Peter Ronald deSouza
The rise and rise of the BJP across India, even in places where it was weak, has produced several explanations for its success. These range from the presence of Modi as the new ‘Loha Purush’ of Indian politics, to Amit Shah its Chanakya, to the dedication of RSS cadres who, as the foot soldiers of the party, take its message through the last mile, to the apparent policy profusion and decisiveness of the NDA government as compared to the alleged policy paralysis of the UPA, to the three average monsoons that have allowed the rural crises to muddle through rather than become full blown.
Beyond these causal factors, the smiling of lady luck is also acknowledged. While it would be interesting to compile a long list of factors that have contributed to the rise of the BJP, all of which I believe are partly valid, I think there are five points, in particular, that are key to its success.
The most significant factor is of course the rise of Modi as a plebiscitary leader. A plebiscitary leader is one who is able to appeal to people over the heads of organisations and institutions and thereby build an affective relationship between him and his followers. This relationship results in a submission of the followers to the world view of the leader, one where the attitude of critical assessment is replaced by uncritical loyalty. The followers believe the picture of the world that the leader presents.
The leader relieves the cognitive stress that the followers experience as they try to make sense of the world. He explains it. He identifies the causes, the enemies and the solutions. Pseudo secularism is a cause, as is Nehruvian socialism and disrespect of the majority culture. Pakistan is the enemy. A muscular nationalism is the way to restore India to its former glory. These are short forms of longer arguments but they constitute the running themes of Modi’s transformation of public discourse.
The second factor, perhaps equally important, is the organisational form that has emerged in the BJP. While it is reminiscent of the structure that had served the Congress well in the 1950s and 1960s, so comprehensively described in The Congress Party of India: the Dynamics of a One Party Democracy by Stanley Kochanek, the BJP has added to that organisational form many structures at every level.
The feedback mechanism of the BJP allows the party president to monitor, respond, revise and reprimand. As a result the power of the local gets diminished and the power of the top gets enhanced.
Over time, an authority form, more like the Communist parties than the Congress of yore, has emerged. Amit Shah has created an organisational form that is truly remarkable. It customises policies for local requirements, retains control at the top resulting in sycophancy and fear of dissent, and responds effectively to the changing dynamics of local and national politics. It is a cross between an FMCG company and a Lalaji’s firm.
Added to this power of a strong leader and an effective organisation are the linkages between the BJP and social and the cultural fronts that comprise the Sangh Parivar. Here too, there are parallels between the BJP and the Congress of an earlier period. The latter’s connects with labour unions, peasant movements, youth organisations, mahila mandals etc, gave it legitimacy and helped its agenda setting. The old Congress was a movement party which now the BJP has become.
Secular spaces
However, in addition to its having organisational presence in many of the secular spaces of state and society, the BJP has importantly also established its presence in the cultural domain deliberately changing the key elements of the national imagination and discourse. This is well documented in the recent book by Amrita Basu, Violent Conjuncture in Democratic India.
Nationalism has become the key platform of our public discourse with the nation being endowed a sacredness such that critical discourses are seen as anti-national and unpatriotic. Writer Kalburgi’s scepticism, and those of other rationalists who challenge this cultural assertiveness, are deemed as being offensive.
To the organisational form, led by a strong leader, the BJP has added a cultural enchantment that taps into India’s diverse cultural resources and re-interprets it from the perspective of a narrow cultural nationalism. Bharat Mata is elevated to the sacred pantheon. The nation is Bharat Mata. These two factors of ‘movement party’ and ‘cultural nationalism’ give the BJP the power to drive the public discourse. It sets the terms to which the other parties must respond.
One is tempted here to briefly mention the fifth factor which is India’s strategic value in the current global geopolitics. To contain China, weaken Russia and to create new alignments in Asia, India has a crucial role. India is a beneficiary both of its location and its size. This is what I mean by luck. India’s interests and the interests of the western global order seem to be aligned.
These five aspects in combination have given the BJP the winning formula. Will it produce the same one dominant party system of the past described by thinker Rajni Kothari where intense party competition was between one dominant party – the Congress – and other parties who were only parties of pressure never having the potential to replace the Congress. Each party of pressure connected with a faction within the Congress with whom it shared ideological affinity.
Is a one dominant party system of the BJP emerging? Both yes and no. ‘Yes’ because of the BJP’s dominance due to the five factors mentioned earlier. This dominance will stay, at least for now, unless two or more factors fall away.
And ‘No’ because, unlike the Congress which was a catch all party of multiple ideological persuasions, the BJP is ideologically fairly homogenous because of the project of Hindutva. So with whom will the parties of the opposition align? Something to think about for our democracy.
