitions seem feasible, the moment a large all-India design is imagined, it becomes impossible to operationalize on the ground. This logic dictates localized arrangements rather than a grand plan. Local arrangements often create an impression that politics is an ad hoc activity, rather than being a combination of power-seeking, strategy, and some elements of ideology. This impression would undoubtedly help the larger or dominant party in convincing voters why they should shun such coalitions that lack conviction.

And even if a non-BJP alliance does take shape, it would face severe limitations in taking on the BJP. As Modi said during the national executive of the BJP in September 2018, such a coalition would not only lack leadership, but more importantly, it would be unclear about the objective: ‘netrutva ka thikana nahi, niti aspasht...’.²

 

Since the 2014 elections, the BJP has effectively transformed the nature of competitive politics in two key respects, the first being leadership. Parliamentary elections have all of a sudden become a plebiscite on one leader. Images have assumed gigantic proportions – literally and rhetorically. So, Modi and his supporters would obviously ask the question about who would lead a non-BJP coalition. While theoretically, the non-BJP parties are correct in saying that they will select a leader only after the elections, in the realm of practical politics, leadership (or personality) has assumed key significance in shaping the all-India outcome. This is where the problem becomes more complicated for the non-BJP parties. They grudge Modi for his personalized politics, but most of them engage disproportionately in the same genre of politics. In fact, leaders of many state parties have been elevated to such heights that any challenge to their leadership is seen as blasphemous. While Modi is a megalomaniac par excellence, in Mamata, Naveen or Mayawati, we have no less megalomaniacs on whose personality their parties rely almost exclusively. While the cult of personality is ingrained in state politics, the leadership of these parties is handicapped. Being state parties they do not have a leader to project at the all-India level. This inevitably reduces the contest to ‘Modi vs. Rahul’. While this is still an unequal battle, more than that such a contest would worry the other non-BJP parties more than the BJP. If Rahul Gandhi is projected as Modi’s main competitor, it would work to the advantage of the Congress rather than other non-BJP parties. So, the leadership issue favours the BJP and potentially divides non-BJP parties.

 

In another respect, Modi’s BJP has transformed the nature of competitive politics by shifting the core rhetoric away from the state to the all-India level. The post-Congress party system had propelled the state as the key terrain of contestation and choice. In 2014, Modi’s campaign in contrast, sought to project ‘all-India’ as the platform where choices needed to be made. This shift does, however, pose a challenge for the BJP too, and after coming to power at the Centre, it stumbled in Bihar because of its over-reliance on the all-India. But by trying to present a regional variant of Hindutva, it successfully won in Assam. Through various emotive issues such as the assault on Hindu sensibility (invoking court rulings on Sabarimala and Ayodhya), constructing an enemy in the form of ‘urban Naxals’, employing multiple symbols from the Sardar to surgical strikes, the BJP has attempted to shape an all-India narrative of politics wherein leadership, development and Hindutva constitute key elements.

In this respect too the state parties are handicapped. Their response to these elements of BJP’s hegemony³ can only be rooted in state-specific situations. Though they can talk of ‘all-India’ issues, the reference point for them will remain the state. So, the non-BJP alliance will either have to skip responding to the larger all-India narrative of the Modi regime or allow the Congress to take the lead in presenting an all-India critique of BJP’s arguments. Despite its miserable lack as a truly all-India party, the fact that the Congress is not a state party allows it to engage the BJP in this respect.

In such a situation, the state parties cannot but grudge the advantage Congress may derive by responding to the all-India narrative of the BJP. If both leadership and narrative allow the Congress a more prominent position, the state parties would be unwilling to fight a battle that is likely to benefit the Congress more than themselves. On the other hand, the Congress is weak on the leadership issue and simply lacking in ability to set the all-India narrative. So, either way, the ability of such a coalition to defeat the BJP will be limited.

