dray
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I have tried to briefly summarize the Bihar election for all the stakeholders, requesting members to add points and discuss:
Positive aspects:
1. Nitish Kumar now has the opportunity to project himself as an alternative in the national politics (apart from retaining power in Bihar). Nitish as a potential PM candidate from the UPA camp is a far better option than any Congress PM candidate who would always be directed by the regressive and populist politics of the 10 Janpath. I believe Nitish has the spine to maintain the authority of the PMO in case he ever becomes the PM from UPA camp.
2. BJP now has the opportunity to pause and think about a much-needed course correction, which I will mention separately.
3. At some point in future NDA will lose the LS election and UPA will form the government in centre, it's natural. As a consequence of the point no.1, now there is a possibility that Congress will look beyond one particular family to find credible leaders for the party, and the dynasty losing its grip on the Indian politics further. We are not a monarchy that is bound to accept whatever one family manages to produce and deliver, we deserve proven and capable leaders, not incapable royal offsprings.
Congress being the only truly national party in the UPA alliance, the country would benefit if they look for some strong and capable leaders outside one particular family, instead of trying to force a donkey to act like a horse for the reasons mentioned in point no.3 & 4 in the 'Negative aspects' below.
4. The holy cow along with her self-proclaimed children might be given a break from the bitter Indian political scene and left alone to eat grass peacefully.
Negative aspects:
1. Reforms might become more troublesome to push forward, parliament might find it more difficult to function constructively, at least in the short-term.
2. Caste-based politics remains very relevant in some states, a politician like Lalu becomes relevant again. But the negative implications of these things are likely to remain contained within the respective state(s). However, Bihar might go to election again in coming 2-3 years, or Lalu might try to form a government with BJP in future (which BJP should avoid)...these are possibilities though.
3. Assuming Nitish Kumar as the future PM candidate of UPA; an UPA government without a Congress PM would likely to be unstable, Congress will pull the plug on that government before term to keep themselves relevant.
4. There could be an attempt to form a third-front government also in the centre, such a government would not perform because of many divergent interests and ideologies, and will be inherently unstable.
5. BJP might read the Bihar verdict as their failure to promote enough of Hindutva and cow politics, and become more obsessed with it instead of focusing on reforms.
Course correction and future strategies for BJP:
1. BJP has won the election with the promise of development and good clean governance, in other words, Congress has lost the election because of poor governance and corruption. Development comes from reform, keep focused on that...BJP government has done well compared to the previous one, but almost anything compared to the previous government would look better, that is clearly not enough. Most of the work so far was on process improvement, not on core reforms and policy formations. Performance is the key for any government, you deliver well and people will forgive & forget your small mistakes...you don't deliver, and your small mistakes will be perceived as Himalayan blunders. Modi has already lost some crucial time, and reforms take time to show results on the ground...Modi need to step up on the accelerator of reforms.
2. Hindutva might be a core ideology of BJP, but that won't make BJP win elections at the national level, it never did. Both BJP and Congress now has a captive vote-bank of roughly 20% nationally, good enough to keep the parties in the opposition, but not good enough to keep them in power, for that both the parties need another 10% votes...those votes can only come from performance, not from Hindutva and cow. Hindutva politics for BJP has reached a saturation point, where they can't get any further Hindu votes in significant numbers, but stand to lose some Hindu and other minority votes out of sheer irritation, frustration or fear, and they stand to lose it to their opposition, ensuring a double whammy. Some minorities did vote for BJP in 2014 LS election, then why BJP is hell bent on pushing them away to the opposition? And all that while in India a mere 2-3% change in votes can make or break governments!!
However, both caste-based and religion-based politics are here to stay for decades, at least in some states. And it would be impractical to suggest that BJP should completely discard its Hindutva politics and let go its base votes, remember that Lalu became the largest political party in Bihar in Indian brand of politics by playing both caste & communal cards. Needless to say that winning elections is important for any political party, but changes can be made in how they play their Hindutva politics to retain their Hindutva votebank, they have to discard their strategy of attacking and abusing the minorities, so called 'secular' parties also play their minority votebank politics, but without acting rabidly against the majority community...in short, discard rabid Hindutva and adopt subtle Hindutva.
