A disclaimer at the outset. This article has been written before the declaration of results of the elections to the Legislative Assembly of the country’s capital. One is making the assumption, that all the “exit polls” could not have completely misread the mood of Delhi’s voters. Even some of the most ardent supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party have grudgingly acknowledged defeat in private. In the highly unlikely eventuality of the Aam Admi Party not being able to form the government and Arvind Kejriwal becoming the Leader of the Opposition (and not chief minister), he and the party he leads would nevertheless have made a few important political points barely nine months after the Opposition was decimated in the Lok Sabha elections.
The expected outcome of the elections in Delhi represents not only the first significant setback for the Narendra Modi juggernaut, but also exposes the limitations of excessive personalisation of Indian politics. The voters of the nation’s capital seem to have sent a set of clear messages to the Prime Minister and his right-hand man who heads the BJP, Amit Shah. Arguably the most important message is that hubris or extreme pride and self-confidence is rarely, if ever, appreciated by ordinary voters.
Another implication of the likely outcome of the Delhi elections is that the importance of caste and religious identities in determining voting patterns and electoral trends continues to diminish. Even right-wing ideologues and analysts are today conceding that class matters more when people vote, especially in cosmopolitan agglomerations like the national capital where people from different social and economic strata come together.
In addition, much as the middle and upper classes do not spare any opportunity to deride what they believe are “populist” schemes — notably, providing subsidies for public utilities and services — these subsidies do matter to the poor who, unlike the rich, are less concerned about balancing budgets of the government and cutting deficits. This is not an argument supporting financial profligacy but to point towards a simple fact: it is one thing to point out that subsidies do not reach intended beneficiaries and that delivery systems need repair. It is, however, quite something else to argue that welfare schemes should be scrapped or drastically curtailed and to derogatorily describe these as sops, doles or handouts. That’s insulting the underprivileged, which much of the corporate media does.
One of the most striking features of the 2014 general elections was that the BJP’s spin-doctors in general and Mr Shah in particular were eminently successful in converting the country’s multi-party democracy into a bipolar, American-style presidential contest. It was more a tussle between Mr Modi and Rahul Gandhi and less an ideological battle between the BJP and the Congress. The individuals were made to appear more important than the political parties they represent. While this worked very well in the elections to the Lower House of Parliament, the same strategy of personalising politics appears to have backfired badly on the BJP in Delhi.
The decision to foist Kiran Bedi as the party’s chief ministerial candidate sent a series of signals to voters, which were diametrically opposite to what the BJP leadership wanted. The first signal was that the party had dragged its feet for almost a year to face the electorate because it could not agree on a chief ministerial candidate. The second signal was the BJP top brass was more interested in weakening the Aam Aadmi Party than in presenting an alternative and better set of policies and programmes. On top of it all, the decision to nominate Ms Bedi as the party’s choice as chief minister ensured than the already-demoralised cadre of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the faction-ridden BJP in Delhi would not go all out to campaign for her.
To sum up, everything that could have gone wrong for Mr Modi and Mr Shah, in fact, did. BJP spokespersons sounded defensive when they claimed that the Delhi polls were not a referendum on Mr Modi’s performance as Prime Minister. That was interpreted as a defeatist admission of what is expected to take place today. The fact that all the big guns of the BJP, from Mr Modi himself to finance minister Arun Jaitley, were taking the challenge posed by the AAP and Mr Kejriwal rather seriously, was evident to even the dumbest.
The saffron party was disingenuous in claiming that it was responsible for bringing down inflation. It is hardly a secret that international prices of crude oil have collapsed but the Union government has not passed on the entire benefit of lower prices to the consumer. Mr Modi was more candid when he said that he had proved “lucky” for the country and that’s why people should vote for his party.
It seems that the BJP’s claim that the same party should rule at both the Centre as well as in the “half-state” may not impress too many voters. The party’s silence on the issue of granting full statehood to Delhi was deafening.
Also rather disingenuous were the BJP’s claims that AAP was the beneficiary of illegal funds that had been “round tripped” and come into the country through the infamous hawala route. Why? The BJP itself had dragged its feet in submitting its audited accounts to the Election Commission of India, and when it did, the fact that was revealed was that the party had received some 80 per cent of its income from “anonymous” donors. The loopholes in the law relating to funding of political parties are common knowledge and the BJP’s attempts to discredit AAP could well, on hindsight, have been perceived as a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.
The problem with hubris is simple. Arrogance distances you from reality, from the people who really matter. Mr Kejriwal would do well to remember this home truth which his grandparents must have told him. It would indeed be in his enlightened self-interest to disprove all those who describe him as a megalomaniac and ahankari. As for Mr Modi and the few who help him run his government, they too need to learn more than a few lessons.
The writer is an educator and commentator