 

While all these limitations of an anti-BJP coalition are quite genuine, there is at the same time, a big question mark over the ability of the BJP to retain a clear majority. This is not because of, but despite, the efforts to forge a non-BJP alliance. The popular disappointment with the Modi government may not be so strong that voters would blindly vote against the BJP; but the disappointment of the voters certainly means that wherever an alternative exists, voters are likely to turn to that alternative. In other words, the BJP faces a very real danger of quiet disappointment of voters pushing it to the brink of defeat. So, a combination of voter disappointment and clumsy non-BJP coalitions would in all likelihood reduce the BJP’s current strength in Parliament.⁴

That is where the challenge of the politics of tomorrow really resides. To begin with, even if the 2019 elections really turns into a cliff-hanger (or BJP defeat, as Yogendra Yadav predicts), much would depend on the ability of non-BJP parties to form a viable government. It has been argued that this challenge is comparatively easy to meet.⁵ However, India’s experience with coalitions, at least at the Centre, has been mixed. While coalition governments both under Vajpayee and then under Manmohan Singh did complete their respective terms, they had the advantage of one party playing the role of sheet anchor. Whether that would be the case in 2019 remains a big question. Besides, such coalitions manifest a cynical disregard for even a minimal policy commonality. Such a government is highly unlikely to remain an alternative to the BJP; instead it would be an excellent platform for the BJP to make a comeback with increased vehemence.

 

But both the formation of such a post-election alliance, and the formulation of its minimum common agenda of governance, are dependent on the ability of the non-BJP parties to distinguish themselves from the BJP in the first place. In this sense, the more difficult question is not about the arithmetic of coalitions, but about their politics itself. Unless the non-BJP parties convince themselves as to why they need to fight the BJP, their politics will always remain inadequate.

This is the dilemma of the opposition in a dominant party system. Structurally, most parties (other than the dominant party) are simply unable to win a majority on their own and need to come together either before or after the elections. However, they need to also have political reasons to offer to the voter (and to their own cadres) why it is important to ‘remove’ the dominant party. In other words, structurally, the electoral contest is bound to be between the dominant party and all other parties, but this structural characteristic requires a translation into a political-ideological characteristic. Identifying the dominant party as ‘left’/‘right’ or ‘liberal’/‘conservative’ may suffice in contexts where these labels have clarity and political resonance. In the Indian context, such labels do not have much clarity nor do they have political traction. The language of politics in India has instead relied more on labels such as development, progress, national pride, social justice and regional identity. But can the non-BJP parties invoke any of these labels or tags in order to demarcate themselves from the BJP?

 

In spite of the occasional and brief intervals, India’s party political arena has shown a tendency to converge around some common themes and hence parties look ideologically less distinct from each other than they would perhaps wish to. For instance, in the 1990s, some parties sought to more closely identify with ‘social justice’ while others coalesced around regional identity. But soon the main themes of contestation began to become moderate and most parties began to subscribe to a more or less similar set of ideas. Political parties have thus shown a tendency to avoid exclusionary platforms on many issues. In fact, the dominant party system encourages or pushes parties to adopt non-exclusionary strategies that result in producing convergence. In particular, it provides a push to incorporate ideological elements of the dominant party. Not many parties can evade the compulsion of subscribing to convergence and in the process, lose their ability to distinguish themselves from each other, and particularly from the dominant party. Since the dominant party can probably most effectively represent the convergence, it can sustain its dominance through the politics of convergence whereas the smaller or non-dominant challengers either become a pale image of that convergence or are forced to rely on a narrow social base if they adopt the politics of non-convergence.

 

To the extent that the elections of 2014 brought about a new dominant party system (I have described this as India’s ‘second dominant party system’⁶), other parties find themselves constrained in identifying the central socio-political basis for opposing the BJP. Instead, the possibility that they would adopt key ideas from the BJP’s political repertoire is quite strong.