For example, banning "Bull slaughter" in Maharashtra (and Mumbai, a cosmopolitan city under 24/7 focus of media) was a bull$hit 'screw you minorities' Hindutva politics, they could have just used the existing 'anti-cow slaughter' laws to check and book some meat sellers who might be slaughtering cows, Hindutvadis would have been happy and nobody would have been able to blame them for upholding the law of the land. Or take the examples of minority votebank tactics where Nitish Kumar declared a terrorist "Bihar ka beta" or something like that, or Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah withdrawing all the cases, some 175, against a radical Islamist organization like PFI, BJP could have used these things to counter-attack the respective CMs by promoting a statement like:
"Such votebank politics to appease the minority sections of our citizens is not only detrimental to India's internal security, but also highly offensive and insulting for the common law-abiding minority citizens, the CM must answer if he thinks that our minority Indian community is sympathetic to those terrorists, radicals and criminals just because of their religion"....and keep asking this question.....I think this would have a) satisfied the Hindutva supporters and all other Indians concerned about the security of our nation, b) openly call out on such hypocrisy and communal politics of the secular brigade without attacking and abusing any particular community, c) divide the Muslim community among good Muslims and fringe radicals, and make the larger population of Muslims to think whether the CMs acts were actually insulting towards their community, d) put the respective CMs in an awkward position, and probably nullifying the effects of such minority-appeasement politics.
3. Just count how many self goals BJP members have given, it would break all the previous records anywhere in India. BJP must control its motor-mouths urgently, these guys follow the "Aa bael mujhe maar" formula and are good at generating controversies out of thin air. It is understandable that commonsense is not that common, and BJP should be sympathetic to such human deficiencies, but people with such human deficiencies need not be allowed to open their mouths when in politics. BJP should be very 'intolerant' to such members and use duct tapes if necessary, suspending a few lower rung members would also send the message across the party line. And don't blame the media here.
4. People didn't vote for RSS, they voted for Modi and BJP...it was a mandate for "Development, Development & Development" and not for "Hindutva, Cow & sending haramzadas to Pakistan", DO NOT CHANGE THE MANDATE. RSS people should voluntarily shut their mouths and stay away from the government, or they should be asked to shut their mouths and stay away...a very large majority of Indians don't need and don't want Mohan Bhagwat to get into the role of 'Sonia Gandhi of previous government'...people should stick to their respective roles without interfering in others' business.
5. Pre-poll alliances and seat sharing is the name of the game. You have a large alliance against a fractured opposition, you win...you alone against an united opposition, you lose. BJP should hold their alliance partners close, treat them as important partners, and try to find new alliance partners (here rabid Hindutva would be a challenge, another reason to discard it). At the same time, BJP should also try to keep the opposition fractured...in Bihar BJP can use their low-profile local cadres to slowly but continuously spread the message that Nitish became CM on Lalu's shoulders, the victory was Lalu's to take. Knowing Lalu, 'Mahagathbandhan' will become 'Mahaghotbandhan' in two years.
6. Experience, knowledge, wisdom and intelligence counts, political stature, acceptance across the political parties, diplomacy and negotiation skills also counts. The current 'team BJP' is high on energy (and arrogance), but mostly low on the above parameters...politics is not a physical sport that one should retire the old credible members of the party. Modi should rectify the mistake, drop ego issues if there are any, and bring the most deserving people in the right places. Old guards of BJP also share better relations with the opposition parties, they can build the broken bridge and work better with the opposition parties to convince them to get the bills passed. They will also be very useful in maintaining and increasing the strength of NDA alliance, a strong NDA with many alliance partners will be needed in 2019, and in the state elections in between.
7. Better media management, better spokespersons, better relations with the journalists, some amount of exchanging favours...if you are in politics, play as per the rules of the game. I personally think that media's influence on election results are grossly overrated, but they can make your life hell with their silly propaganda and provocations. And btw BJPwallas, stop reacting to every silly provocation, the more you do so, the more they poke you. In classrooms the kid who gets angry quickly and reacts to every provocation gets harassed more by the classmates, just for fun (or TRP).
8. Don't touch the personal laws, go silent on it and let the Supreme Court to deal with the Uniform Civil Code...government can work with the liberals and eminent personalities within the Muslim community to drive the demand for UCC from within the community, but BJP for its identity can't do it, so leave that thing alone, at least for now. What the rest of Indians stand to lose here?
