The election juggernaut has begun to roll in India, with the Election Commission announcing the election dates just last week. Hundreds of political parties had already started preparing their candidates list and campaigning months before. In this loud and raucous democracy that we have in India, even the news channels have nothing but politicians campaigning and rally speeches as news. Thankfully, some newspapers do think it important to report other news.
The big shocker – and about time actually – was the Supreme Court decision to declare the system of electoral bonds unconstitutional, as it is a highly opaque instrument of corporate donations to political parties. Introduced by the ruling BJP government as a cleaner way for corporations to make political donations, avoiding black money, it was never that clean because it kept the identities of the donors, secret.
However, in this Owleye column of mine, I would like to focus on how most elections this year might turn out to be a repeat of the same old patterns of the past. In India, most people are already resigned to the fact that the BJP government is going to get re-elected for its third consecutive term in office, as several polls seem to indicate. And as I have already written, prime minister Modi has himself predicted that the NDA (National Democratic Alliance, an alliance of BJP and several regional parties) will get more than 400 seats in the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) this time.
The strange thing, though, is that the NDA is growing bigger as an alliance in this year’s election. The BJP is stitching up new alliances almost every other day and is beefing up its chances to win more seats from every state in India. Why do they need to form new seat sharing alliances, if they are so confident of winning with a massive majority?
The answer lies in BJP’s dominance in certain states and regions and relative weakness in others, which explains why the party is trying to make a big push into southern India. In the east too, BJP has reached some kind of understanding with the BJD in Odisha, although I don’t think a formal alliance has yet been announced. BJP dominates some parts of the East, such as Assam and the Northeast, and has recently readmitted Nitish Kumar and his JDU into the NDA. In Bengal, they face a formidable opponent in Mamata Banerjee’s TMC, although the party is mired in a recent controversy over gang-rapes and molestation of women in the state.
I must mention that another opposition party, AAP, that runs governments in Delhi and Punjab has suffered a setback, with the ED (enforcement directorate) arresting the party leader and Delhi chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, in connection with a two-year probe into corrupt and irregular practices regarding a new liquor policy in Delhi. I have yet to read any sensible and informative reporting on it in Goa, and TV news channels have only been full of sensational reports. However, the timing of his arrest just ahead of parliamentary elections does raise questions, though several of his colleagues are already in prison.
The I.N.D.I.A alliance of the main national opposition party, Indian National Congress and its partners was in disarray until recently, when it seems to have gathered some momentum, though more parties seem to be flocking to the NDA it appears. As I said recently, who doesn’t like to back a winning horse?! It might therefore turn out to be an election of two grand alliances, though in the case of the NDA, it will be clearly led by the prime minister and his larger-than-life personality.
Another strange aspect of all this alliance-making, is that neither of the grand alliances have worked out a common policy agenda, on which to contest the elections. They seem to think that just making campaign promises and winning votes is enough at the moment. Who cares about what policy agenda to follow after being elected, when freebies and sops right now are enough to win? This is where I wonder how strong or stable the NDA alliance is likely to be to last through the full third term; coalition governments don’t have a great track record in India. So, the BJP will still have to win a sizeable majority on its own, which they are likely to, though not from all the states of India.
My larger observation and point of view on elections in 2024 not just in India, but around the world, is that they will be old wine, even when there is change. In Pakistan we have the same old political stalwarts and their families back in place, though in new roles. In the US, it is widely believed that the GOP under Trump might just return to office in a repeat of the 2020 election. If this is supposed to be change and how democracy works, then it takes the electorate to be gullible and foolish, while also taking them for granted. Putin’s win of a fifth consecutive term in what has been called a sham election in Russia is hardly surprising in itself; what is surprising is that Russian voters turned out in even larger numbers this time to elect him.
As I have written before elections follow economic cycles for the most part. In many parts of the world, countries are still recovering from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, including high inflation and high unemployment. Add to this, the urgent need to address climate change and prepare for AI technology disruption. Not to mention the two wars raging in Ukraine and in the Middle-east, which are both doing their share to keep oil and food prices high and volatile. Economies that are recovering strongly will probably vote in the same government; those that are weak will experience anti-incumbency.
In Germany, for example, it was probably the Covid pandemic that led to the centre-left SPD winning the most seats in 2021 perhaps hoping for more welfare-oriented policies from their government. This, even while the far-right AFD continues to make gains, mostly in East Germany. In the UK, the bad Brexit experience, meagre growth, unusually high and persistent inflation as well as the underfunding of public services such as the NHS, has made it imminent that the Labour Party will probably win the general elections this year, according to the polls. Labour will be returning to office after a long period of 14 years in opposition.
In India, we are relatively speaking on a stronger wicket economically even though high unemployment continues to be an age-old problem. Consumer demand is not growing as strongly as it should, and private investment is yet to pick up momentum. Most of the growth has come from government investment in infrastructure and this is expected to slow down somewhat this year and the next. There are new areas of the economy that are attracting a lot of investment, such as renewables, green hydrogen, electric vehicles, semiconductor manufacture, and defence, albeit on a small base. In the absence of any viable and strong alternative, the ruling BJP and NDA are likely to return for their third consecutive term.
In such a scenario of a repeat of past regimes and policies, where can the impetus for change and new policies to push countries forward come from? Usually, the strongest impetus for change comes from external or internal shocks and the world has already had more than its share of those in this millennium. In a return to normal, peaceful and stable times, change has to come from leaders. They must lead their countries and economies to newer and better lives and higher standards of living for all, and it is our job as the electorate to demand this from our governments. It is the job of the educated, enlightened middle class to keep pushing our governments to deliver and to make them accountable.
If the world is once again getting old wine in old bottles, guess where the blame lies.
The animated owl gif that forms the featured image and title of the Owleye column is by animatedimages.org and I am thankful to them.
Peripatetic Perch 