In the case of the relation between BJP and non-BJP parties, this process of adopting dominant ideas is not merely confined to the structural aspects of a dominant party system. Besides the structural constraint, it stems from a failure to comprehend the real nature of the politics that the BJP has ushered in. This happened earlier in the early nineties too as L.K. Advani propelled the party to prominence, when the BJP brought to the centre stage a hitherto marginal tendency in Indian politics. This was the tendency to construct a narrative around an imaginary hurt and wound of the majority. Once that tendency was strengthened, the ground was cleared for a straightforward majoritarian politics to take root. What Modi’s BJP has done in the last four years is to entrench a new regime of moral and political values. Therefore, it is even more difficult now for non-BJP parties to escape the hegemonic influence of the BJP. During this journey from Advani to Modi, the singular failure of the non-BJP parties has been to understand what the BJP stands for and how it endangers the fabric of democracy. Addressing any challenge requires some clarity in identification and that is where a beginning will have to be made.

Three labels are often used, somewhat interchangeably, to identify why the BJP has to be kept at bay or removed from power – it is called fascist, communal and Hindu nationalist. None of these labels resonate with the masses or communicate the threat that the BJP purportedly poses. Without going into the theoretical accuracy of any of these nomenclatures, it can be safely said that they do not resonate politically. They either fail to communicate or more likely, miscommunicate – particularly the epithet ‘Hindu nationalist’.

 

This failure to name what the BJP stands for is not new. In fact opponents of the BJP have consistently failed to comprehend the nature of BJP’s politics and therefore respond to it with an alternative politics. It is possible that the opponents got confused about this issue in the late eighties and early nineties because of the BJP’s appropriation of the platform of anti-Congressism, and later because of Vajpayee’s coalition government. Now with the Modi government and with Congress undergoing an existential crisis, the issue of comprehending what the BJP stands for may acquire greater clarity among non-BJP parties.

Traditionally, the politics of RSS-BJP endangered the substantive dimension of India’s democracy pertaining to the question of negotiating with plurality. Now, with a determined attack through institutions of state and civil society, this project of redefining both democracy and Indianness has turned into a ‘clear and present’ danger rather than mere speculation, anxiety or possibility. (To this, the Modi regime has added the challenge of personalized authority and concomitant weakening of institutions.) Herein lies the most crucial challenge for the politics of tomorrow: it is about a new regime emerging under Modi and about the fact that this new regime seeks to fundamentally alter the way democracy is understood and practiced. Opponents of the BJP have been postponing, for the past quarter century, a real confrontation with the ideas and politics that the BJP represents. That confrontation would require a new politics altogether, instead of merely repeating conventional clichés about the BJP.

On the critical questions of religion, culture and Indian legacy, the non-BJP opposition would need to have a fresh, convincing, popular and democratic initiative rather than merely polemical responses to the BJP in a reactive fashion. But the non-BJP parties often give only an inadequate response to these issues.

 

A part of the reason for the inadequate response is that the BJP’s opponents function merely as routine political parties engaged in a competition for power, without any real commitment to contesting the deeper claims of the BJP. They treat the BJP only as a competitor in the electoral arena and hence their response is only electorally driven. The other reason why the BJP’s opponents are unable to position themselves as ideologically driven political opponents is because of their own ideological inadequacy. They are themselves not averse to cynical exploitation of people’s religious sentiments. As a result, their response does not and cannot go beyond the usual claims about minority interests rather than dealing with the question of religion and religiosity. The non-BJP parties use cultural symbols just as instrumentally as the BJP does, but are unprepared to engage in the politics of culture. This creates a space for BJP’s politics based on religious identity and its claim that Hindutva and nationalism are the same.

