The Big Story: Halfway mark

The die, as they say, is cast. Five states have voted. By tomorrow, the fates of the various political players will be known. Apart from what they mean for the politics of the individual states, these polls come almost exactly at the halfway mark of the National Democratic Alliance’s term at the Centre. Unlike the United States, India does not have official mid-term elections, where voters get to reiterate or negate the verdict they gave. In any case, it has been noted that people vote differently in Lok Sabha and assembly polls in India. But these elections in five states spread across the country, including the massive, groaning heartland of Uttar Pradesh, could be a telling comment on the Centre.

For the Narendra Modi government that came to power in May 2014, these polls are a test of the policies and politics of the last two and a half years. Coming months after demonetisation, they will be an indicator of the political impact of a punishing policy move. It caused acute economic distress in the rural areas and hit small businesses that function on cash. But has the Centre been able to sell its story right, that demonetisation was a grand nationalist move against black money and terror? Second, the elections will test whether the aspirational promises that brought the Bharatiya Janata Party to power in 2014 still endure, whether it is still seen as the party of jobs and development, marching India into the First World. Third, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, they will measure the success of the political signals sent out by the BJP and its brethren in the Sangh Parivar. Has the heady cocktail of Hindutva and nationalism, the rhetoric of surgical strikes and beef bans translated into electoral gains for the BJP? Finally, the BJP fought without a chief ministerial candidate and in the name of Modi. So these polls could also tell whether the celebrated Modi wave is still sweeping across the country.

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There will be answers in the verdicts for other players as well. Has the Congress been able to recover from the poll debacle of 2014 and can it retain some of its last remaining bastions? Will the Aam Aadmi Party be able to expand its base outside Delhi? Was the popularity of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav enough to make up for a shambolic and divided Samjawadi Party? Has the Bahujan Samaj Party’s attempt to build a social coalition failed? Finally, the polls could reflect the state of the Opposition, whether any one party is able to put up a credible challenge to the BJP or whether Bihar-style mahagatbandhans are the only way forward. March 2017 could lay the ground for May 2019.

Political pickings

  1. After exit polls show the BJP in the lead in Uttar Pradesh, a Samajwadi Party leader grumbles that they suffered because of the alliance with the Congress.
  2. Breaking the government’s silence on the killing of Indians in the United States, Home Minister Rajnath Singh has said the Centrre took a serious view of such ‘hate crimes” and would take steps to ensure e safety of Indians abroad.
  3. Parliament has passed a bill raising maternity leave from 12 weeks to 26 weeks.

Punditry

  1. In the Indian Express, Janaki Nair on anti-intellectualism and the attack on Delhi University student Gurmehar Kaur.
  2. In the Hindu, Sriram Lakshman questions the monopoly of politicians on our public spaces.
  3. In the Economic Times, Pranab Dhal Samanta on how Modi needs to politically rebrand Indian-Americans in Trump’s United States.

Giggles

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Hadley Meares on a riot against disco in Chicago 1979:

It was a muggy summer night in South Side, Chicago in 1979. In and around Comiskey Park, home to the long-struggling White Sox baseball team, the scene was one of total chaos. Thousands of working- and middle-class young men, predominately white, predominately angry, went riot. Seats were ripped out of the stadium, urinals were kicked from the walls and the opposing baseball teams were shut in the locker rooms for their own protection. Through it all, the rioters shouted a mantra. It wasn’t about inequality, lingering recession woes or the high-paying industrial jobs slowly seeping out of the Midwest. The slogan they chanted over and over, until their voices were raw, was: “Disco sucks!”