Politics

HOW NARENDRA MODI NEGOTIATES 2021 WILL DETERMINE WHETHER HE EMERGES AS A STATEMAN OR FINDS RE-ELECTION IN 2024 DIFFICULT. FOR THE OPPOSITION, IT MAY BE A LAST CHANCE TO GET THEIR ACT TOGETHER TO STOP THE MODI JUGGERNAUT

In a marriage, they call it the seven-year-itch when the romance sours and partners start looking for better prospects. You could say the same about Indian politics, and the relationship of prime ministers with their electorate after seven years. Indira Gandhi seemed invincible in 1971 after the Bangladesh War but, by the seventh year of her tenure, the oil shocks of 1973 and student agitations that year gave birth to the JP movement, which ultimately led to her defeat in 1977. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance seemed certain of re-election in 2004 in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s seventh year at the helm, but they underestimated the strength of the Opposition coalition and paid the price. After a convincing re-election in 2009, Manmohan Singh and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance were cruising—till the corruption scandals in his seventh year as prime minister sealed the UPA’s fate in 2014.

Narendra Modi is in his seventh year as prime minister and all hell seems to have broken loose around him. A quad of daunting challenges confronts him: the continuing health threat posed by Covid-19, an economy devastated by the pandemic, Chinese aggression on the Line of Actual Control and the prolonged agitation by farmers protesting against the recently enacted farm laws. So far, Modi has remained resolute in his intentions and appears calm even as his government is buffeted by raging storms. In 2021, he needs to successfully weather these challenges to be seen as a statesman. Or else, the year ahead may dim his and the BJP’s chances of winning the 2024 general election.

Since he came to power in 2014, Modi has successfully appropriated the pro-poor plank of the Congress and even its icons like Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel. If Nehruvian socialism prevailed in the first 40 years of independent India, the economic reforms of 1991 pushed the country more towards the centre. Ram Madhav, a former BJP national general secretary, believes 2021 will see the country’s transition towards a centre-right ideological position in which national identity, pride and security will be the key binding forces coupled with the party’s unique blend of welfarism and capitalism. This, he believes, will subsume the regionalist trend that

marked the coalition eras of NDA-I, and UPA-I & II. Witness how early in his second term as prime minister, Modi, the BJP and its mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), moved rapidly to fulfil the three espoused goals of Hindutva: abolition of Article 370, the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya and the passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that was seen as discriminatory towards illegal Muslim immigrants. This year will see the BJP step up such polarising issues, including ‘love jihad’ (already, two BJP-ruled states have introduced controversial bills that threaten to criminalise interfaith marriages), to keep the perceived Islamic threat on the national agenda.

Polarising the electorate in a bid to consolidate the Hindu vote appears to be one of the BJP’s major election strategies to win the crucial assembly polls in West Bengal due this May. The party, which stunned Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) by winning 18 of the 40 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll, is mustering all its heavy artillery for the battle. A win in Bengal is crucial to undo the growing impression that when it comes to state elections, Modi’s ability to garner votes appears to be diminishing since the big win in May 2019. While the NDA retained Bihar by the skin of its teeth in 2020, it couldn’t oust Arvind Kejriwal in New Delhi earlier in the year. In 2019, it lost Jharkhand, had to share power in Haryana and saw Maharashtra slip out of its hands. While the party engineered defections to win back Madhya Pradesh last year, it failed to dislodge Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan using the same tactics. Fortunately for Modi and the BJP, the farmers’ agitation has so far remained largely ‘apolitical’ and has not thrown up strong leaders as the anticorruption movement did during the UPA-II regime.

The battle for Bengal is likely to prove a decisive political turning point in the country for more than one reason. If the BJP wins the state election, it will consolidate the rightward ideological drift and push the nation towards a rare unipolarity experienced only during the first two decades of Independence. It will give the BJP an unstoppable momentum to win the 2024 electoral contest. To its credit, the BJP has shown a hunger to consolidate its hold over the country that is missing in other parties. Equally important is the leadership that Modi has demonstrated during crises, including the pandemic. Thuglak editor and RSS ideologue S. Gurumurthy says, “The prime minister remains highly purposeful whether you agree

2021 COULD SEE THE COUNTRY TRANSITION TOWARDS A CENTRERIGHT IDEOLOGICAL POSITION IN WHICH NATIONAL IDENTITY, PRIDE AND SECURITY REIGNS INSTEAD OF REGIONAL FORCES

with his way of doing things or not, he has a clean image, works 24x7 and is an original thinker.” In stature, Modi still has none to rival him among the current crop of political leaders, either in the Opposition or within his party.