 

Above all, the non-BJP parties have no interest in defining and enriching Indianness and therefore they cannot call the BJP’s bluff on the issue of spurious claims of Bharatiyata. One almost suspects that the opponents of the BJP do not have enough investment in the plural cultural roots of Indian identity and are themselves unsure how India’s democracy is in fact, ‘Indian’ democracy. The tragedy of India’s public sphere is that while the BJP espouses spurious Bharatiyata, those claiming to be modern and democratic lack a robust sense of what constitutes the Indian. This is exactly what happened around the debate on secularism. The so-called secular claims were so weak that the secular-communal division not only sounded inadequate, but was advantageous to those who engaged in communal politics.

Similarly, the challenge of the BJP needs to be situated in the context of democracy. Merely calling it fascist does not do much service; what is needed is a project of expressing Indian democracy in ways that would be intelligible to the voter and at the same time clearly distinguish the idea of democracy from BJP’s political practice. With their perfunctory adherence to democracy, anti-BJP parties have nothing much to offer on this count too. Above all, the rise of the BJP is connected with the inadequate manner in which Indian democracy has been developed and cultivated. The politics of tomorrow will have to invest much more in the idea of democracy if the BJP and its brand of politics is to be countered. The majoritarian politics of the BJP represents a distortion of democracy,⁷ but it is not merely the BJP that indulges in such distorted versions of democracy. While it may be fashionable to imagine the secular-communal division, the challenge posed by the BJP relates more closely to the way political parties understand and operate democracy. If the politics of yesterday failed to address this task, the politics of tomorrow has to tediously undertake it with all the challenges involved and the difficulties it poses.

 

Thus, irrespective of the outcome of the 2019 election, the politics of tomorrow must go back to this triad of issues – why the BJP should be opposed in its present avatar; what constitutes Indian nationhood and identity, and how we understand and practice the idea of democracy. In 2004, when the Vajpayee government lost power, the search for an answer to the first question was quickly suspended while the answers to the other two critical issues were never seriously pursued after the brief initial excitement of post-independence romance with the Indian nation state. The politics of tomorrow, therefore, carries these burdens in addition to the immediate burden posed by the Modi regime. This regime has sought to redefine both Indianness and the idea of democracy and in the process, broadened the risk presented by the BJP. We are now caught in the urgency of containing the BJP and at the same time engaging in a politics that would respond to the BJP’s challenge in the long run, and at an ideological level.

These expectations from non-BJP parties do sound like a daydream, but in order that politics does not turn into a nightmare, it is necessary that we set some tough goals that appear much too ambitious and expect that politics will go beyond merely defeating the BJP.

 

Footnotes:

1. For details, see the report available at Lokniti’s website: Lokniti-ABP Mood of the Nation Survey, http://www.lokniti.org/media/upload_files/Lokniti-ABP-News-Mood-of-the-Nation-Survey-Round-3-May-2018.pdf

2. ‘At National Executive, Modi Tears into Opposition…’, The Print, 9 September 2018; https://theprint.in/politics/at-national-executive-modi-tears-into-opposition-terms-congress-leadership-a-liability/114759/

3. Suhas Palshikar, ‘Towards Hegemony: BJP Beyond Electoral Dominance’, Economic and Political Weekly 53(33), 18 August 2018, pp. 36-42.

4. For instance, Yogendra Yadav puts the possible loss of BJP to about a hundred seats from 2014: Yogendra Yadav, ‘Why the BJP is Staring at a Loss of Nearly 100 Seats from 2014 Tally’, The Print, 9 November 2018. ttps://theprint.in/opinion/hindi-heartland-holds-key-to-bjp-2019-electoral-fortunes-once-again/147096/

5. Raghav Bahl, ‘3 Reasons a 2019 "Khichadi" Coalition Could be a Political Delicacy’, The Quint, 31 July 2018. https://www.thequint. com/voices/opinion/three-reasons-2019-khichdi-coalition-could-be-political-delicacy

6. Suhas Palshikar, ‘India’s Second Dominant Party System, Commentary’, Economic and Political Weekly, 18 March 2017, pp. 52/12; 12-15.

7. Suhas Palshikar, Indian Democracy: Oxford India Short Introductions. Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2017.