Don't touch the reservation policies either, don't even talk about it, it was an irreparable damage done to India by VP Singh, just keep it restricted to the present upper limit. There is a possibility of excluding the 'creamy layer' from the quota, but that will destroy BJP's 'creamy layer' votes, but gain of other SC/ST votes is not guaranteed, and opposition will engage in false propaganda suggesting that BJP is trying to take away the reservation benefits from the dalits...so leave it alone.
In short, don't mess with the political atom bombs and focus on reforms and developments, gain a solid foothold, and then take such risks.
9. Common sense dictates that people look for credible state leaders in state elections, a Prime Minister or central government ministers may have their star value, but they are not the ones seeking peoples' verdict in state elections, but state leaders are. BJP must promote their state leaders and CM candidates in states...Modi wave cannot work in state elections for obvious reasons.
Besides, why central leaders should stick their necks out in state elections and risk their political capital, especially in a state like Bihar where the arithmetic were clearly not on their side? Sure they will do campaigns and rallies, but for the state leaders under the CM candidate who should be the face of the party in their respective states. Besides, BJP is still perceived as an urban and upper caste political party, they need to work towards broadening their support base.
One more point, in Bihar BJP should have promoted Sushil Kumar Modi as their CM candidate and claimed the credits for the good work of the Nitish government, after all it was a BJP government also for almost 80% of its term and Sushil Kumar Modi was holding both Deputy CM and Finance Minister posts of Nitish government for most part of it, November 2005 – June, 2013 to be precise. Nitish (+BJP) government was the face of development in Bihar, it was futile to attack Nitish on development, and questioning Nitish on development is actually questioning the performance of BJP also in the state. In fact, Nitish should have been retained in NDA, even if that required a personal visit from Modi.
However, the present or the previous government in UP don't have the credibility of Nitish, BJP will be better positioned there.
Conclusion: Defeat in the Bihar election can actually be a blessing in disguise for BJP if they learn from their mistakes and get their acts right. Otherwise, apparently India now has an Option-B in the form of Nitish Kumar.
*Let's look at the vote share of the key political parties in Bihar election for a better perspective on the importance of pre-poll alliances and seat sharing.
Positive aspects:
1. Nitish Kumar now has the opportunity to project himself as an alternative in the national politics (apart from retaining power in Bihar). Nitish as a potential PM candidate from the UPA camp is a far better option than any Congress PM candidate who would always be directed by the regressive and populist politics of the 10 Janpath. I believe Nitish has the spine to maintain the authority of the PMO in case he ever becomes the PM from UPA camp.
2. BJP now has the opportunity to pause and think about a much-needed course correction, which I will mention separately.
3. At some point in future NDA will lose the LS election and UPA will form the government in centre, it's natural. As a consequence of the point no.1, now there is a possibility that Congress will look beyond one particular family to find credible leaders for the party, and the dynasty losing its grip on the Indian politics further. We are not a monarchy that is bound to accept whatever one family manages to produce and deliver, we deserve proven and capable leaders, not incapable royal offsprings.
Congress being the only truly national party in the UPA alliance, the country would benefit if they look for some strong and capable leaders outside one particular family, instead of trying to force a donkey to act like a horse for the reasons mentioned in point no.3 & 4 in the 'Negative aspects' below.
4. The holy cow along with her self-proclaimed children might be given a break from the bitter Indian political scene and left alone to eat grass peacefully.
Negative aspects:
1. Reforms might become more troublesome to push forward, parliament might find it more difficult to function constructively, at least in the short-term.
2. Caste-based politics remains very relevant in some states, a politician like Lalu becomes relevant again. But the negative implications of these things are likely to remain contained within the respective state(s). However, Bihar might go to election again in coming 2-3 years, or Lalu might try to form a government with BJP in future (which BJP should avoid)...these are possibilities though.
3. Assuming Nitish Kumar as the future PM candidate of UPA; an UPA government without a Congress PM would likely to be unstable, Congress will pull the plug on that government before term to keep themselves relevant.
4. There could be an attempt to form a third-front government also in the centre, such a government would not perform because of many divergent interests and ideologies, and will be inherently unstable.
5. BJP might read the Bihar verdict as their failure to promote enough of Hindutva and cow politics, and become more obsessed with it instead of focusing on reforms.
