Bihar as antidote

Biharis, whom the rest of us see as bucolic and backward, have rejected the hatred and the nastiness that many of the rest of us have succumbed to. That is the most important aspect of this election. The seemingly historic inevitability of a juggernaut that was propelled by communalism is in doubt. The vulgar (I use the word in the Latinate sense, as being populist but unsophisticated) narrative that many Indians even outside Bihar picked up and were upset by has been defeated.

The second thing that occurs to the interested observer is: How will Prime Minister Narendra Modi now govern? He has used the most abusive language when he threw himself into the Bihar campaign. He said there was something wrong with Nitish Kumar’s DNA; he said Lalu Prasad Yadav was a shaitan (monster); he implied that the two Biharis along with Rahul Gandhi were the “3 Idiots”.

From this pass, how can Mr Modi possibly get back to his agenda of development, given that he must take along the chief ministers of the major states, the same ones he is gratuitously making enemies of? It will be interesting to see how he does this.

The third thing is: Are there crackers being burst in Pakistan? Such mischief as was unleashed during this campaign has rarely been seen in our national politics. We are used to the major Indian party, for all these years the Congress, making cynical use of religion. But the acidity and bitterness that Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah and the Prime Minister have introduced into the debate will have long-term repercussions on our amity.

You cannot spread such poison on the ground as Mr Shah and Mr Modi have, and then expect things to go back to normal. They will not and India will pay the price for it. We did in 1992 and we must get ready to do it again. It will be naïve to assume otherwise, and we must not be so innocent as to ignore the portents. Fourth: This defeat for the BJP (and it is remarkable how many more people see it as the vanquishing of Mr Modi than they do a victory for the factions of the Janata Dal) will embolden the BJP’s partners and make them assertive.

The Shiv Sena, always ready to kick an ally when he is down, said the Prime Minister had lowered himself with his conduct in a state election. That he ought to have been more restrained. It is difficult to disagree.

Fifth: Sunday was Lal Krishna Advani’s 87th birthday. He was given a magnificent present. He earned three separate tweets from Mr Modi, who called him “the best teacher” and “the epitome of selfless service”. But that is not what your columnist is referring to. Mr Advani is poised to again become relevant in the party that he built.

Those in the BJP who have cowered under the weight of Mr Modi’s brilliance and his dominance, will crawl out from under the rocks they have been consigned to since before the last election.

Home minister Rajnath Singh, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, and others who saw themselves as Mr Modi’s equals till two years ago, will no longer be dismissed by a wave of the master’s hand. They will also assert themselves, for now not in a way that is openly defiant, but the stories will start to leak soon. Even minor figures like Shatrughan Sinha are openly hostile.

The fear of the Prime Minister has begun to dissipate and it is up to him to be able to seize the narrative again. Sixth: The effect of Bihar on national politics will be net negative. Legislation will be blocked further and an emboldened Congress will be aggressively obstructionist. The Opposition’s blind rejection of all that the BJP puts up will continue.

Seventh: For once the usually predictable exit polls were all off and many wrong. The (usually) very accurate Today’s Chanakya, which is a polling organisation, got the results absolutely backwards, having predicted 150 seats for the BJP. NDTV, with a 67,000 sample got the results wrong as well and that number is remarkable because US presidential election numbers are predicted regularly on a sample of around 900.

Eighth: The manner in which the results were announced exposed the weakness of the media, particularly the casual and non-serious manner in which analysts approach the data. The morning began with the BJP sweeping across the state. Only CNN-IBN said otherwise.

This was because the postal ballots, coming in from middle class sections such as the armed forces, were in favour of the BJP. This was interpreted as a sweep, leading such people as Shekhar Gupta (he was not the only one) to decide that Mr Kumar had made some horrendous mistake.

Ninth: Hindutva and its role in electoral politics will be debated in the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The forces of Hindu majoritarianism are very good and very effective at calibrating their rhetoric. We will learn very shortly from their sympathisers in the media where the larger movement is headed, whether towards more nastiness and resentment or towards real national interest.

Tenth: Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mufti Mohammad Saeed has long said there was no alternative to Mr Modi in national politics for a decade. It could be argued that he says this because the coalition he leads is beholden to the BJP but I happen to think he is right. Those who do not agree with this assessment or do not like it will still have to live with the fact that the most credible, most energetic, most talented politician in this country, even in this moment of his biggest defeat (and this is his biggest defeat) is Mr Modi.

He must now work out how to set aside this setback and put the things he thinks are most important back on the agenda of his government. One can only hope, even if in vain, that those things are not about what we eat and what faith we profess.

Aakar Patel is a writer and columnist

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