The Big Story: Vikas’ bedfellows

Vikas, declared Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, after the Bharatiya Janata Party won its sixth consecutive term in Gujarat. And then he said it again. And again. In a span of 30 minutes, Modi had used the term, meaning development in Hindi, 30 times. He credited the BJP’s victory to vikas. He criticised those who had made fun of vikas, a reference to the Congress’ campaign that claimed that development had gone “crazy” in the state. Modi promised that the flag of development would fly even higher. Then he set about lecturing the people of Gujarat on what they got wrong in this election, in which the BJP’s tally came down from 115 seats to 99, ceding gains to the Congress .

The rest of the BJP leadership did the same thing, crediting development with the victory or claiming that the people of Gujarat had voted for vikas. The term is used so much by the BJP that it sometimes seems meaningless. But there is some truth to it. Modi’s tenure as chief minister of Gujarat saw deep religious polarisation and horrific riots, but also plenty of economic growth and improvements to physical infrastructure and the business environment, which came to be known as the Gujarat model. Surely, the party’s sixth consecutive victory in the state, in which it managed to pull off a vote share of nearly 50% after 23 years in power, is to some extent a consequence of having improved lives in the state.

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But that easy line crediting vikas with everything should not be allowed to obscure the events that occured in the run-up to this election: there were more signs of the erosion of independence at the Election Commission, the suggestion that the BJP cares more about electoral achievements than Parliament, meaningless political stunts meant to display development even as they actually delay progress and brazen communalisation of rhetoric, with the prime minister going so far as to accuse his predecessor of colluding with Pakistan to fix the results.

The BJP may be proud that it has managed to win yet again in the state, but that victory was earned as much by bending rules, breaking norms, unabashed communalism and the undermining of the stature of India’s prime minister. This does not bode well for the country. That is doubly the case considering the next election is due in Karnataka, a state where, unlike Gujarat, the BJP does not start off with a huge advantage and so is likely to try even harder to manipulate conditions and polarise the electorate.

No matter how many times the BJP’s top leadership repeats vikas, the Opposition and India’s polity would do well to notice that it is the other elements of this victory – communal rhetoric and pressure on institutions – that is likely to be replicated elsewhere as the Hindutva party hopes to grow.

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The Big Scroll

  • Polarisation pays: Expect more anti-Muslim rhetoric from Modi in run-up to 2019, writes Ajaz Ashraf.
  • ‘Death of the TINA factor’: Will Gujarat pave the way for Narendra Modi vs Rahul Gandhi in 2019, asks Neerja Chaudhary.
  • ‘Rahul Gandhi has arrived’: The Congress is treating its defeat in Gujarat as a moral victory, writes Anita Katiyal.
  • ‘Completely unexpected’: BJP’s sweeping victory in Surat leaves Congress, Patidar leaders in shock, reports Aarefa Johari.
  • In Himachal, the BJP wins with one hitch – its CM candidate lost his seat, writes Shoaib Daniyal.
  • BJP may have been dented in Gujarat, but the saffron sea now covers 19 states.

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Punditry

  1. “Both parties have reasons to be satisfied,” write Christophe Jaffrelot and Gilles Verniers in the Indian Express. “The BJP has retained the PM’s home turf while the Congress has scored a moral victory which may help the party to reposition itself as a centrepiece of a future opposition coalition.”
  2. “We believe that it is quite obviously Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaigning, which was for the most part controversial and divisive, that played a role in turning a section of voters towards the BJP, thus saving it from a possible defeat,” write Sanjay Kumar and Shreyas Sardesai in the Hindu.
  3. “The Gujarat elections have showed that you cannot take people for granted. Circuses are all very well, but it turns out, rather shockingly for some, that they want bread as well,” writes Manas Chakravarty in Mint.
  4. “Modi’s triumph and his gifts as a politician cannot be denied,” writes Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express. “But equally, it cannot be denied that Indian democracy is poised at a moment fraught with danger.”

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Don’t miss

Chryselle D’Silva Dias writes about Arati Kumar-Rao’s long-term project to chronicle the ruin of the Ganga-Brahmaputra at human hands.

“Kumar-Rao’s fascination with rivers goes back to her childhood. ‘My father was very involved with environmental issues. He was part of the Narmada Bachao Andolan and of the Save the Western Ghats movement. We had all these books lying around, lots of talk about dams and rivers. So when I graduated and wanted to do something in this space along with storytelling and writing, there was no other topic that was as important as this one. It was a foregone conclusion that I would do something related to the environment.’

The Ganga-Brahmaputra basin is the largest river basin in the world flowing through Tibet, Nepal, India and Bangladesh. Over 500 million people live in this region, making it the world’s most populated river basin as well. ‘The nature of freshwater is such that everyone wants a little part of it,’ said Kumar-Rao. ‘So it becomes contentious and there are vested interests as well. It is one of the defining issues of our times and it is important to spend time with it – not writing just one article and then you’re out, but spending time to see how it affects various things because it’s all interconnected.’”