Course correction and future strategies for BJP:
1. BJP has won the election with the promise of development and good clean governance, in other words, Congress has lost the election because of poor governance and corruption. Development comes from reform, keep focused on that...BJP government has done well compared to the previous one, but almost anything compared to the previous government would look better, that is clearly not enough. Most of the work so far was on process improvement, not on core reforms and policy formations. Performance is the key for any government, you deliver well and people will forgive & forget your small mistakes...you don't deliver, and your small mistakes will be perceived as Himalayan blunders. Modi has already lost some crucial time, and reforms take time to show results on the ground...Modi need to step up on the accelerator of reforms.
2. Hindutva might be a core ideology of BJP, but that won't make BJP win elections at the national level, it never did. Both BJP and Congress now has a captive vote-bank of roughly 20% nationally, good enough to keep the parties in the opposition, but not good enough to keep them in power, for that both the parties need another 10% votes...those votes can only come from performance, not from Hindutva and cow. Hindutva politics for BJP has reached a saturation point, where they can't get any further Hindu votes in significant numbers, but stand to lose some Hindu and other minority votes out of sheer irritation, frustration or fear, and they stand to lose it to their opposition, ensuring a double whammy. Some minorities did vote for BJP in 2014 LS election, then why BJP is hell bent on pushing them away to the opposition? And all that while in India a mere 2-3% change in votes can make or break governments!!
However, both caste-based and religion-based politics are here to stay for decades, at least in some states. And it would be impractical to suggest that BJP should completely discard its Hindutva politics and let go its base votes, remember that Lalu became the largest political party in Bihar in Indian brand of politics by playing both caste & communal cards. Needless to say that winning elections is important for any political party, but changes can be made in how they play their Hindutva politics to retain their Hindutva votebank, they have to discard their strategy of attacking and abusing the minorities, so called 'secular' parties also play their minority votebank politics, but without acting rabidly against the majority community...in short, discard rabid Hindutva and adopt subtle Hindutva.
For example, banning "Bull slaughter" in Maharashtra (and Mumbai, a cosmopolitan city under 24/7 focus of media) was a bull$hit 'screw you minorities' Hindutva politics, they could have just used the existing 'anti-cow slaughter' laws to check and book some meat sellers who might be slaughtering cows, Hindutvadis would have been happy and nobody would have been able to blame them for upholding the law of the land. Or take the examples of minority votebank tactics where Nitish Kumar declared a terrorist "Bihar ka beta" or something like that, or Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah withdrawing all the cases, some 175, against a radical Islamist organization like PFI, BJP could have used these things to counter-attack the respective CMs by promoting a statement like:
"Such votebank politics to appease the minority sections of our citizens is not only detrimental to India's internal security, but also highly offensive and insulting for the common law-abiding minority citizens, the CM must answer if he thinks that our minority Indian community is sympathetic to those terrorists, radicals and criminals just because of their religion"....and keep asking this question.....I think this would have a) satisfied the Hindutva supporters and all other Indians concerned about the security of our nation, b) openly call out on such hypocrisy and communal politics of the secular brigade without attacking and abusing any particular community, c) divide the Muslim community among good Muslims and fringe radicals, and make the larger population of Muslims to think whether the CMs acts were actually insulting towards their community, d) put the respective CMs in an awkward position, and probably nullifying the effects of such minority-appeasement politics.
3. Just count how many self goals BJP members have given, it would break all the previous records anywhere in India. BJP must control its motor-mouths urgently, these guys follow the "Aa bael mujhe maar" formula and are good at generating controversies out of thin air. It is understandable that commonsense is not that common, and BJP should be sympathetic to such human deficiencies, but people with such human deficiencies need not be allowed to open their mouths when in politics. BJP should be very 'intolerant' to such members and use duct tapes if necessary, suspending a few lower rung members would also send the message across the party line. And don't blame the media here.
4. People didn't vote for RSS, they voted for Modi and BJP...it was a mandate for "Development, Development & Development" and not for "Hindutva, Cow & sending haramzadas to Pakistan", DO NOT CHANGE THE MANDATE. RSS people should voluntarily shut their mouths and stay away from the government, or they should be asked to shut their mouths and stay away...a very large majority of Indians don't need and don't want Mohan Bhagwat to get into the role of 'Sonia Gandhi of previous government'...people should stick to their respective roles without interfering in others' business.
