Every election verdict is part statistics, part interpretation. The game of numbers is cut in stone; the realm of interpretation is anything but. The following question is worth posing. Just what do the 2024 national election results mean?
There are three serious interpretive candidates (and possibly some more, if imagination can be deployed further). The first is that the results are a massive disapproval of the prime minister’s hubris, especially though not only epitomised by his public statement that he was not biologically produced, but was chosen and sent by “parmatma” (God) to accomplish a divinely ordained mission. . This statement in May followed his consecration of the Ram temple in January, where priests played a wholly subsidiary role and India’s Prime Minister, occupying the highest office of a non-theocratic state, placed himself at the center of a religious ceremony.
But even a serious electoral reversal — losing over 60 seats — appears not to have had an immediate effect. In an inversion of meanings, the first post-election Narendra Modi appearance at the BJP headquarters was presented as an “aitihasik vijay utsav” (historic victory celebration). That is called an exercise in suspension of disbelief.
In an intellectually astute formulation, Yogendra Yadav has of late been arguing that given the call for “chaar sau paar” (beyond 400 seats) and its 303 seats in the last Lok Sabha, 300 seats or so for the BJP in 2024 could be called. some kind of draw, but less than the majority figure (272) should be viewed as a “moral defeat” and less than 250 a “political defeat”. BJP has 240. How can that be a victory?
The second interpretation is that the results are a check on Hindu nationalism. After the first round of voting, Modi’s campaign, in its anti-Muslim rhetoric, acquired the kind of Hindu nationalist stridency not seen since 2002.
Consider, now, why the verdict can be read as a disapproval of Hindu nationalism. The BJP lost Faizabad, the parliamentary seat that houses the Ayodhya temple. Equally notably, the BJP has been trounced in Uttar Pradesh, the party’s greatest ideological heartland outside Gujarat since 2014. Compared to 2019, the BJP’s vote in UP fell by as much as eight percentage points.
Two more results are worthy of attention. The BJP also lost the parliamentary seat of Barmer (Rajasthan), where Modi, while campaigning, used for India’s Muslims some truly vile words, such as “ghuspaithiye” (infiltrators) and “zyada bachche paida karne wale log” (the community that breeds more children). The BJP was also defeated in Banaskantha (Gujarat), a heavily dairy-dependent town, where the prime minister spoke of how the Congress party would snatch a buffalo from those Hindus who owned two buffaloes, and give it to Muslims.
The third interpretation is that the elections expressed a yearning for the defense of constitutional values, especially affirmative action and citizen dignity. Those who did field research during elections, including me, have noted that for the first time in India’s electoral history, the voters were expressing concern about the Constitution, especially if the BJP won big. Of particular concern was the idea of 370 or 400 seats.
Why 370 or 400? Why not 320 or 330, which is more than sufficient for victory? Wouldn’t the former be an instrument for bringing about constitutional changes, including alterations in the affirmative action regime?
Concerns about the Constitution have always been a matter of debate in elite circles — in English language media, in the seminar rooms of India International Centre, JNU, National Law Schools, Delhi School of Economics and Sociology, etc. But these concerns now entered mass politics, especially among educated Dalits and OBCs. A copy of the Constitution in Rahul Gandhi’s hands, as he made campaign speeches with an approving Akhilesh Yadav on his side, signified how the Opposition turned this “elite idea” into an election pitch.
This third interpretation is perhaps the best way to think about the verdict. But it has to be reframed in a way that links it to a broader idea. We need a prism through which we can connect the apparently disparate things that we kept hearing in our travels. These were — affirmative action uncertainties; the rise of animosities and polarization in society; the concern about rights; the steeply rising inequalities, with a few becoming monumentally rich and millions without a job; the idea that if a job is available, one won’t need free ration, one can buy the food one needs, and also live a life of dignity. These thoughts can, I think, be aggregated into the so-called “idea of India”.
Hindu nationalists have always resented this term, calling it a Nehruvian imposition. An authentic idea of India, in their view, requires civilizational anchorage, which they define as Hindu-centric. To their minds, “Islamic invasions” since the 711 conquest of Sind by Mohammed bin Qasim make it more than ek hazaar saal ki ghulami (a thousand years of slavery). A culturally authentic idea of India must give primacy to overcoming this ghulami; everything else follows. The term “infiltrators” comes from this version of history.
But this argument is fundamentally flawed. The so-called idea of India is not a Nehruvian imposition. It is enshrined in India’s Constitution. The Constitution is, most of all, Babasaheb Ambedkar’s creation. It was undoubtedly based on deliberations in the Constituent Assembly, but he was the prime mover. The Constitution has all the ideas bubbling disparately in our election conversations: Justice, equality, rights, attack on various kinds of inequalities, and that mighty human motivation once consciousness dawns — dignity.
Doubtless, my arguments above have a Dalit, OBC and Muslim inflection. Moreover, their roots are in my UP conversations. But that is no disqualifier. After all, Modi’s overall electoral reverses are disproportionately driven by his defeat in UP. And there is every reason to believe that Dalits, OBCs (including lower OBCs) and Muslims brought about the BJP’s downfall in UP.
In short, at least in UP, and perhaps elsewhere, we are witnessing a re-birth of the idea of India, heavily suppressed for the last several years. What is even clearer is that if the BJP had returned to power with a majority of its own, the constitutionally enshrined idea of India would have been subjected to a vigorous assault, leading to its decimation.
The writer is Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences at Brown University, where he also directs the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia at the Watson Institute.