As the rising decibel of rhetoric from the ruling BJP and the opposition parties underlines, India is already in election mode. In fact, political noise is only going to get shriller and nasty by the day. Considering the nature of the political discourse that has held the sway over the last four years, we are unlikely to see a mature political contestation informed by constructive ideas, policies and agendas of the different parties. On the contrary, the discourse could once again degenerate into a vicious and polarizing rhetoric geared to play to the basest instincts of the people. The ruling BJP has made it clear that it will leave no political trick unexploited to get back to power. Unlike 2014, when the Prime minister Narendra Modi kept the campaign firmly focussed on a development agenda modelled on a Gujarat model, this time the party seems determined to put its ideology upfront. And there’s a reason for it. If the BJP’s electoral performance over the past four years is anything to go by, the party has grown from strength to strength on the back of an endemic resonance of its ideological agenda. Some reverses aside, the party now rules two-thirds of the states – and up until recently even the Muslim majority J&K. But the party voluntarily gave up the power in J&K in the presumed belief that the state would become a hurdle in its bid for retaining power in the upcoming general elections.
There’s talk of the campaign thus acquiring strident Hindutva overtones. And if this talk comes true, Kashmir could very well become the epicenter of the BJP’s bid for power. Kashmir holds a central place in the BIP’s ideological conception of India. It seeks the complete integration and assimilation of Kashmir into the country, a project it has sought to aggressively accomplish. Over the past some this view of the place of Kashmir in Indian union has acquired an unprecedented popular approval across the country – much of it manufactured through adversarial television discussions. What shape the party’s apprehended use of Kashmir for electoral purpose would take is still unclear.
One only hopes that the campaign for the general election takes a salutary form and the issues that figure prominently are for preservation of an inclusive and pluralistic India. Even though Congress in recent past has sought to tap into the emotion of love to counter the surging hate in the country, the party lacks a robust fleshed out narrative to underpin it. So does the wider opposition. Modi still towers above all of them. And unless the opposition ups its game in the weeks and months ahead, it looks unlikely that the BJP could be defeated in the next year’s general election.
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