The week began with the Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir election outcomes, and the primary consequence upended all predictions. It ended with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s name in his annual Dussehra deal with at Nagpur, for going again to Sangh fundamentals.
The Haryana outcomes had been shocking, most of all, as a result of they upset the dominant narratives that had preceded them, which had constructed upon the Lok Sabha scoreboard just a few months earlier. The Congress, seen to be resurgent because the June end result, was broadly anticipated to wrest the state from the ruling BJP that was not solely battling anti-incumbency, however was additionally being perceived as a celebration whose fortunes had, going by its failure to win a majority on the Centre, begun to inexorably dip.
In the long run, the BJP’s return to energy in Haryana, regardless of the Congress vote share going up by 11 per cent, mentioned at the very least two issues — one, the seat-vote dissonance, a long-standing function of the first-past-the-post electoral system, that had labored to the benefit of the Congress within the basic election, favoured the BJP in Haryana. And two, BJP victory and Congress defeat appeared large and dramatic not towards one another — the 2 events are separated by lower than 1 per cent vote share — however when juxtaposed with the expectations of pollsters and pundits.
The election consequence in Haryana is a reminder, most of all, that political actuality in a big and numerous nation doesn’t comply with the all-or-nothing/winner-takes-all logic that shapes the viewfinder of political observers and analysts in a rush. It compels us to contemplate how, on the bottom, each electoral victory and defeat are extra tenuous and extra incomplete than they appear, and why each must be seen as a part of longer and layered processes.
On this spirit, in a current paper, Milan Vaishnav and Caroline Mallory, on the Carnegie Endowment for Worldwide Peace, urge a second take a look at the conclusions and certitudes spawned by the Lok Sabha outcomes. Does the 2024 verdict mark a return to the coalition period that the BJP’s decisive single-party majority in 2014, the primary in three many years, had ended? Has the “fourth social gathering system”, marked by BJP dominance, now been changed by a “reversion to a extra decentralised, fragmented period”?
The “social gathering methods”, a framework developed by political scientist and Categorical columnist Yogendra Yadav, had been three, earlier than 2014 — the primary, dominated by the Congress, from Independence until 1967, when Congress misplaced essential states; the second, from 1967 to 1989, when Congress remained in management on the Centre even because it misplaced dominance nationally; and the third, from 1989 to 2014, when no single social gathering was the first or organising pole of nationwide politics whilst a number of forces had been unleashed, decrease castes gained political illustration, political competitors and federalisation elevated, and coalition politics got here Centre-stage. The 2014 election appeared to resurrect the one-party dominance system, with the BJP changing Congress because the centre-piece.
Vaishnav and Mallory warn towards a studying of the 2024 basic election verdict that sees it as a clear break from the fourth social gathering system, or its repudiation and reversal. The principle attributes of the fourth social gathering system, they are saying, stay largely intact, regardless of the setback to the BJP. As a result of: “Though the BJP fell in need of a parliamentary majority, it stays a system-defining social gathering. By and huge, events contest elections in India in favour of, or in opposition to, the Modi-led BJP.”
They lay out proof to make their case: BJP’s vote share in 2024 declined by lower than 1 proportion level from 2019, with losses within the Hindi heartland however beneficial properties in japanese and southern India; Congress vote share in 2024 was lifted by its key allies and was nonetheless its third worst efficiency ever, worse than even its dip within the coalition interval; the BJP has expanded its pan-India footprint, fielding candidates in 441 constituencies, a brand new document, and rising as both the winner or runner-up in 393, an all-time excessive, whereas Congress fielded candidates in lower than 400 seats for the primary time since Independence, and was a top-two finisher in solely 266; the BJP has expanded its footprint at state-level significantly, whereas the Congress continues to lag far behind by way of the variety of states it guidelines, and the variety of state legislators in its kitty, which can be showcased within the relative energy in Rajya Sabha of the 2 events.
In some ways, the fourth social gathering system is with us nonetheless, together with the challenges posed by the BJP’s venture of straitjacketing and homogenisation in an unequal and numerous nation. Mohan Bhagwat’s annual Dussehra deal with was a reminder of this.
The RSS chief spoke at size about caste, and the speedy context made it look new and memorable — the 2024 electoral setback to the BJP was seen to be partially due to the stoking of Dalit anxieties, and Rahul Gandhi has made the demand for a caste census his political theme. However Bhagwat’s deal with was primarily a reiteration of the outdated, and an underlining.
Bhagwat painted an image of a nation on the transfer, but additionally, and ceaselessly, beneath siege. The risk, in his telling, comes from exterior forces envious of India’s rise, and likewise from the enemies inside — “deep state, wokeism, cultural Marxism”. He spoke of the urgent want for the “Hindu samaj” to be organised or “sangathit”, “sashakt”, highly effective, and united.
It was on this context that he spoke of the necessity for outreach to decrease castes, and for there to be “samajik samrasta” or social concord. For the RSS — which established the Samajik Samrasta Manch means again in 1983 to succeed in out to subaltern teams — the main target has all the time been, and it continues to be, on concord and tolerance in service of Hindu unity, not on concepts and beliefs of backward caste empowerment and social justice.
Until subsequent week,
Vandita
