What the South thinks — lessons from a road trip

Narendra Modi is, by miles, the dominant political persona of this election. But faith-centric issues are not the motivation for BJP supporters in South India

For the last two weeks, I have been on a road trip that began from Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of the Indian mainland, heading towards Kashmir. I have had the chance to meet people across the stretch of peninsular India — in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and spots of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

That my journey began in this way — with a series I call the Dhabas of Democracy, because when elections are here, can food be far behind — is just one of the ways in which 2024 feels different from other campaigns I have reported on in the last three decades. Typically, journalists like myself have been guilty of being Northcentric. Come poll season and we drop our anchors in the Hindi heartland, parking ourselves for inordinate lengths of time in Varanasi, Amethi, or Lucknow. This could be seen as the bias of geography of a Delhi-centric media. But it was also because all the political earthquakes located their epicentre in the Hindi-speaking North.

Irrespective of how many roots the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) manages to grow in the southern states, that is the one thing Modi’s relentless focus on states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala — greenfield projects for the BJP — has already changed. It is ironic that the biggest resentment and apprehension in these states is what the impending delimitation may mean for their political relevance. Right now, these states are critical to the BJP’s long-term ambition as a pan-national party and to the Opposition’s strategy for the containment of Narendra Modi’s rise. The South has never been as important, even if it does not eventually have the last say on numbers.

The other thing that feels different is the issues that are dominating these elections. (Health warning: My impressions are based on my travels through a specific geography, and I may come away with a very different sense once I travel through the North or West or East). But it’s intriguing that in the South, where there are ornate temples and wood carvings in every village, where, in fact, the sheer scale and architecture of temples is much bigger and more omnipresent than the North (along with churches and mosques), the Ram Mandir, evidently, does not have much electoral recall. And I am talking of Modi voters and admirers.

In fact, the most common refrain among fans of Modi, especially in states like Karnataka and Telangana, has been a thumbs up for India’s influence on the global stage. BJP voters give the Prime Minister (PM) the credit for this. And repeatedly — and unprompted — when I have asked what the biggest achievement of the Modi government is, nearly all have pointed to what they see as an India that is more important in the world than it was earlier.

All references to Ayodhya have been brought up by me and never by the voters themselves. And when quizzed about it, not one BJP voter has identified it as a reason for voting Modi. It is certainly a departure from the past to have a foreign policy dimension (unconnected from Pakistan) — India’s standing in the world order — making its way into election season. In fact, one voter in Bengaluru told me that he was a Modi fan and a Hindutva proponent but was not comfortable “with issues that create a religious divide”. He’s still voting BJP, but not for the reasons that people might have assumed.

Now you could argue that the responses would have been quite different in states like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. And you would probably be right. However, given the turnout numbers in the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections, it is evident that the Mandir has so far not created the kind of euphoric upsurge as was anticipated. Either it was a triumphalist moment that peaked too early, or it has not been the central issue for voters, not even for those who lean towards the BJP.

This is ironic because as phase 2 of voting

ends, the BJP has, in fact, pivoted the campaign to Hindu-Muslim fault lines, with the PM’s invocation of a disputed Manmohan Singh speech from 2006 and aggressive talk of how the Congress wealth distribution schemes will not even spare women and their mangalsutras. The Congress has denied all such plans. But while the Congress manifesto makes no mention of such a redistribution scheme, Rahul Gandhi, in a speech in Telangana did mention a “financial survey” that would follow a “Desh ka X-ray” (his metaphor for a caste census). And long-time family associate Sam Pitroda’s throwaway comments on an inheritance tax have further bolstered the BJP narrative on this issue. The waters have been muddied.

Let’s be clear: Modi remains in pole position. He is, by miles, the dominant political persona of this election from South to North. But in terms of issues that matter, the BJP may be surprised to hear what its own voters are thinking and feeling.

THE MOST COMMON REFRAIN AMONG FANS OF PM MODI, ESPECIALLY IN STATES LIKE KARNATAKA AND TELANGANA, HAS BEEN A THUMBS UP FOR INDIA’S INFLUENCE ON THE GLOBAL STAGE

One voter in Bengaluru told me that he was a Modi fan and a Hindutva proponent but was not comfortable “with issues that create a religious divide”.