The world’s largest democracy – India has 900 million voters. In
2019’s election the good thing remains the ‘highest’ turnout of voters- 67%.
The winner party- NDA or BJP led by Narendra Modi obtained approximately 300
million votes. The Magnitude of Narendra Modi becomes clear.
However, his leadership in previous term raised some
controversies like minorities felt threatened, and the media freedom fell on
international index, yet he comes back to the power. What makes him so
appealing for the crowd that odds worked in his favour again?
The Modi Wave
or the failure of Congress to lead?
Mr. Narendra Modi is back in power again after
wining 2019 Lok Sabha elections. There are various reasons for his win however,
there were some rumour videos circulated about tempering with Electronic Voting
Machine (EVM). Leaders who lost should blame themselves, and accept the mandate
of people instead of creating chaos and suspicion among ‘innocent’ voters
against EVM.
If you study carefully, there are some expectations
of voters, and a capable leader knows them. However, if the leader is a good as
a person or not that does not matter in the win.
Mr. Modi massively won and claimed spectacular
victory because he could connect with those expectations. The other point to notice is that the Congress-
the opposition, which ruled India for more than 5 decades lost so badly even
after the party made alliances with every minor and regional party. The Congress
party has a legacy of Nehru- Gandhi, and the name is powerful enough but again,
there are reasons for everything.
What is the
secret of this appeal for these voters?
Modi is a democratically elected populist leader,
and most of populist leaders are not anti-democratic. He has been elected by
the huge mandate as the trend can be seen in US, Russia, Turkey, and
Philippines etc.
He knows public sentiments very well. He targeted
the elite class – Congress to be corrupt. Mr. Modi changed his campaigns and
rhetoric so many times that opposition found that impossible to keep a pace
with his campaign.
One after another event in his previous term as
Prime Minister, he showed himself as a strong man. Though there have been
various errors at Narendra Modi’s part but again that did not get much people’s
attention.
Democratically, people want a leader to protect
them against the insecurities. He knew the resentments of people and
frustrations of politics, insecurities between communities, and the hatred.
Why did
congress lose the elections?
Rahul Gandhi led the congress, and he worked hard to get the
attention of voters. 2019 brought the toughest crisis for congress. The
Congress is in it’s declining state due to ‘old ways ‘of conducting politics
and unaccountable power – wielding dynasty leaders.
Congress has collectively failed to build efficient
leadership, upgrade its massage, methods to outreach and maintain an
organisational structure.
The Congress did fail in building the leadership at
the bottom level, as people know that after all no matter how much hard work
they do, it is the Gandhi family which will remain the centre of the Congress. This
abstain many talented young people who have potential to led the nation from
joining the Congress.
A good leader always has a vision for the nation,
while congress has successfully played a part of the opposition but has failed
to give the vision to the people. What does the Congress hold for people in
next five years? Except Nyay Scheme. That was not enough to gain voters.
The party has failed to show strong leadership as
well, where people want a strong person to rule the nation. The Congress
president Rahul Gandhi does not have the strong image.
Some of the party leaders think that that if Rahul
Gandhi resigns, the party will break. The leadership is not working either way,
the party needs massive reform.
Did the
communal card benefit BJP?
The BJP which is the party of Narendra Modi is
known as ‘pro-Hindu’ party. The most controversial candidate of BJP was Sadhvi
Pragya, but she won election from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.
There is no denying that BJP plays the ‘religion’
card which attracts love and hate in extreme.
However, one should not forget that the BJP alone
did not set the trends to attract religious voters, it was followed earlier by
leaders, and even in 2019 there was a race among leaders to get attention of
Hindu voters. Because they are in majority.
The Opposition party also tried to feed on the fear
of ‘Muslims’ that if ‘pro Hindu’ party comes to the power; Muslim’s existence
will come under threat.
Opposition – the congress was founded on secular principles
but again leaders tried to pay visit to the temples, only to attract the Hindu
voters.
‘Minorities are under threat’- this was widely
circulated fear among Muslims; however, the truth is- the nation does not have
one minority ‘Muslims’. There are total six ‘minority communities’
constitutionally- Sikh, Parsi, Jain, Zoroastrians, Buddhists and Muslims.
But whenever, it comes to ‘spreading the hatred’,
the Hindu- Muslim enemy card is played. Because, since partition it is easy to
victimise Muslims, and Hindus on fear.
Neither of the party can be said purely secular as
religion card is played every time to appease voters instead of development, future
agenda and growth like Australia went for elections almost at the same time as
India.
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But, in Australia, the core agenda was climate
change. However, in India the elections are won over narrow psychological cause
– building temples or mosques. For building all these, one needs to have the
earth, which is dying due to climate change. This remains disappointing.
One among the largest democracy, filled with young people
should have better reasons for choosing a leader.
Is BJP
responsible for playing communal politics?
If careful analysis is done, even when BJP was not
born, since Bengal’s partition in 1905 the communal hatred was raised on
insecurities that under Hindus, Muslims would not remain safe.
However, the same fear Hindus had as Muslims rulers
ruled India for hundred of years.
These insecurities are in our genes, and inherited
and communities distrust each other.
The good thing is that in democracy one can not rule
on religious hate. There is a written system and even if corrupted, leaders can
not openly or selectively prohibit one community from enjoying the resources of
the country. Prime Minister himself is responsible to the parliament and to the
nation.
The communal hatred is due to religious
differences. When you are born in a particular community, there are certain
prejudices you taught against other community.
For example, - most of the Muslims think that
Hindu’s do not maintain hygiene, as post urination among Muslims it is
mandatory to use water.
Hindus consider that every Muslim hates Kafirs and
will kill them when it comes to their religion.
In deeply religious crowd, it is easy to bring
their differences.
Communities already hate one another but publicly
do not mention it. That is the reason, intercast love marriages, or
intercommunity marriages still bring honour killing.
The education is still backward, and people are not
much aware of the history. They read some random article on the internet, or
see a video, which they consider to be true. Half knowledge is more dangerous,
and there are religious associated institutions among communities which publish
fake, and ignorant facts and people believe them to be true.
True secularism in India has rarely been practiced,
even though the Congress has the tag associated with secularism, but it did not
keep the religion card away.
Managing diverse crowd can be challenging, and
gaining votes from the communities who hate one another is a difficult task but
not impossible.
The communal hatred has been prevalent, and easily
it will not fade away. Therefore, if we want leaders who do not bring religion
in politics, we should abstain from voting for such leaders. Reforms take time,
but the change is inevitable. So, the parties, and people need to learn in
order to maintain the peace.
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