Madhav agrees and describes the BJP’s USP as “the leader, cadre and parivar”. By and large, the BJP cadre remains driven more by ideological motivation than pelf and is now a formidable force. The Sangh Parivar, with the RSS as its fountainhead, has expanded the extensive social work it is involved in, remains the moral face of the party and boasts a tremendous people connect. In the other states going to polls in 2021, the BJP is expected to retain Assam and is determined to emerge as a force to reckon with in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Operation Kamalam, as its southern thrust is called, will be put to test this year. Currently, the BJP has only 29 of the 130 Lok Sabha seats in the six southern states, a tally it intends to boost significantly by 2024.

What the Opposition does or does not do in 2021 will prove crucial for its survival. Mamata Banerjee has shed the complacency she showed in the 2019 general election. Aware that there is a rising tide of anti-incumbency among voters, she has pulled out all the stops in the past year to woo her vote banks, particularly women, and is ready with a game plan to counter the BJP. Like Kejriwal, she has been careful not to fall into the BJP trap of polarising the electorate. If Mamata stops the Modi juggernaut and wins Bengal again, she is in line to head an

Opposition coalition to take on the BJP in 2024.

Along with a TMC win, if Tamil Nadu goes to the DMK and Kerala to either the Left Democratic Front or the United Democratic Front, it will give the Opposition the mojo to take on Modi. The year will also be crucial for the Congress; among the first things the grand old party needs to do is to end the drift in leadership by appointing a president who is available. It then needs to put its own hive mind to work to come up with an agenda that shows clarity of purpose and provides a credible alternative vision to Modi’s BJP. Rather than target Modi, it needs to work with other Opposition parties to expose the failings of the BJP government and come up with a positive agenda to connect with the electorate. For that, the Congress needs to rebuild its cadre at the grassroots by enthusing them with a roadmap to power.

Meanwhile, Modi continues to keep the Opposition off balance by pushing hard for economic growth and reform even while the BJP pursues its Hindutva agenda with vigour. Since he came to power in 2014, Modi has developed a distinctive approach towards issues of inclusion, equity and redistribution of wealth, which Arvind Subramanian, former chief economic advisor, terms the ‘New Welfarism of India’s Right’. That has included massive schemes to provide water, sanitation, cooking gas, electricity, housing, roads and bank accounts to the rural poor. He has also taken care to cultivate two major vote banks—women and youth—and directed many of his schemes towards these sections. While the Modi government was wrong-footed by the despair experienced by urban migrant labour during the lockdown, it tried to make amends by allocating much of its stimulus package to the welfare of the poor, both in rural and urban areas, apart from farmers.

Budget 2021 is likely to see more such programmes to benefit these sections. But, as Seshadri Chari, a Sangh ideologue, says, the Modi government must “use the budget to lay the foundation for the revival of the economy. It has to come out with a clear plan to do so if the BJP wants to win the next general election.” With the country’s GDP growth rate expected to be in the negative territory for FY20-21, it will take at least two years for the economy to recover from the pandemic shock. Modi can no longer draw comparisons with the UPA government’s performance when he goes to the electorate. As an opposition leader put it, “Modi can’t flaunt his chhappan (56)-inch chest and grow a chhappan-inch-long beard to prove he has performed better than the UPA governments.” Nor can he push the China threat or the Islamophobic ‘Hindustan khatre mein hai (India is under threat)’ button to woo the electorate.

While the prime minister has pushed for an Atmanirbhar (selfreliant) Bharat, he has to ensure that this does not lead to erecting high tariff barriers to protect inefficient domestic industry. That will only make India less competitive in the export market. For the BJP to retain power in 2024, Modi will have to deliver on employment and economic growth apart from providing financial succour to those who have been badly hit by the pandemic. In 2021, he must demonstrate that he has put the Indian economy firmly on the path to recovery while narrowing the inequalities caused by the pandemic. ■

IN 2021, MODI MUST DEMONSTRATE THAT HE HAS PUT THE INDIAN ECONOMY FIRMLY ON THE PATH TO RECOVERY AND NARROW THE INEQUALITIES CAUSED BY THE PANDEMIC