5. Pre-poll alliances and seat sharing is the name of the game. You have a large alliance against a fractured opposition, you win...you alone against an united opposition, you lose. BJP should hold their alliance partners close, treat them as important partners, and try to find new alliance partners (here rabid Hindutva would be a challenge, another reason to discard it). At the same time, BJP should also try to keep the opposition fractured...in Bihar BJP can use their low-profile local cadres to slowly but continuously spread the message that Nitish became CM on Lalu's shoulders, the victory was Lalu's to take. Knowing Lalu, 'Mahagathbandhan' will become 'Mahaghotbandhan' in two years.
6. Experience, knowledge, wisdom and intelligence counts, political stature, acceptance across the political parties, diplomacy and negotiation skills also counts. The current 'team BJP' is high on energy (and arrogance), but mostly low on the above parameters...politics is not a physical sport that one should retire the old credible members of the party. Modi should rectify the mistake, drop ego issues if there are any, and bring the most deserving people in the right places. Old guards of BJP also share better relations with the opposition parties, they can build the broken bridge and work better with the opposition parties to convince them to get the bills passed. They will also be very useful in maintaining and increasing the strength of NDA alliance, a strong NDA with many alliance partners will be needed in 2019, and in the state elections in between.
7. Better media management, better spokespersons, better relations with the journalists, some amount of exchanging favours...if you are in politics, play as per the rules of the game. I personally think that media's influence on election results are grossly overrated, but they can make your life hell with their silly propaganda and provocations. And btw BJPwallas, stop reacting to every silly provocation, the more you do so, the more they poke you. In classrooms the kid who gets angry quickly and reacts to every provocation gets harassed more by the classmates, just for fun (or TRP).
8. Don't touch the personal laws, go silent on it and let the Supreme Court to deal with the Uniform Civil Code...government can work with the liberals and eminent personalities within the Muslim community to drive the demand for UCC from within the community, but BJP for its identity can't do it, so leave that thing alone, at least for now. What the rest of Indians stand to lose here?
Don't touch the reservation policies either, don't even talk about it, it was an irreparable damage done to India by VP Singh, just keep it restricted to the present upper limit. There is a possibility of excluding the 'creamy layer' from the quota, but that will destroy BJP's 'creamy layer' votes, but gain of other SC/ST votes is not guaranteed, and opposition will engage in false propaganda suggesting that BJP is trying to take away the reservation benefits from the dalits...so leave it alone.
In short, don't mess with the political atom bombs and focus on reforms and developments, gain a solid foothold, and then take such risks.
9. Common sense dictates that people look for credible state leaders in state elections, a Prime Minister or central government ministers may have their star value, but they are not the ones seeking peoples' verdict in state elections, but state leaders are. BJP must promote their state leaders and CM candidates in states...Modi wave cannot work in state elections for obvious reasons.
Besides, why central leaders should stick their necks out in state elections and risk their political capital, especially in a state like Bihar where the arithmetic were clearly not on their side? Sure they will do campaigns and rallies, but for the state leaders under the CM candidate who should be the face of the party in their respective states. Besides, BJP is still perceived as an urban and upper caste political party, they need to work towards broadening their support base.
One more point, in Bihar BJP should have promoted Sushil Kumar Modi as their CM candidate and claimed the credits for the good work of the Nitish government, after all it was a BJP government also for almost 80% of its term and Sushil Kumar Modi was holding both Deputy CM and Finance Minister posts of Nitish government for most part of it, November 2005 – June, 2013 to be precise. Nitish (+BJP) government was the face of development in Bihar, it was futile to attack Nitish on development, and questioning Nitish on development is actually questioning the performance of BJP also in the state. In fact, Nitish should have been retained in NDA, even if that required a personal visit from Modi.
However, the present or the previous government in UP don't have the credibility of Nitish, BJP will be better positioned there.
Conclusion: Defeat in the Bihar election can actually be a blessing in disguise for BJP if they learn from their mistakes and get their acts right. Otherwise, apparently India now has an Option-B in the form of Nitish Kumar.
*Let's look at the vote share of the key political parties in Bihar election for a better perspective on the importance of pre-poll alliances and seat sharing.
