III. The bleak present.
So here we are, faced with several phenomena.
A. The flight to the cities, to education, thus jobs, thus income, thus asset-building led to the sharp decline in poverty that analysts have noted, a decline in spite of a burgeoning population, a decline that defied Malthus.
B. An apparent assimilation with the urban educated, in India, denoted by shorthand by English-speaking; so those who through their vernacular education transmuting into technical training as engineers and doctors acquired the language skills of the former leaders of society acquired a sense of equality, a sense of enfranchisement.
C. A vacuum in social values and societal norms, an abandonment of the rule of law as a guiding principle, a reversion to the negotiated settlement of their rural origins; also a rejection of the Gandhian guideline of equality among all religions, creeds, races, languages; this was not part of their rural society, why should they accept these bizarre notions coming from those who displayed an irritating sense of superiority from having been earlier to climb the slippery pole?
D. The advent and spread of the Internet, in due course of time, with Internet 2.0, the spread of social media, and the ability to transmute one's innermost thoughts and prejudices to 'fact', or to 'history', meaning thereby a presentation of these pent-up emotions as reality.
E. The consolidation of the rural power structure, with the Brahmin as interpreter of the wishes of the Gods, the Rajputs as muscle, as enforcers, and the Banias as the power of money, economic enforcers.
This, coupled with the disastrous mis-steps made by Mrs. Gandhi after 1971, leading to the regrettable elevation of Rajiv Gandhi, his several acts of criminal conduct against the nation, including the Sikh killings, the clandestine opening of the Babri Masjid for Hindu idols to be smuggled in, the betrayal of the progressive Muslim in the Shah Bano case, the blatant poll-rigging to reinstate Farooq Abdullah as Chief Minister of Kashmir, the cynical intervention in Sri Lanka, the egregious mismanagement of graft and corrupt earnings in the Bofors scandal, all combined to smear the heirs of the victory over the British and the survival of the Muslim League's defection and to make their halo tarnished to the point of repulsion.
It was this that the right wing had been waiting for, and they seized their opportunity with both hands.
[Added]
The Hindutva-abiding right wing had shrunk to four seats in Rajiv Gandhi's first elections, but today, they are at a sobering absolute majority, based on 41% of the popular vote, up from 31% even five years earlier. What is behind their success?
One factor was the deep-rooted hatred of the social domination in village, town and city society, completely unfounded after the direct rule of the British, but endorsed by centuries of habit, and a tendency of the Muslims to assume that things would continue forever. It was only when that community realised with shock that their earlier predominance and privileged position with regard to administrative selection was gone for ever, and that they had made a mistake in staying away from the channels of upliftment in modern Indian society, a British education, that they were galvanised into action. It is worth remembering that the meeting hosted by the Nawab of Dhaka in 1906 was a meeting of worthies and eminences from all over India to discuss Muslim further education and steps to be taken to facilitate those (the All India Muslim Education League); it was in the evenings that the same delegates met to debate the proposal to start an All India Muslim League. So the latent hatred of the Hindu from the cow-belt for his galling Muslim neighbour continued right through the Independence Struggle, and was fanned by the active interest taken by intellectuals of the Feringhi Mahal in the politics of the Muslim League and the efforts of the Muslim League to carve out a separate existence for the Muslim community.
Another factor was the revanchist sentiment directly born from this covert hatred, that was suppressed by strenuous efforts by Gandhi and his successor, Nehru, with the collaboration of the strong man in the Nehru Cabinet, Patel. This was barely contained, but the tarnishing of the image of the Congress, and the increasing dissatisfaction with a corrupt, manipulative government soon found the electorate looking for alternatives.
A third factor was the growing sense of entitlement by the neo-urban, those who had joined the ranks of the prosperous through the sacrifices made by their village and rural town based parents to send their children through capitation fee colleges. Having got there, these new entrants to the middle class now began to demand parity with the older elite, and compared themselves favourably with that elite's obnoxious supercilious attitude, and exclusive social posturing.
The final, deciding factor was the coherent political campaign of the BJP, indeed, of the Sangh Parivar in general, a campaign that integrated their essential published teaching, their contact sessions where they practised armed drill in semi-military, albeit laughable manner, their well-organised social media activity cells, their encouragement of their corporate supporters to corner print and electronic media alike and to take control of these publications and channels, and their concerted attempts at cornering the donations of prudent and interested corporate circles interested in building alternatives to possible power centres in the future.
This got them the results they wanted. From their bridgehead in Gujarat, they expanded to an all-India victory in the general elections; in this, they got 31% of the popular vote. An analyst broke that down into a 13% hard core following, around 15% irritated at the essential failure to deliver economically by the UPA II and 3% opportunists, hoping to catch a favourable wind. During their first tenure, they demonstrated two characteristics:
- The predilection to make dramatic moves that would impress the unwary as demonstrative of decisive management, directly contrary to the reputation of the UPA II as indecisive;
- The constant recourse to creating a crisis on the frontiers with Pakistan whenever there was an election to be won.
This impressed sufficient numbers of those who had not suffered any harm from their bizarre demonetisation experiment, or from the bungled implementation of the GST initiative. As we have seen from the figures, the urban constituencies had gained in importance due to migration into the cities, and the rural constituencies had lost ground. So the poor, who were far more concentrated in the rural areas, hardly had much say in the matter; the urban middle-class, on the other hand, was far more optimistic about its prospects under NDA II, and an additional 10% joined the popular vote, taking it to 41%.
This is where we are. The consequences are all around for us to see. A background of hatred and isolation of Muslims, a selective attitude towards crime and punishment, an encouragement of the basest feelings and bigotry, until the faithful forget themselves and expose themselves even in countries where the Muslim has a right to respond with criminal sanctions, and a loss of control over the population.
What will follow?
Only time will tell.
Great posts
@Joe Shearer - should be compulsory reading for a much broader audience. You should amplify these facts through a much larger platform. Have you ever done so?
I have been trying to understand the rise of the BJP for some time now, through both the electoral shocks, and this has become coherent only through several iterations. Earlier versions were inflicted on various long-suffering friends, but I was not happy with the coherence, and this too is still a work in progress.
A larger platform is still some distance away. It would mean far more citation and reference work, and I have to work on that once and only once the essential logical structure is ready.
Thank you for your support. It means a lot, as does that of
@Nilgiri, opposed as we are on many issues.
