Back to Square One

As the new parliament gets down to business, the opposition benches fill up almost half the space. This normally should have ushered in a new ruling intelligence in the country but it hasn’t so far. Despite falling short of a majority in the Lok Sabha and needing allies to form the government, the BJP is giving no sign of having been hampered in the single-minded pursuit of its ideological projects or governance policies. The party is as gungho and triumphalist in its third consecutive term as in the first two. What is  more, the party has hit the ground running, picking up from where it had left off.  There is little change in terms of the faces and their ministries. The party continues to wield power unchallenged, maintaining control over key ministries. And curiously enough, it has faced little opposition from its allies, especially Chandra Babu Naidu and Nitish Kumar who with their combined 26 seats are critical to the survival of the government. 

Does this mean both Naidu and Nitish have come around to the BJP’s ideological agenda? This may not be so but their by and large unqualified support to the continuation of the BJP’s policies from the previous term implies that they are on board. The two leaders are chief ministers in their respective states and they seem to be content with their position. Would their behaviour change going forward? It seems unlikely unless the BJP does things that impinge on their support base which is composed of a mix of backward classes and minorities. Or else, the INDIA Alliance lures them away with lucrative ministerial offers. As for the first prospect, both Naidu and Nitish have thrived while being longstanding constituents of the NDA. It proves that the BJP’s nationalist ideology hasn’t impacted their respective constituencies. Nor should it now when the two leaders are in power both in their respective states and at the centre. So, it looks highly probable that the BJP may complete its current term. 

Will this mean that the BJP’s ideological agenda will continue unchanged and unrestrained? This is what appears likely, depending on where its allies choose to draw the line. As things stand, this doesn’t appear to be likely. While arithmetic within the parliament might have shifted, BJP remains in full control. It has almost all the ministries including the key ones and also the speaker. And what is more, the party is in no mood to give even deputy speaker to the opposition.

But then, can the saffron party afford to be as ideologically ambitious as in the last term? It may very well make a determined effort. 

One important difference between the BJP’s second term and this one is that it has been done in badly by its electoral underperformance in Uttar Pradesh, winning just 33 out of 80 seats in the crucial state.  In the last election in 2019, the party had won 62 seats in Uttar Pradesh, helping the party raise its all-India seat tally to 303 – 31 above the majority. The landslide majority gave the party a virtual carte blanche over governance of the country. It ushered in far-reaching constitutional and legal changes, reorienting the country away from its secular roots and towards a Hindu majoritarian agenda.  It did away with the semi-autonomous position of Jammu and Kashmir, the country’s only Muslim majority state, it passed the Citizenship Amendment Act that made religion a basis for acquiring Indian citizenship and it built a temple in Ayodhya dedicated to Ram, Hinduism’s principal deity. But as the party’s truncated seat tally in the general election demonstrated, this apparently was not enough to rally its base. The previously overriding appeal of the Hindu nationalism was dented by the opposition’s unrelenting focus on unemployment and inflation. 

In NDA 3.0, however, the BJP has so far given little indication that anything has changed. In fact, the party has doubled down on its main ideological planks. Needless to say, Kashmir, Muslims, and Pakistan are the three issues around which much of India’s electoral politics is now played out. And here the BJP has no political competition as its adversarial stance in regard to each of them resonates most with the people, not least because the secular parties are too scared to press an alternative point of view.  

And this reality is unlikely to change anytime soon. The BJP could always take a harder nationalistic line to try and appease a large section of the population who may otherwise not be happy with its governance record. Kashmir, being one of the most polarizing issues in the country, could come in handy for the party to shore up its sagging support.  For, while it is true that the BJP as a party has suffered a serious electoral setback – in part due to a spirited election campaign mounted by the opposition – the party’s ideological agenda retains its appeal.  And it will thus continue to pursue it to the hilt, something that is clear from its approach in the NDA 3.0, despite falling way short of the majority. 

• Views expressed in the article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the editorial stance of Kashmir Observer 

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